UNITED STATES NEWS DIGEST
Bolton Threatens To Satisfy All the Whores of Havana: LaRouche
The following was released May 13 by LaRouche in 2004, the Presidential campaign committee of 2004 Democratic Party pre-candidate Lyndon LaRouche.
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There has been much ado about the recent statements of Undersecretary of State John Bolton, where he announced that the United States goverment was adding three more countries to President Bush's already unfortunate definition of a purported "Axis of Evil." U.S. Presidential pre-candidate Lyndon LaRouche today offered a typically LaRouche comment, in reaction to hearing news of Cuban President Fidel Castro's response to Bolton's inclusion of Cuba in the newly expanded "Axis."
The background to the story is the following...
On May 6, Bolton had told a Heritage Foundation audience in Washington, D.C. that "for four decades, Cuba has maintained a well-developed and sophisticated biomedical industry, supported until 1990 by the Soviet Union. This industry is one of the most advanced in Latin America and leads in the production of pharmaceuticals and vaccines that are sold worldwide. Analysts and Cuban defectors have long cast suspicion on the activities conducted in these biomedical facilities."
In his public response, Castro called Bolton a liar, reported on the achievements of Cuban medicine, and said the country's laboratories were open to the world.
To all of which LaRouche responded: "Bolton's remarks are foolish at best. Even if there had been merits to aspects of his charges, it is not useful to get the U.S. involved in yet another situation it can't handle. Bolton reminds me of the typical American who would travel to Cuba in the pre-Castro days, proceed to get royally drunk, and then loudly threaten to satisfy all of the whores of Havana. It's this kind of typical 'gringo' attitude that gives a dirty name to being a gringo American, if Bolton didn't have it already."
Carter Bombshell: Administration Told Him No Evidence of Cuban Biowarfare Operations
Former President Jimmy Carter dropped a little bombshell May 13, when he told the press that Administration officials had briefed him that they had no evidence of Cuban involvement in biowarfare operations.Carter revealed this, with Fidel Castro standing at his side, after touring Havana's Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, one of the leading centers in the biotechnology program which Under Secretary of State John Bolton had just charged was involved in biowarfare technology proliferation. Referencing the "intense" briefings he received from State Department, White House and intelligence officials before leaving for his five-day trip to Cuba, Carter said:
"I asked them specifically on more than one occasion: 'Is there any evidence that Cuba has been involved in sharing any information with any other country on Earth that could be used for terrorist purposes?' And the answer from our experts on intelligence was 'no.'"
Carter said he made this public reluctantly, but chose to do so because "these allegations were made, maybe not coincidentally, just before our visit to Cuba."
In response, the State Department issued a statement saying, "Secretary Bolton's remarks reflect the consensus of what the Administration's experts believe about Cuba and its biological weapons capability." Assistant Secretary of State Otto Reichalready under fire for the Venezuela coup fiascotold Associated Press that Carter had not been briefed, because the information was classified until Bolton delivered his speech, and Carter's briefings had been held before this.
Secretary of State Colin Powell shifted Bolton's remarks a bit, when asked about Carter's declaration. "As Undersecretary Bolton said recently, we do believe Cuba has a biological offensive research capability. We didn't say it actually had some weapons, but it has the capacity and capability to conduct such research," he explained.
It would appear The Gang That Can't Shoot Straight has no evidence to back up Bolton's assertion. A Bush Administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, admitted to the Washington Post that Cuba has "a number of projects that are what could be dual-use things, but they're probably not.... It's a question more of them exciting suspicions by not being open. I don't know of any tangible stuff that shows yes, they are making anthrax [or anything else]. There is stuff we don't know about."
The Cuban press is going to town with this one.
Carter Calls for U.S. To End Embargo Against Cuba
Former President Jimmy Carter called for the U.S. to end the embargo against Cuba, and allow unrestricted travel between the two countries, as a first step towards changing the "complicated" relationship between the U.S. and Cuba. Carter spoke in a nationally broadcast address at the University of Havana May 14. He proposed that a blue ribbon commission be created to deal "creatively" with the property disputes from 40 years ago, and that something be done so the Cuban exiles in the U.S. "can serve as a bridge of reconciliation between Cuba and the U.S." He called upon Cuba to permit the International Red Cross and UN Human Rights Commissioner to visit its prisons.
With Fidel Castro listening politely in the first row of the University's auditorium, Carter read his 20-minute speech in Spanish. He came to Havana, he said, in search of an answer to the question, "Will this new century find our neighboring people living in harmony and friendship?" He said he envisions a democratic Cuba participating in the Free Trade Area of the Americas (which Castro calls a project for "annexation"). One of the "hotter" moments in Carter's speech came with his mention of the "Varela Project," a campaign by dissidents which succeeded in gathering more than 10,000 signatures on a petition calling for a referendum on changing Cuba's laws to permit civil liberties. "When Cubans exercise this freedom to change laws peacefully by a direct vote, the world will see that Cubans, and not foreigners, will decide the future of this country," he said.
Until now, the Cuban government has allowed no mention of the Varela Project in the media, nor did Granma's article on Carter's speech mention it. An article on the discussion which followed with University of Havana law students and professors, cited it in passing as "a document drafted by counter-revolutionary elements which was refuted by some students who intervened" with Carter.
Bush Scheduled To Deliver Speech on Cuba Policy
President Bush is scheduled to deliver a speech on Cuba policy on Monday, May 20at a Jeb Bush fundraiser in Miami. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer's protestations today on how the Bush Administration's Cuban policy is made on "merits, not politics," were amusing. The President plans no let-up in the trade embargo against "one of the last great tyrants left on earth," he insisted, under pummeling from reporters over Carter's initiative, and apparent statements from Vice President Dick Cheney on "Meet the Press" to the effect that "sanctions, frankly, haven't worked very well in Cuba."
The public scrabbling over Washington's Cuba policy continues, including over the Bolton flap, which the New York Times asserted flatly was also "dismissed" by Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. Another flurry was provoked today, by a New York Times article which asserted that "an official who follows the policy" said Bush will announce new measures to tighten travel restrictions, promote aid to dissidents, and strengthen U.S. broadcasts into Cuba, when he speaks May 20. By mid-afternoon, wires were carrying a statement from White House spokesman Sean McCormack, denying the Times story. "I know what direction we're headed on policy," he said. "It doesn't include an emphasis on these things."
Netanyahu Stumps in Joe Lieberman's Home State
According to the Jewish Ledger of May 8, former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, fresh from his trip to London, where he claimed that 50,000 rallied for Israel in Trafalgar Square, addressed a crowd at a religious school in the well-to-do town of Greenwich, Conn. on May 7.
As part of the build-up, Rep. Christopher Shays introduced the guest of honor. Through the efforts of Greenwich's first selectman, May 5 was named "Benjamin Netanyahu Day" in Greenwich.
Netanyahu began his speech by recalling a visit to Greenwich in the 1980s, when he met a "ginger-haired" man who was then Attorney General of Connecticut. "Bibi" said that he asked the Attorney General, Joseph Lieberman, "'Why don't you run for Senate?' He said, 'I'll run for Senate if you run for Prime Minister.'" Thus, "Bibi" recollected for his audience his first meeting with Sen. Joe Lieberman.
Bibi gave his standard stump speech, saying that in Immanuel Kant's Perpetual Peace, this philosophical precursor of modern fascism had said that terrorism is the result of a "totalitarian mindset," and that Yasser Arafat represented that tradition, as had Lenin, Stalin, the Ayatollahs, and the Taliban.
Israeli Videogame Billionaire Funds Dem Headquarters
An Israeli videogame billionaire is funding Democratic National Committee headquarters, and has created a Brookings Mideast Center. Egyptian-born Israeli Haim Saban made his fortune selling the Power Rangers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles videogames and related products aiming at melting young minds.
The Washington-based Brookings Institution has now announced that Saban has financed the "Saban Center" at Brookings. The Center will be directed by former U.S. Ambassador to Israeland Israeli spyMartin Indyk, while Saban himself will chair the board of advisers.
The Saban Center was launched May 13 with a speech by Jordan's King Abdullah, who got into a polite but sharp exchange with Indyk (Indyk backed down).
Haim Saban made history earlier this year when he gave the largest single political contribution ever, $7 billion, to the Democratic National Committee for a new Washington headquarters building.
Such a donation is to become illegal when the law against "soft money" goes into effect.
On Feb. 1, California Governor Gray Davis appointed Haim Saban a regent of the University of California for an 11-year term. The father of the Power Rangers and the Ninja Turtles has contributed $124,199 to Davis's election committee since September 2000.
Until recently, Rupert Murdoch's Fox television network has been home to the TV version of the Power Rangers, and Murdoch and Saban were co-owners of what was formerly armageddonist Pat Robertson's "Family Channel."
Ohio Election Shocker: Voters Dump 'New Dem' Rep. Sawyer
In a May 7 primary election, Ohio voters dumped "New Democrat" free-trader Congressman Tom Sawyer, and sent a "blunt signal for Democrats who side with Wall Street." Sawyer was running in a district newly defined after the 2000 census, which kept much of the Akron area, but also added in Youngstown and Mahoning Valley towns represented by Rep. Jim Traficant (he did not run in the primary, following his recent felony convictions).
Sawyer, a New Democratic Coalition insider, voted for NAFTA and other free-trade measures; even so, several national labor unions endorsed him because he was a "winner" against ... Republicans, who also voted for free trade.
As an eight-term Congressman, Sawyer had a huge campaign war chest. In a primary with several candidates, Sawyer had a six-to-one money advantage over his nearest opponent, State Sen. Tim Ryan, a 28-year-old Democrat who once worked for Traficant.
Sawyer ran slick TV ads, while Ryan had no TV and simply went to local people, running a straight anti-free-trade, pro-labor campaign with endorsements by local unions.
In Youngstown and other depression-wracked steel-mill communities in the Mahoning Valley, NAFTA and "fast track" are the only political issues.
Ryan won with 41% to Sawyer's 28%, with another anti-free-trader getting 20%. Sawyer's staff said the outcome was decided on the question of NAFTA and free trade.
The Nation magazine commented, "The message from Ohio was a blunt signal for Democrats who side with Wall Street against Main Street." Congressmen Sawyer is a charter member of the New Democratic Coalition, whose top honcho is now Sen. Joe Lieberman, the 2000 Democratic Vice Presidential candidate and a Presidential hopeful for 2004.
Senate Hands Bush Defeat on 'Fast Track' Trade Authority
The Senate voted 61-38 against killing a trade bill amendment, introduced by Sen. Mark Dayton (D-Minn) and Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho), that would allow Congress to veto specific provisions of trade pacts if they change anti-dumping laws designed to protect U.S. producers. President Bush is seeking "trade promotion authority," the power to negotiate treaties that Congress could then accept or reject, but not amend, to get free-trade agreements.
"While our country's future trade policies are debatable, the right of Congress to participate actively in setting those policies is not," Dayton asserted.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick denounced the proposal as "protectionism under a procedural cover." He, Commerce Secretary Don Evans, and Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, are pushing for Bush to veto the measure when it reaches his desk.
"I don't think he will veto it," Craig said, but will "work hard to get the amendment out of the bill when it goes into conference with the House."
The Dayton-Craig amendment prohibits trade negotiators from putting U.S. trade law on the negotiating table, and it allows the Senate to kill an agreement with 51 votes if that agreement mandates changes in U.S. law.
The overall trade bill includes a part granting trade promotion authority (TPA), which used to be called "fast track," to the President to negotiate trade deals, thus preventing Congress from amending any trade agreement put before it. Another part is a package on trade adjustment assistance, essentially an entitlement program for workers who lose their jobs because of trade (this was tied to the TPA because TPA was never going to pass the Democratically controlled Senate without it.
Senator Dayton highlighted how the U.S. trade deficit has grown substantially in the era of free trade, from $19 billion in 1980, to $81 billion in 1990 to $376 billion in 2000. He blamed NAFTA for most of this: "The larger promise made by the proponents of this unregulated world marketplace, particularly to people living in the United States, was that living standards for the rest of Americans would also rise. That promise has not been realized," he said. "As trade and financial markets have been flung open, incomes have risen, not faster, but more slowly. Income equality among nations has not improved, and within nations, including the United States, income inequality has worsened."
New Police-State Powers for FBI, Intelligence Agencies?
The May 15 Washington Post ran two front-page articles touting big expansion of police-state powers for the FBI on the pretext of the "war on terrorism," as well as a giant boost in the intelligence community budget and some reorganization plans that are on very shaky Constitutional grounds. FBI Director Robert Mueller on May 14 had announced the creation of a special FBI "super-squad," to be based at FBI headquarters, and to take charge of the Bureau's counter-terror efforts. Previously, counter-terrorist cases had been run out of the New York Field Office, which is headed by a Deputy Director, and has been an independent fiefdom.
The new super-squad will add an estimated 1,600 new FBI agents, to work on the counter-terror program over the next 18 months. Part of the rationale for this big boost in FBI personnel and greater centralization is the fact that the FBI failed to collate two reports last summer, that might have suggested a big terror operation was in the works. In July 2001, the Phoenix FBI Field Office sent a report to headquarters, warning that suspicious Arabs were signing up for flying lessons. The report even mooted a plane being crashed into the World Trade Center. A month later, Zacarias Moussaoui was arrested in Minnesota, but the two incidents were never put together, due to the lack of coordination inside the FBI.
In a related article, the Post also reported on a big boost in the overall U.S. intelligence budget for FY 2003, to an estimated $35 billion. In addition to the biggest boost in funding in memory, the funding bill also turns over control of the Foreign Terrorist Asset Tracking System to CIA (previously it was run by the Treasury Department), and creates a Terrorist Identification Classification System, also at the CIA, which will provide information on suspected terrorists to state and local law enforcement authorities.
Proposed New Northern Command Raises Constitutional Issues
The civilian bureaucracy in the office of the Secretary of Defense is racing to establish the new Northern Command, under a four-star Air Force General, by Oct. 1, despite the fact that there is widespread worry that the whole idea of a full-scale military command over the territory of the United States (and Canada and Mexico) is a major violation of the U.S. Constitution, of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, and of a variety of Federal laws that clearly spelled out the parameters for U.S. military activity inside the United States. On March 7, the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued CM-213-02, "Terms of Reference for Establishing a U.S. Northern Command," which provided bare-bone outlines of the major reorganization.
Under Title 10, every two years, the Chairman of the JCS is mandated to review the missions and responsibilities of all of the combat commands. This year, the review included the creation of an entirely new command over North America, which has stirred considerable controversy in the U.S., Mexico, and Canada. Several senior military officers interviewed by EIRNS over the past days expressed grave misgivings about the creation of the NorthComm, particularly on such a rushed basis, with no public deliberation or adequate Congressional review. One retired Naval commander, now at a major U.S. research lab, noted that any U.S. military activation needed to deal with a major act of terrorism, is fully mandated under existing laws, including Title 10, Title 32, Posse Comitatus, and a host of other more recent laws passed by Congress in the aftermath of the recent decade's major terror attacks on U.S. soil.
Neo-Con Newspapers Hype Islamic Terror Threat on July 4
A July 4 terror alert being broadcast by the Washington Times and other major U.S. media, is a continuation of a pattern of warnings that show that official U.S. institutions are mired in the disinformation that terrorism emanates from "radical Islam," and thereby continue to be blindsided to terrorism emanating from inside the United States from domestic networks.
Furthermore, such alerts are also used as an excuse to implement police-state measures such as those embedded in the "Patriot" anti-terrorist legislation, and in the proposals to establish an unconstitutional "Northern Command," to cover the domestic U.S. and North America.
Such has been the case since Sept. 11, with senior U.S. statesman Lyndon LaRouche alone having had the courage to identify the attacks originating from domestic military networks inside the United States. On April 22, in EIW's INDEPTH secton, readers were alerted that Israel's fascist former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had smugly warned in speeches to U.S. officials and television viewers, that Islamic terrorists are going to be bombing U.S. shopping malls and busses. Netanyahu's words were more of a threat than a warning. Now, amidst sensationalist "scandals" about the Bush Administration supposedly having ignored terrorist warnings prior to Sept. 11, the latest in a series of exposés of highly dangerous covert spying and terrorist operations by Israelis inside the U.S.A. is all but ignored by the leading U.S. media.
Details of the latest Israeli threat can be found in this week's INDEPTH. Reports surfaced this week concerning a major "Fourth of July terror alert." On May 13, the New York Post and Washington Times, both leading conduits for Israeli disinformation, warned of "Islamic" terror dangers. The Times reported that "intelligence" from Abu Zubaydah, a captured al-Qaeda member, allegedly includes information about a plan to attack a U.S. nuclear power plant on July 4, using a radiological bomb (a conventional bomb fortified with radioactive material). Zubaydah reportedly also told U.S. officials last month that the al-Qaeda was planning attacks on banks, supermarkets. or shopping malls in the Northeastern United States.
The same day, both newspapers reported that the U.S. Coast Guard issued a warning to law enforcement agencies that it has received "credible evidence" that as many as 25 terrorists allegedly linked to al-Qaeda may have sneaked into the country as stowaways "on prominent cargo vessels." However, the stowaway report appeared in the same time-frame that Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the Office of Homeland Defense, described as "uncorroborated," the Washington Times report of an unnamed Islamic terrorist group plotting to attack Three Mile Island or another Northeastern U.S. nuclear plant.
Johndroe stood by an earlier formulation put forward by President Bushthat "al-Qaeda has been gathering information and looking at nuclear facilities and other critical infrastructure as potential targets." Johndroe said the Bush Administration has no plans to issue an alert or to raise the "national threat level."
Weyrich Rallies Catholics To Join Christian Zionism's Armaggedon Army
Paul Weyrich, a major factor in creating a neo-fascist nest within certain schools, churches, and security agencies within the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Arlington, Va., including Christendom College, has issued a venomous assault on Islam as a "religion of war." Weyrich and William S. Lind, director of the Center for Cultural Conservativism at Weyrich's Free Congress Foundation, have issued a booklet that would make "Clash of Civilizations" gurus Zbignew Brzezinski and Samuel Huntington proud.
Weyrich's and cohorts argue that Islam itself is the enemy, writing, "War against the unbeliever is as central a doctrine and practice of Islam as the Virgin birth, the Trinity, and Christ's resurrection are central to Christianity." They blame Mohammed himself, writing: "Not only did he personally wage war, but he repeatedly called for 'hits' on anyone he did not like, in the manner of a mafia don."
Agreeing completely with the Brzezinski-Huntington Clash of Civilizations war thesis, they write: "As recently as 1683, the armies of Islam were besieging Vienna. After about 300 years on the strategic defensive, Islam has recently resumed the strategic offensive. It is now expanding outward in every direction: down both coasts of Africa, east through the South China Sea toward Australia, north into both eastern and western Europe, and west into the United States, where the fastest-growing religion is Islam. As has been true throughout its history, the expanison of Islam is not peaceful. More Christians are being martyred today than at the height of the Roman persecutions, and most of them are dying at the hands of Islam. Christendom is in peril."
Weyrich is a key operative in the U.S. neo-conservative circles that can be mobilized for fanatical religious wars. In 1979, Weyrich founded the Religious Roundtable along with Southern Baptist Rev. Ed McAteer, who today plays the most prominent role in threatening the Bush White House with political defeat from so-called Christian fundamentalists, if Bush pressures Israel and its fascist Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, to accept a Palestinian state, or pressures Israel to withdraw from the Occupied Territories of Palestine.
The Religious Roundtable works closely with the fanatically anti-Arab organization Zionists of America, headed by Morton Klein, a certifiable rightwing war hawk. EIR first reported on Aug. 24, 2001 ("Temple Mount Fanatics Seek To Blackmail Bush," by Anton Chaitkin), that on July 30the day after Bush Administration and other international pressure forced the cancellation of Sharon's planned Temple Mount provocation in JerusalemKlein, Americans for a Safe Israel founder Herb Zweibon, evangelical Religious Roundtable founder Ed McAteer, Christian Friends of Israel leader Elwood McQuaide, and representatives of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, held a meeting at the White House with President Bush's religious community liaison Tim Goeglein. The delegation bluntly threatened President Bush, that if he did not give Sharon an unequivocal "green light" to deal with the "Palestinian terrorist threat," the combined wrath of the Zionist Lobby and the 70 million-strong evangelical Christian voting bloc would destroy the Bush Presidency-just as they destroyed President Bush's father's 1992 re-election efforts.
EIR confirmed from several participants in the White House session that the entire group had been hosted by the Israeli Ambassador to the United States, David Ivry, at a private embassy luncheon, just before they held their "tough love" session with Goeglein. Continuing this campaign, on April 11, 2002the day Colin Powell arrived in Jerusalem as Bush's envoyGary Bauer, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, the Rev. John Hagee, Marlin Maddoux, Ed McAteer, and the Rev. Tim Timmons, all leading Darbyite Zionistsissued a letter to President Bush, assailing him for sending Powell on a peace mission, and demanding that Sharon be allowed to complete his genocide against Palestinians.
The letter said: "We believe the Bush Doctrine is in great jeopardy and the war on terrorism with it. We believe it is imperative for the United States to stand with our friend and ally Israel as they attempt to defeat the same forces of terrorism that we have been battling since September 11, 2001. We would ask you to end pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon so that he has the time necessary to complete the mission he has undertakenthe elimination of terrorist cells and infrastructure from the West Bank territories.... Secretary Powell's current peace-making trip is sending a dangerous message." The Bauer-organized fundie letter appears to have been part of a campaign, first launched in February of this year, to marshall the combined resources of the Christian Zionists and the American Friends of Likud against any Bush support for Mideast peace.
The Jerusalem Post online reported on Feb. 1 that a $200,000 war chest had been put together for a series of ads, attacking Arafat and demanding that Bush put Arafat and the PA/PLO on the foreign terrorist organizations list. ZOA and the Religious Roundtable co-sponsored the initiative.
Say Pentagon Earns Millions from GI Gambling
The May 20 issue of U.S. News and World Report reports that the the U.S. Department of Defense raised $125 million from the more than 7,000 slot and video poker machines on 94 U.S. military installations overseas. The Pentagon estimates that U.S. military personnel, their dependents, and civilian employees spend more than $1 billion per annum gambling on base. The Pentagon says that "all" of the money goes to pay for "morale boosters," such as family picnics and construction of recreational facilities on the bases.
But there is a growing problem of compulsive gambling, especially in a career in which a high degree of isolation and stress is common. Two Pentagon studies found that 2%, or roughly 30,000, of all service men and women "possessed the indicators of probable pathological gambling." There is only one gambling treatment center for such "pathological gamblers" in the U.S. armed forces, located at Camp Pendleton, Calif.
In 2001, Congress ordered the Pentagon to investigate the impact of on-base gambling. Initially, the Pentagon hired an outside consultant, but broke the contract in mid-investigation, and turned it over to the Pentagon's Morale, Welfare, and Recreation Department, which is the same department that collects the revenues from the on-base betting to keep operations going.
Dan Rather Warns of Censorship in U.S. War Coverage
In an interview with BBC's "Newsnight" May 17, CBS-TV news anchor Dan Rather warned of censorship, since the "War on Terror" was declared following Sept. 11. Rather said: "It is an obscene comparision ... but you know there was a time in South Africa that people would put flaming tires around people's necks if they dissented.... And in some ways the fear is that you will be necklaced here; you will have a flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around your neck.... Now it is that fear that keeps journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions, and to continue to bore in on tough questions so often. And again, I am humbled to say, I do not except myself from this criticism....
"What we are talking about herewhether one wants to recognize it or not, or call it by its proper name or notis a form of self-censorship. I worry that patriotism run amok will trample the very values that the country seeks to defend itself."
"It's unpatriotic not to stand up, look them in the eye, and ask the questions that they don't want to hear'they' being those who have the responsibility, the ultimate responsibility in a society such as ours, of sending our sons and daughters, our husbands, wives, our blood, to face death, to take death....
"There has never been an American war, small or large, in which access has been so limited as this one," Rather charged, presumably including the heavy, Office of War Information-run censorship of World War II in his claim. Rather blasted "the growing Hollywood-ization of life, Hollywood-ization of the media, which is leading to the Hollywood-ization of war. I am appalled by all this." Rather said that this "Hollywood-ization" is epitomized by what he called "Militainment"entertainment programs about the military, which are produced in conjunction with the Department of Defense.
Crucially, Rather said that "Militainment" produced with cooperation of the Department of Defense has been offering "documentary makers" unprecedented access. A spokesman for the Pentagon said that now they give more "combat footage" and general access to producers of "Militainment" than they do to "reality TV" newscasters.
After Rather spoke, the London Bureau Chief for Time magazine said that, "If you read American newspapers, you would think that the jackboots are marching again through the streets of Paris, and that there is a wave of anti-Semitism all over Europe. It is simply not true." He said he agreed with Rather on the "Hollywood-ization" matter, and said he found this entire trend in the U.S. to be "very dangerous."
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