Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 1 August 2003 — Page 7

FRIDAY, AUGUST 1, 2003

THE INDIANAPOLIS RECORDER

PAGE A7

YOUR VOICE

How do you feel about Darnell Williams' 60-day stay of execution to present DNA evidence?

Donnie Young Chris Rhodes Mary Rhodes “I don’t believe in the death “I think that he should have an people had been wrongly conpenalty. And I believe that he opportunity to prove his case.” victed before DNA cleared them, should have a fair trial.” -Chris Rhodes Ifhe is guilty he will still be guilty. - Donnie Young Ifhe’s not the one and DNA proves “ I feel that it is only fair to let it, then that’s good.” them examine the DNA evidence. - Mary Rhodes It is a proven fact that many

Presidenl’ Bush's pattern of decepHon

By WALTER WILLIAMS

Did Presi-

dent Bush lie to the American people in his State of the Union Message when he said: “The British government

has learned that Saddam H ussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa”? Technically, no, because “the statement that he made was indeed accurate,” said National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice on July 13. “The British government did say that.” Rice speaks the literal truth, just as her boss does, to distort what is meaningful. Outright lying is not the administration’s modus operandi; willful decep-

tion is.

Bush’s statement on Iraq shows his telltale MO. Moreover, duping the nation into war is only one case of the pattern of calculated deception that has gone on since the outset of his adminis-

tration.

We need to go back to Feb. 27, 2001, when Bush introduced his first tax cut proposal in a televised speech to Congress and the nation, to see the early duplicity. As New York Times columnist Paul Krugman observed on March 28: “I can’t think of any precedent in the history of American economic policy (when an administration was) quite this shameless about misrepresenting the actual content of its own economic plan.” I noted in a March 16 Seattle Times column that what stands out in the Bush speech is the use of the “Big Lie.” Such a statement is a techn ically accurate clai m that distorts rather than reveals the truth. Looking into Bush’s MO in

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his tax legislation illuminates the pattern of deception that has been used in Iraq. In his February address, Bush said: “People with the smallest incomes will get the highest percentage reductions.” The literally true assertion hid that the tax cut provided little help for most people and that the big winners were the top 1 percent of the taxpayers. Tax-savings calculations under the Bush proposal made at the time indicated that ayoung childless couple earning $20,000 would have its taxes reduced by 41 percent. A middle-aged couple with $1 million in earnings would receive a 15 percent reduction. Just as Bush said, the lower-income couple had its taxes cut by a much larger percentage than the wealthy couple. But Bush’s Big Lie covered up that the young couple would save $410 in taxes, or about $34 a

Condoleezza Rice and President Bush

month; the older couple would benefit by $47,114, or about $3,900 a month. The wealthier couple’s tax savings would amount to over twice as much as the other couple’s total annual income. Suggesting that lower-income families fared better than the wealthiest ones surely qualifies as worldclass deception. The Bush MO used to justify the Iraq invasion finally created a veritable firestorm of criticism

directed at the president. Things became so bad that CIA Director George J. Tenet took full responsibility for not warning Bush about the shakiness of the British assertion: “These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the president.” Tenet’s statement accepting responsibility, however, also noted that in the fall of 2002, months before the president’s 16 words on the British claim, the CIA “expressed reservations” about their validity both to the British and to members of Congress. And the top Bush operatives knew nothing about the uranium story being highly unreliable? There is much controversy over how the alleged uranium purchase surfaced in the Bush speech. But to me, the strongest candidate is that the 16 words were too tempting to pass up. They fit the president’s MO to a T - unwarranted by the evidence and hence deceptive, yet offering the cover of technical correctness. A hard truth appears to have escaped the notice of the public and received scant attention from the media: Bush is the first president in American history to use deceptive propaganda as his main means of communications in selling his policies. His pattern of deception continues unabated and in direct conflict with the notion of the public’s informed consent that is central to American democracy. This commentary was first published in The Baltimore Sun. Walter Williams is professor emeritus at the University of Washington's Evans School of Public Affairs and author of the forthcoming Reaganism and the Death of Representative Democracy (Georgetown University Press).

Jessica Lynch: A weapon of mass distortion

By GEORGE E. CURRY

There is no question that U.S. Army Pvt. Jessica Lynch suffered serious injuries in Iraq. Lt.Col. Greg Argyrous, who supervised her three-month recovery at the Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C., detailed them in a TV appearance on “The Early Show." He said Lynch’s injuries included “a fracture of her right upper arm, a fracture of three bones in her back, fracture of her right shoulder blade, two ribs. She fractured her upper and lower left leg, her lower right leg and in addition to multiple fractures in her right foot. She suffered a large laceration of her scalp that was repaired in the Iraqi hospital.” How Lynch suffered those injuries is a story within itself. “‘She was fighting to the death,’” an April 3 Washington Post story by Susan Schmidt and Vernon Loeb, was headlined. It began, “Pfc. Jessica Lynch, rescued Tuesday from an Iraqi hospital, fought fiercely and shot several enemy soldiers after Iraqi forces ambushed the Army’s 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company, firing her weapon until she ran out of ammunition, U.S. officials said yesterday.” It continued, “Lynch, a 19-year-old supply clerk, continued firing at the Iraqis even after she sustained gunshot wounds and watched other soldiers in her unit die around her in fighting March 23, one official said. The ambush took place after a507th convoy, supporting the advancing 3rd Infantry Division, took a wrong

turn near the southern city of Nasiriyah.” The writers said, “Lynch was also stabbed when Iraqi forces closed in on her position, the official said, noting that initial intelligence reports indicated that she had been stabbed to death.” It’s a great story. Unfortunately. that’s all it is - a story. An Army investigation of the incident, titled “Attack on the 507th Maintenance Company, 23 March 2003, At Nasiriyah, Iraq,” can be found on the Army’s Web site (h 11 p: / / w w w. ar my. m i 1/ features/5 07thMaintCmpy/ AttackOnThe. r >07M;iintCmpy.pdf). 11 provides no evidence that Lvnch had either shot an Iraqi soldier, continued to fire at advancing forces until her weapon ran out of ammunition, or that she was ever stabbed or shot. Rather, her injuries were sustained as a result of her vehicle crashing into another unit vehicle that included Shoshana Johnson, the first Afri-can-American female POW. “At about 0720 hours, the 5ton tractor-trailer, occupied by SPC (Edgar) Hernandez and Spc. S. Johnson, came under heavy fire,” the Army report states. “Spc. Hernandez tried to avoid hitting an Iraqi truck blocking the road in front of him and lost control of the vehicle, veering to the right and off the road. To their rear, 1SG (Robert) Dowdy, in the HMMWV driven by PFC (Lori) Piestewa, reached (PFC Patrick) Miller’s 5-ton wrecker and ordered him to increase speed and keep moving. The ISO’s HMMWV was then hit by direct or indirect fire and crashed at a high rate of speed into the rear of the stopped tractor-trailer, still occupied by Spc. Hernandez and Spc. S. Johnson. “There were five Soldiers in 1SG Dow'dy’s vehicle: 1SG Dowdy, his driver PFC Piestewa, and three Soldiers in the back - PFC (Jessica) Lynch, SGT (George) Buggs

and PFC( Edward) Anguiano. 1SG Dowdy was killed on impact. Piestewa survived the crash, but was seriously injured and died in captivity. Lynch w;is also injured and captured. The circumstances of Buggs’ and Angiano’s deaths remain under investigation.” Before the Army report was issued, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)and, later, the Times of Ixmdon, disclosed that the Washington Post had published a hyped account of Lynch’s capture that was at odds with the facts, something the Post would acknowledge and correct in subsequent stories. The paper’s ombudsman, Michael Getler, told Amy Goodman on her “Democracy Now” radio program that, “... the story should not have been presented in what really did look like a propagandistic-type account.” Speaking with Goodman on that same radio program, Richard Lloyd Perry, a foreign correspondent for the London Times, said, “When I was in Nasiriyah, this was a week or so ago, I stayed in the General Hospital, principally that’s the safest place in town, protected by both Iraqis as well as a small number of American Marines.” Workers interviewed by Perry said, “There was no resistance at the hospital. The Iraqi soldiers and commanders who had been there, had fled several hours before - really the day before, so these special forces didn’t have to fight their way in at all.” None of this hype was Lynch’s fault; she deserves our prayers and concerns. So does Shoshana Johnson. And that also goes for the families of the 11 soldiers killed in combat that night. In war, as we’re seeing again, truth becomes the first casualty. George E. Curry is editor-in-chief of the NNPA News Service and BlackPressUSA.com.

Standing in the Door of No Return

By JAMES CLINGMAN How did you like the photo op of George Bush on Goree Island, walking through the slave dungeons, looking solemn and interested in the plight of our ancestors, and making a speech that strongly suggested he was genuinely concerned about Black people? As he stood in the sacred “Door of No Return,” mugging for the cameras, I have since heard and read the accounts of the brothers and sisters who were there and actually experienced the impact of Bush’s trip to “the bush.” Personal accounts of Goree Islanders being herded into a football field at 6 in the morning abounded after Bush left the bush. People said the town was deserted, except for secret service agents everywhere - even in the ocean. They told how they were mistreated and disrespected by Bush’s protectors, without regard for their rights as citizens of Goree Island, not to mention their relationship to those about whom Bush was speaking. Bush probably didn’t even make the connection. There he was talking about how bad slavery was, all the while the relatives of the slaves to which he was referring were being held captive in a football field, only this time they were waiting not for their departure but for Bush's departure. One sister said, “We never want to see him come here again.” So, what we witnessed on American television was our president standing in the Door of No Return, making a speech to no one but his secret service agents. Of course, Condy and Colin were there. (Too bad the two of them were not at the World Conference on Racism in Durban, South Africa, a couple of years ago. Oh yeah. Bush told them they couldn’t go.) 1 don’t know about you, but I think our president needs a lot more help. The information he gets, and then 1 passes on to us, is wrong; the words he uses are inappropriate; he must have failed world geography with flying colors; and he needs a new walk. (I can’t stand that arrogant cowboy strut of his) To top it all off, he goes to Africa and demonstrates a total lack of decorum and respect for the African people. This is the same man who, according to a recent statement by Strong-arm Williams, the black (small “b”) apologist for Strom Thurmond, who said, “President Bush Inis done more for Black people than any other leader in modern history.” (Did 1 say Strong-arm Williams? I’m sorry, I meant Armstrong Williams.'' I wonder how Williams defines “modern histon.” M ust be two years or less, and if’Gcorgie Box has done more for Black folks than anyone else, in such a short period of time, we should elect this guy to

the lifetime office of “king of the world.” The Door of No Return was obviously the highlight of Bush’s trip. It was the crowning glory of our president’s commitment to and concern for Black people - in Africa. He has yet to show the same thing in this country. However, the trip continued from Senegal to South Africa, where he did not meet with Nelson Mandela or Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, He thought he would let Thabo Mbeki take care of Mugabe, but once again rpade a fool of himself when the cameras and his microphone were turned on. And then, on to Botswana. Botswana? What was that all about? Scouting for a new military base, no doubt. He left there and went to Uganda; I guess they figured with Idi Amin near death it was safe enough to go there. Finally, the coup de grace, Nigeria, the country that has the fifth- or sixth-largest oil reserves in the world, the last stop on the tour. Hmmm. Now we’re getting somewhere, George. We went all over Africa pretending to care about human beings and some how we ended up in Nigeria, one of the most corrupt countries on the continent. N igeria, a place where people are protesting high gas prices, despite having tremendous oil reserves, is a country where the annual per capita income is only $290. Did I say Nigeria has the fifth- or sixthlargest oil reserves in the world? Why would people protest high gas prices with so much oil under their feet? Because they have no control of their own resources. I guess that’s why I get so many e-mails from the relatives of Mr. Sani Abacha, offering me millions of dollars if I would just.... Big oil conglomerates such as Chevron-Texaco and Shell make tremendous profits exporting millions of barrels of oil from Nigeria to other parts of the world, while the Nigerian citizens remain extremely poor. Can you say. Bush, Cheney. Rice? Among those three, there is an oil connection somewhere. I am sure more oil deals were cut during Bush’s visit to Nigeria. After all, why make the trip if there is no money in it for his corporate buddies? Finally, since Bush was so concerned about Africans, 1 wonder why he didn’t visit Kenya to offer his personal condolences to the families of those killed when our embassy was bombed? Then again, what must have I been thinking? There's no oil in Kenya, at least not a lot, right? It was quite significant that Bush began his trip in Senegal, visited Goree Island, and stood in the Door of No Return. 1 can hear the people in that football field saying, “Please make it come true once •again, Mr. President; don’t ever return." James E. Clingman, an adjunct professoral the l ’niversit} of Cincinnati's African-American Studies department, is former editor of the Cincinnati Herald Ncwsixiper and founder of the Greater Cincinnati African American Chamber of Commerce. He can be reached at (513) 48.9-4132, or by e-mail at jelingmanUbhtekonomies.com.