When I think of America's failed financial policies, its weak political leadership and its feeble foreign policy I am reminded of an interesting Thai phrase: "Maa du khreuang bin tok." Translated it means “A dog watching an airplane crash.” The phrase describes an event that is totally beyond the spectator's comprehension.
I believe we are witnessing an historic eclipse of American power in the world. It has been ongoing for at least three decades, but it has accelerated dramatically in just the past couple of years. One might argue that the decline of U.S. power began with the nation's ignominious withdrawal from Vietnam back in 1975--an event that I personally witnessed and experienced.
For all of our military might--and it is considerable--America often seems like some helpless leviathan. Now, with the country teetering on the brink of economic collapse, we are at the mercy of those who would love to see the U.S. crash and burn.
Think about it. Do you seriously believe that China cares a whit about the U.S. economy? Or than Muslim nations such as Pakistan feel any allegiance to Washington's political will?
No amount of American pressure or veiled threats could persuade the Chinese government to revalue its currency, nor induce the Pakistani government to cut links between its intelligence services and the Taliban.
The same goes for many other nations--all of which have eagerly accepted billions and billions of dollars in American aid, loans, and other economic entitlements. Do these nations need to be forever grateful for American (read U.S. taxpayer) largess? No, but given the kind of assistance they have received it is less than gracious for them to thumb their noses at Washington.
The sarcastic words of Prince Schwarzenberg of Austria come to mind. After the Russians had helped Austria suppress the Hungarian uprising in 1849 he said: “They will be astonished by our ingratitude.”
But wait. Why not thumb their noses at Washington? After all, what can the mice that are currently in charge of the American machinery of government do?
We are becoming a nation of political wimps who are guided more by political correctness than correct political foreign policy. The idea that we can be everybody's friend is a joke in a world where alliances are only important when they serve a nation's economic and political self-interest. Does anybody really think that the imams and sheiks of the Middle East have any real affection for America? The same goes for nations like China, India and our closest neighbors--Canada and Mexico.
From one side of the world to the other, countries are doing what they think best for themselves, rather than what the White House, the State Department or the Pentagon think they should do.
I have traveled and worked in some 65 countries during my career as a foreign correspondent and I can tell you that many of our so-called "friends" around the world would just as soon see us fail as succeed. Some would like to see the U.S. on its knees--the once all-powerful giant humbled by a world of jealous Davids.
Americans in general and our leaders in Washington in particular are seen as arrogant, uninformed, greedy bullies who deserve a comeuppance. And now we are getting it.
In his book, “The Much Too Promised Land,” Aaron David Mille tells of his years as a State Department official engaged in what is forlornly called the peace process. In his book he writes that in the Middle East today the United States finds itself “trapped in a region which it cannot fix and it cannot abandon,” where America is “not liked, not feared, and not respected.”
Meanwhile, America's largely uninformed populace continues blithely on, concerned more about who becomes the next American Idol or what overpaid egomaniac wins the Oscar, than how their lives are inextricably tied to nations like China that are propping up our ever- deteriorating economy.
These same nations are also witnessing the deterioration of America's once-envied culture and values. Is it any wonder that Muslims the world over despise a nation that has become narcissistic and hedonistic while growing more and more obsessed with sex, fame, wealth what passes these days as music.
Once, while traveling in Pakistan I was asked by a Muslim cleric why America allows women to be degraded, why it no longer esteems marriage and family and why it lavishes praise and wealth on entertainers, athletes and others who contribute little or nothing to society while showing nominal appreciation for teachers who are charged with providing an education for the nation's young.
I replied that I thought that characterization was a bit harsh. But the more I think about it, the more I wonder if the cleric didn't have a point.
We seem to value the wrong things in America. Ask any teenager to identify 10 of the nation's top rap artists or pop singers and they will do it in a flash. Ask them to identify 10 world leaders and they will stop at one or two--if that many. Some don't even know who their vice president is and perhaps 1 in 1000 will know the names of one of the two senators representing their state in Congress.
But it is not just American teenagers who would fail that test. Foreign policy is a non-starter for most Americans, who appear to be more parochial and inward-looking than ever before. This at a time when the global real-politick is as critical to understand as it has ever been.
And who is at fault? The media? Yes, most certainly. But not entirely. True, today's media is more focused on knee-jerk reporting of events such as what just happened in Egypt than being in a position to explain them with depth and intelligence. It is expensive to cover the world and in an era when traditional media are retrenching financially gone are the days when the Chicago Tribune, my old newspaper, will have 15-20 reporters living around the world. Instead, as with many news organizations, they will parachute journalists in for a few hours or days and it's on to the next crisis.
Much of the fault lies in Washington where it behooves the nabobs to keep global politics arcane and nearly incomprehensible to the great unwashed.
At the outset of World War II a senator was asked how the public should be informed of the progress of the war.
"We shouldn't provide any information at all except to say who won when the war is over," he said.
I suspect too many in our State Department and Department of Defense feel the same way, not to mention the White House and Congress.
Strong leadership is needed as the U.S. deals with a strange new world--one where Washington is finding it harder than ever to impose its will on anyone anywhere and where the eclipse of American power is manifest.
Perhaps that is not a bad thing. Heaven knows that when we have tried to impose our will on other nations the results have been mixed.
However, without a strong president in 2012 I fear that all of us will be helplessly and incomprehensively watching the political, economic and moral collapse of a once great country.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Thursday, February 3, 2011
i-Pads, "The Daily" and Journalism
I am no Luddite, so when Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. launched its long-awaited i-Pad-based newspaper, "The Daily" Wednesday I was intrigued.
By the way, a Luddite, according to Wikipedia, comes from a social movement of British textile artisans in the 19th Century who were opposed to and often destroyed mechanized looms. They were led by a man named Ned Ludd. So there you have a little trivia for today.
Far be it for me to oppose mechanized looms or new ways of delivering the news. Any time the public reads--be it a real paper newspaper or an electronic version I am a happy camper. For one thing it has been proven over and over again that when you read something as opposed to viewing it on a TV screen or listening to it on the radio, you retain more of the content correctly and longer.
So as a journalist I am happy to see journalism embrace new technologies for gathering and delivering the news.
My only concern has to do with the quality of that journalism.
Will News Corp., for example, expend the resources necessary to practice superior journalism and thus produce accurate and trustworthy news via The Daily? Or will it simply harvest information from other sources (what we used to call wire service "rip and read" in the days of the telex machine) and pass it along to unsuspecting "news consumers?"
Let's not forget that those who buy news products are consumers, after all. And the Daily will cost subscribers who download it to their i-Pads 99 cents a week or $39.99 a year--which they can charge to the their iTunes accounts. That is actually not a bad deal. Right now I pay $212 a year for my subscription to USA Today--which does include an e-version of the paper that I can read on my computer.
In that respect, I guess I am a bit of a Luddite. I simply hate reading news on a computer screen. I grew up reading a newspaper. My parents took two of them and we used to spread them out all over the living room floor on Sundays. It was the way life was back in the pre-App Stone Age.
The Daily will apparently provide news from bureaus in New York and Los Angeles as well as via a network of freelance stringers (that's journalese for "contributors"). It's that latter part that I worry about.
Freelancers are fine when they supplement a paid staff of professionals. But when they provide 80 or 90 percent of the news along with wire services, etc. then what you essentially have is a neat low-overhead money-making scheme.
As a former foreign correspondent, national correspondent and editor for the Chicago Tribune I can tell you it costs a lot of money to cover a community, a state and the world. We are talking millions of dollars to pay the salaries of skilled and experienced reporters, editors, producers, writers, etc. And the operative words here are "skilled" and "experienced."
There is no substitute for skillful reporting by journalists who have accumulated the kind of professional savvy necessary to produce an accurate and reliable news product day after day. Even then, errors are made--often because the crush of time in a 24-hour news cycle makes in depth investigation difficult if not impossible.
As The Daily was being launched Editor-in-Chief Jesse Angelo declined to say how much of a commitment the publication will make to investigative journalism.
“Read the product every day, and you’ll find out,” he said at a press conference in New York.
That is hardly reassuring.
More revealing is what Rupert Murdoch had to say. Ever the consummate news tycoon, he said that the costs associated with The Daily are "very low," which will allow it to become profitable very quickly.
Somehow those statements don't augur for the kind of in-depth, expensive journalism often provided by traditional news organizations. But then perhaps that is not the kind of journalism the 15 million people who currently tote i-Pads care about.
At Wednesday's launch it was explained that The Daily will publish up to 100 pages of news, gossip, sports, and celebrity opinion (whatever that is). Just what I need: another Hollywood starlet or star spouting off about the conflict in the Middle East or the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
If that is what The Daily considers good journalism, then leave me out. If it plans to produce a portable version of television's "The View" with its insufferable ensemble of ill-informed magpies pontificating about the day's events then I will opt out, thank you.
If, however, The Daily actually decides to produce original content provided by knowledgeable, professional reporters then I will be the first to spring for an i-Pad and a subscription.
"The i-Pad demands that we completely re-imagine our craft," Murdoch said at Wednesday's launch.
Re-imagining is fine--as long as the content is truthful, accurate and reliable and doesn't come from someone's imagination. Frankly, I hope it succeeds. Journalism is changing, adopting and adapting new delivery platforms almost constantly. In that respect, change is good.
What must remain constant and consistent, however, are the classic fundamentals of good journalism. No matter what technology is employed in delivering the news, there is no substitute for responsible, accurate, fair and unbiased information.
So for now, I am in a holding pattern regarding The Daily. And I am not holding my breath.
By the way, a Luddite, according to Wikipedia, comes from a social movement of British textile artisans in the 19th Century who were opposed to and often destroyed mechanized looms. They were led by a man named Ned Ludd. So there you have a little trivia for today.
Far be it for me to oppose mechanized looms or new ways of delivering the news. Any time the public reads--be it a real paper newspaper or an electronic version I am a happy camper. For one thing it has been proven over and over again that when you read something as opposed to viewing it on a TV screen or listening to it on the radio, you retain more of the content correctly and longer.
So as a journalist I am happy to see journalism embrace new technologies for gathering and delivering the news.
My only concern has to do with the quality of that journalism.
Will News Corp., for example, expend the resources necessary to practice superior journalism and thus produce accurate and trustworthy news via The Daily? Or will it simply harvest information from other sources (what we used to call wire service "rip and read" in the days of the telex machine) and pass it along to unsuspecting "news consumers?"
Let's not forget that those who buy news products are consumers, after all. And the Daily will cost subscribers who download it to their i-Pads 99 cents a week or $39.99 a year--which they can charge to the their iTunes accounts. That is actually not a bad deal. Right now I pay $212 a year for my subscription to USA Today--which does include an e-version of the paper that I can read on my computer.
In that respect, I guess I am a bit of a Luddite. I simply hate reading news on a computer screen. I grew up reading a newspaper. My parents took two of them and we used to spread them out all over the living room floor on Sundays. It was the way life was back in the pre-App Stone Age.
The Daily will apparently provide news from bureaus in New York and Los Angeles as well as via a network of freelance stringers (that's journalese for "contributors"). It's that latter part that I worry about.
Freelancers are fine when they supplement a paid staff of professionals. But when they provide 80 or 90 percent of the news along with wire services, etc. then what you essentially have is a neat low-overhead money-making scheme.
As a former foreign correspondent, national correspondent and editor for the Chicago Tribune I can tell you it costs a lot of money to cover a community, a state and the world. We are talking millions of dollars to pay the salaries of skilled and experienced reporters, editors, producers, writers, etc. And the operative words here are "skilled" and "experienced."
There is no substitute for skillful reporting by journalists who have accumulated the kind of professional savvy necessary to produce an accurate and reliable news product day after day. Even then, errors are made--often because the crush of time in a 24-hour news cycle makes in depth investigation difficult if not impossible.
As The Daily was being launched Editor-in-Chief Jesse Angelo declined to say how much of a commitment the publication will make to investigative journalism.
“Read the product every day, and you’ll find out,” he said at a press conference in New York.
That is hardly reassuring.
More revealing is what Rupert Murdoch had to say. Ever the consummate news tycoon, he said that the costs associated with The Daily are "very low," which will allow it to become profitable very quickly.
Somehow those statements don't augur for the kind of in-depth, expensive journalism often provided by traditional news organizations. But then perhaps that is not the kind of journalism the 15 million people who currently tote i-Pads care about.
At Wednesday's launch it was explained that The Daily will publish up to 100 pages of news, gossip, sports, and celebrity opinion (whatever that is). Just what I need: another Hollywood starlet or star spouting off about the conflict in the Middle East or the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
If that is what The Daily considers good journalism, then leave me out. If it plans to produce a portable version of television's "The View" with its insufferable ensemble of ill-informed magpies pontificating about the day's events then I will opt out, thank you.
If, however, The Daily actually decides to produce original content provided by knowledgeable, professional reporters then I will be the first to spring for an i-Pad and a subscription.
"The i-Pad demands that we completely re-imagine our craft," Murdoch said at Wednesday's launch.
Re-imagining is fine--as long as the content is truthful, accurate and reliable and doesn't come from someone's imagination. Frankly, I hope it succeeds. Journalism is changing, adopting and adapting new delivery platforms almost constantly. In that respect, change is good.
What must remain constant and consistent, however, are the classic fundamentals of good journalism. No matter what technology is employed in delivering the news, there is no substitute for responsible, accurate, fair and unbiased information.
So for now, I am in a holding pattern regarding The Daily. And I am not holding my breath.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Curbing Free Speech Not the Answer to Political Violence
The knee-jerk reaction, primarily on the left side of the political spectrum, to the tragic shootings in Arizona over the weekend was predictable. It is also wrong-headed.
Curbing free speech, whether from the left or the right will not stop deranged people such as 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, the man now in police custody for killing six people and wounding Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 14 others in Tucson.
Nevertheless, there are those who are convinced that muzzling talk radio hosts, television commentators and those who write angry letters to the editor, is the answer.
The fact is when you read between the lines of the outrage concerning political discourse what you find is this: as long as the discourse is in agreement with your beliefs, your political agenda and your view of the world, then it is OK.
But if it is in opposition to what you believe, then by all means, it must be curbed.
That is not the way the First Amendment works.
Even the American Civil Liberties Union, which is about as left-wing as you can get in this country, insists there is no such thing as "hate speech." There is, says the ACLU, only "free speech."
Here is what the ACLU says about what it calls "hateful speech:"
"The ACLU has often been at the center of controversy for defending the free speech rights of groups that spew hate, such as the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazis. But if only popular ideas were protected, we wouldn't need a First Amendment. History teaches that the first target of government repression is never the last. If we do not come to the defense of the free speech rights of the most unpopular among us, even if their views are antithetical to the very freedom the First Amendment stands for, then no one's liberty will be secure. In that sense, all First Amendment rights are "indivisible."
"Censoring so-called hate speech also runs counter to the long-term interests of the most frequent victims of hate: racial, ethnic, religious and sexual minorities. We should not give the government the power to decide which opinions are hateful, for history has taught us that government is more apt to use this power to prosecute minorities than to protect them. As one federal judge has put it, tolerating hateful speech is "the best protection we have against any Nazi-type regime in this country."
Yet, in the wake of the Arizona shootings, it is the left that is on the warpath, demanding that something be done to curb the very freedom of expression the ACLU works to protect.
Rep. Robert Brady, (D-Pa.), announced this weekend that he planned to introduce legislation that would make it a federal crime for someone to use language or imagery that might be construed as threatening violence against members of Congress or federal officials.
"The rhetoric is just ramped up so negatively, so high that we have got to shut this down," Brady said in an interview on CNN, adding: "This is not a wake-up call; this is major alarms going off."
Other lawmakers also lashed out at an overheated political climate, arguing, like Brady, that it has helped create an environment ripe for the shooting.
"We're living in a time that all of us should begin to take stock of how our words affect people," Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., said on "Fox News Sunday", "especially those who aren't very stable."
What those two politicians are suggesting is a very slippery slope. Once you give the government the power to police what you can say, where you can say it and how you say it, you have given away your greatest freedom. Think about Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan of the 1930s and 1940s. Both of those nations created agencies that did nothing more than watch and listen to what people said--little more than thought police.
The idea that what Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck or Bill O"Reilly say on their radio and TV shows somehow creates a "climate of hate" in America is ludicrous.
The same goes for those on the other side of the political spectrum such as Moveon.Org, Media Matters, etc. What they say is just as anathema to conservatives as what Beck or Limbaugh say about liberals. Both are part of the political discourse and that is a healthy thing.
To blame former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin or the Tea Party for what happened last weekend because both targeted districts and states where Democrats needed to be defeated by Republicans in the recent election is an absurd leap from the precipice of rational thought.
By the same token to assume that what talk show hosts say or what is on Sarah Palin's website could have been responsible for Loughner's action is to stretch credibility to the breaking point.
Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, also took issue with the notion that Loughner's actions had anything to do with the political climate that has recently been shaped in no small part by vocal members of groups like hers.
"I don't see how expressing your anger and frustration with government in a peaceful manner can be blamed for lone actions of one mentally disturbed person," Martin told ABC News. "Expressing your frustration and asking your elected officials to represent you the way you want to be represented is a far cry from violence."
The best remedy for hate speech is more free speech. By allowing discourse to move ahead it keeps things in the open. To stop talk show hosts from talking or opposing political views from being expressed we are only insuring that the discourse goes underground where, devoid of the light of day, it will grow into a dangerous malignancy.
That is not what the constitutional framers had in mind when they adopted the First Amendment in 1791.
That critical Constitutional amendment is as brilliant in its brevity as it is in its scope:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Congress should heed those words and not attempt to re-construe their meaning.
Curbing free speech, whether from the left or the right will not stop deranged people such as 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, the man now in police custody for killing six people and wounding Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 14 others in Tucson.
Nevertheless, there are those who are convinced that muzzling talk radio hosts, television commentators and those who write angry letters to the editor, is the answer.
The fact is when you read between the lines of the outrage concerning political discourse what you find is this: as long as the discourse is in agreement with your beliefs, your political agenda and your view of the world, then it is OK.
But if it is in opposition to what you believe, then by all means, it must be curbed.
That is not the way the First Amendment works.
Even the American Civil Liberties Union, which is about as left-wing as you can get in this country, insists there is no such thing as "hate speech." There is, says the ACLU, only "free speech."
Here is what the ACLU says about what it calls "hateful speech:"
"The ACLU has often been at the center of controversy for defending the free speech rights of groups that spew hate, such as the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazis. But if only popular ideas were protected, we wouldn't need a First Amendment. History teaches that the first target of government repression is never the last. If we do not come to the defense of the free speech rights of the most unpopular among us, even if their views are antithetical to the very freedom the First Amendment stands for, then no one's liberty will be secure. In that sense, all First Amendment rights are "indivisible."
"Censoring so-called hate speech also runs counter to the long-term interests of the most frequent victims of hate: racial, ethnic, religious and sexual minorities. We should not give the government the power to decide which opinions are hateful, for history has taught us that government is more apt to use this power to prosecute minorities than to protect them. As one federal judge has put it, tolerating hateful speech is "the best protection we have against any Nazi-type regime in this country."
Yet, in the wake of the Arizona shootings, it is the left that is on the warpath, demanding that something be done to curb the very freedom of expression the ACLU works to protect.
Rep. Robert Brady, (D-Pa.), announced this weekend that he planned to introduce legislation that would make it a federal crime for someone to use language or imagery that might be construed as threatening violence against members of Congress or federal officials.
"The rhetoric is just ramped up so negatively, so high that we have got to shut this down," Brady said in an interview on CNN, adding: "This is not a wake-up call; this is major alarms going off."
Other lawmakers also lashed out at an overheated political climate, arguing, like Brady, that it has helped create an environment ripe for the shooting.
"We're living in a time that all of us should begin to take stock of how our words affect people," Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., said on "Fox News Sunday", "especially those who aren't very stable."
What those two politicians are suggesting is a very slippery slope. Once you give the government the power to police what you can say, where you can say it and how you say it, you have given away your greatest freedom. Think about Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan of the 1930s and 1940s. Both of those nations created agencies that did nothing more than watch and listen to what people said--little more than thought police.
The idea that what Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck or Bill O"Reilly say on their radio and TV shows somehow creates a "climate of hate" in America is ludicrous.
The same goes for those on the other side of the political spectrum such as Moveon.Org, Media Matters, etc. What they say is just as anathema to conservatives as what Beck or Limbaugh say about liberals. Both are part of the political discourse and that is a healthy thing.
To blame former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin or the Tea Party for what happened last weekend because both targeted districts and states where Democrats needed to be defeated by Republicans in the recent election is an absurd leap from the precipice of rational thought.
By the same token to assume that what talk show hosts say or what is on Sarah Palin's website could have been responsible for Loughner's action is to stretch credibility to the breaking point.
Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, also took issue with the notion that Loughner's actions had anything to do with the political climate that has recently been shaped in no small part by vocal members of groups like hers.
"I don't see how expressing your anger and frustration with government in a peaceful manner can be blamed for lone actions of one mentally disturbed person," Martin told ABC News. "Expressing your frustration and asking your elected officials to represent you the way you want to be represented is a far cry from violence."
The best remedy for hate speech is more free speech. By allowing discourse to move ahead it keeps things in the open. To stop talk show hosts from talking or opposing political views from being expressed we are only insuring that the discourse goes underground where, devoid of the light of day, it will grow into a dangerous malignancy.
That is not what the constitutional framers had in mind when they adopted the First Amendment in 1791.
That critical Constitutional amendment is as brilliant in its brevity as it is in its scope:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Congress should heed those words and not attempt to re-construe their meaning.
Friday, January 7, 2011
A Forgotten Ally Dies
Few, if any Americans today know who Vang Pao was. That is a shame, because America probably had no greater ally during the Vietnam War than the Napoleon-sized Vang Pao.
Vang Pao, who died in Clovis, California Thursday, was the leader of the CIA's so-called "Secret Army" in Laos--a force of some 100,000 Hmong (pronounced "Mung") guerillas that between 1960 and 1975 kept four crack Vietnamese divisions tied down in the Laotian Highlands north of the Plain of Jars and off the backs of American troops fighting in Vietnam.
The cost of the Hmong's 15-year alliance with America was heavy. More than 30,000 out of a population of 350,000 were killed. An equivalent casualty rate in the United States would be a war in which 20 million Americans died.
Even though the alliance officially ended in 1975 when the last Americans were ignominiously run out of Saigon by advancing North Vietnamese troops, the Hmong continued to die because of their once close association with Washington.
At the time of my visit to the Hmong refugee camps during my tenure as a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune I learned from Hmong survivors that the Laotian hill people were being systematically exterminated by both the North Vietnamese and the Communist Pathet Lao government.
General Vang Pao and a force of 18,000 Hmong fighters were finally forced from Laos in May 1975 by a vastly superior force of North Vietnamese troops fresh from victory in Vietnam. It was a humiliating defeat for the proud Hmong people made even worse by Washington's almost total disregard for their once important allies.
There was little doubt that Vang Pao was still feeling a sense of betrayal when I met and interviewed him, though he never expressed those feelings openly. The Hmong people I met in Northern Thailand did, however. They were angry and frustrated by the cold shoulder they received from Washington after the fall of Saigon.
I first met Vang Pao in 1979 in, of all places, Corvallis, Montana. I had just returned from Northern Thailand and several of the squalid Hmong refugee camps along the Mekong River separating Thailand from Laos.
General V.P., as he was known by his followers, took me on a tour of a 425-acre barley farm he owned some 45 miles south of Missoula. He climbed behind the wheel of a battered olive-green Chevrolet Malibu and the two of us headed off down a dirt road.
At one point he stopped the car and his hard black eyes stared at the pine covered Bitterroot Mountain before us. I had asked him why he decided to settle in Montana with his large family. At the time he had 23 children, ranging in age from 32 to 3, as well as several dozen assorted aunts, uncles and in-laws, cousins and other followers.
"It reminds me of back home," he said.
"Back home" is a place called Long Chieng, a picturesque valley settlement on the Plain of Jars in Laos.
Vang Pao, at the time 49, then maneuvered the Chevy around a curve and through a shallow ford. Along the roads and in the fields men, women and children worked or fished in one of the glassy streams that flowed through the farm.
"My neighbors are very friendly," Vang Pao told me. "But most of them know little about Laos or what went on there during the war."
Nothing has changed. Americans are just as ignorant of our Hmong allies today as they were then.
So here's a little history lesson. In 1961 Vang Pao, who had earned a reputation as a fierce guerilla fighter against the Japanese during WW II, was recruited by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to lead a secret army of Laotian Hill tribesmen against Laotian Communists and their North Vietnamese masters. The North Vietnamese were using routes through Laos to supply Communist troops in South Vietnam.
During a top secret briefing I had in the late 1970s with an American military attaché in Bangkok I was told just how valued Vang Pao and his Hmong fighters were to Washington and the U.S. military during the war.
"Of all the field commanders who fought the North Vietnamese, and that includes Americans, not one can come close to Gen V.P. in victories," the military attaché told me. "And only a handful of Americans even know his name."
In 1975, under CIA orders, Vang Pao and a handful of his military followers, were flown from their military mountaintop headquarters to Thailand. From there Vang Pao was flown to the U.S. And as far as the U.S. government was concerned Vang Pao and the Hmong were now history--and a forgotten history at that.
Later, as we sipped tea in his kitchen, Vang Pao told me: "I would like to return to Laos someday." Then, pounding his fist into his palm he thundered: "I don't give a damn if the government in Laos is left or right--just as long as it is Laotian. But this government in power there now sold the country to the Vietnamese. Laos is no longer Laotian. It is Vietnamese. And that makes me angry."
That anger eventually got him into trouble with the U.S. government in 2007. Federal authorities charged Vang Pao and some of his followers with planning to violently overthrow the communist government of Laos.
That Lao liberation movement, known as Neo Hom, allegedly raised millions of dollars to recruit a mercenary force and buy weapons. He eventually spent six weeks in jail before being released on bail. In 2009 the charges against Gen. V.P. were dropped once it became clear that there had been a "misunderstanding" of the evidence.
In late 2009 Vang Pao said publicly that he wanted to return to Laos. "It is time to seek reconciliation so that the Hmong people still trapped in the jungle and refugee camps can be liberated."
That plan was scrapped after the Communist regime in the Laotian capital of Vientiane said Vang Pao would be executed as a war criminal if he returned to Laos.
Now, after his death, Vang Pao's followers in California's Central San Joaquin Valley are hoping he can be buried in Arlington National Cemetery along with others who fought on behalf of the United States.
Vang Pao moved to California from Montana several years ago to be closer to the largest Hmong community in the United States. His treatment at the hands of the U.S. government and now his death will no doubt galvanize the Hmong-American community into pushing for American recognition of the Hmong role in the war. There is also a desire in the Hmong community for Washington's backing in ensuring the human rights of Hmong still living and suffering under the Communist regime in Laos.
Whether or not anyone will support the Hmong cause in Washington is anyone's guess. However, I can still hear Vang Pao's words that day in the kitchen of his Montana farm. They ring as true today as they did in 1979:
"The United States has forgotten about the Hmong people and what they did. We helped the Americans. We died for the Americans--and we still are, long after the war has ended. And isn't it ironic that most Americans don't even know who we are."
Vang Pao, who died in Clovis, California Thursday, was the leader of the CIA's so-called "Secret Army" in Laos--a force of some 100,000 Hmong (pronounced "Mung") guerillas that between 1960 and 1975 kept four crack Vietnamese divisions tied down in the Laotian Highlands north of the Plain of Jars and off the backs of American troops fighting in Vietnam.
The cost of the Hmong's 15-year alliance with America was heavy. More than 30,000 out of a population of 350,000 were killed. An equivalent casualty rate in the United States would be a war in which 20 million Americans died.
Even though the alliance officially ended in 1975 when the last Americans were ignominiously run out of Saigon by advancing North Vietnamese troops, the Hmong continued to die because of their once close association with Washington.
At the time of my visit to the Hmong refugee camps during my tenure as a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune I learned from Hmong survivors that the Laotian hill people were being systematically exterminated by both the North Vietnamese and the Communist Pathet Lao government.
General Vang Pao and a force of 18,000 Hmong fighters were finally forced from Laos in May 1975 by a vastly superior force of North Vietnamese troops fresh from victory in Vietnam. It was a humiliating defeat for the proud Hmong people made even worse by Washington's almost total disregard for their once important allies.
There was little doubt that Vang Pao was still feeling a sense of betrayal when I met and interviewed him, though he never expressed those feelings openly. The Hmong people I met in Northern Thailand did, however. They were angry and frustrated by the cold shoulder they received from Washington after the fall of Saigon.
I first met Vang Pao in 1979 in, of all places, Corvallis, Montana. I had just returned from Northern Thailand and several of the squalid Hmong refugee camps along the Mekong River separating Thailand from Laos.
General V.P., as he was known by his followers, took me on a tour of a 425-acre barley farm he owned some 45 miles south of Missoula. He climbed behind the wheel of a battered olive-green Chevrolet Malibu and the two of us headed off down a dirt road.
At one point he stopped the car and his hard black eyes stared at the pine covered Bitterroot Mountain before us. I had asked him why he decided to settle in Montana with his large family. At the time he had 23 children, ranging in age from 32 to 3, as well as several dozen assorted aunts, uncles and in-laws, cousins and other followers.
"It reminds me of back home," he said.
"Back home" is a place called Long Chieng, a picturesque valley settlement on the Plain of Jars in Laos.
Vang Pao, at the time 49, then maneuvered the Chevy around a curve and through a shallow ford. Along the roads and in the fields men, women and children worked or fished in one of the glassy streams that flowed through the farm.
"My neighbors are very friendly," Vang Pao told me. "But most of them know little about Laos or what went on there during the war."
Nothing has changed. Americans are just as ignorant of our Hmong allies today as they were then.
So here's a little history lesson. In 1961 Vang Pao, who had earned a reputation as a fierce guerilla fighter against the Japanese during WW II, was recruited by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to lead a secret army of Laotian Hill tribesmen against Laotian Communists and their North Vietnamese masters. The North Vietnamese were using routes through Laos to supply Communist troops in South Vietnam.
During a top secret briefing I had in the late 1970s with an American military attaché in Bangkok I was told just how valued Vang Pao and his Hmong fighters were to Washington and the U.S. military during the war.
"Of all the field commanders who fought the North Vietnamese, and that includes Americans, not one can come close to Gen V.P. in victories," the military attaché told me. "And only a handful of Americans even know his name."
In 1975, under CIA orders, Vang Pao and a handful of his military followers, were flown from their military mountaintop headquarters to Thailand. From there Vang Pao was flown to the U.S. And as far as the U.S. government was concerned Vang Pao and the Hmong were now history--and a forgotten history at that.
Later, as we sipped tea in his kitchen, Vang Pao told me: "I would like to return to Laos someday." Then, pounding his fist into his palm he thundered: "I don't give a damn if the government in Laos is left or right--just as long as it is Laotian. But this government in power there now sold the country to the Vietnamese. Laos is no longer Laotian. It is Vietnamese. And that makes me angry."
That anger eventually got him into trouble with the U.S. government in 2007. Federal authorities charged Vang Pao and some of his followers with planning to violently overthrow the communist government of Laos.
That Lao liberation movement, known as Neo Hom, allegedly raised millions of dollars to recruit a mercenary force and buy weapons. He eventually spent six weeks in jail before being released on bail. In 2009 the charges against Gen. V.P. were dropped once it became clear that there had been a "misunderstanding" of the evidence.
In late 2009 Vang Pao said publicly that he wanted to return to Laos. "It is time to seek reconciliation so that the Hmong people still trapped in the jungle and refugee camps can be liberated."
That plan was scrapped after the Communist regime in the Laotian capital of Vientiane said Vang Pao would be executed as a war criminal if he returned to Laos.
Now, after his death, Vang Pao's followers in California's Central San Joaquin Valley are hoping he can be buried in Arlington National Cemetery along with others who fought on behalf of the United States.
Vang Pao moved to California from Montana several years ago to be closer to the largest Hmong community in the United States. His treatment at the hands of the U.S. government and now his death will no doubt galvanize the Hmong-American community into pushing for American recognition of the Hmong role in the war. There is also a desire in the Hmong community for Washington's backing in ensuring the human rights of Hmong still living and suffering under the Communist regime in Laos.
Whether or not anyone will support the Hmong cause in Washington is anyone's guess. However, I can still hear Vang Pao's words that day in the kitchen of his Montana farm. They ring as true today as they did in 1979:
"The United States has forgotten about the Hmong people and what they did. We helped the Americans. We died for the Americans--and we still are, long after the war has ended. And isn't it ironic that most Americans don't even know who we are."
Saturday, December 11, 2010
U.S. Falling in the Global Index of Economic Freedom
During my 20-year tenure as a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, I spent a lot of my time reporting on the economic conditions of the countries I covered. In the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s many of these were so-called "managed economies," in which strong central governments controlled such things as property rights, labor, investments, monetary policy, trade, etc.
The objective was to manage economic growth, redistribute wealth and generally protect the nation from the pressures of global trade and competitiveness.
Unfortunately, as we have seen, managed economies are doomed to failure. Why? Because for the most part they undermine and often discourage things such as individual incentive, creativity, and entrepreneurship.
About 16 years ago the Washington-based Heritage Foundation began issuing something called the Index of Economic Freedom. Today the index looks at 183 nations and ranks 179 of them with an economic freedom score based on 10 measures of economic openness, regulatory efficiency, the rule of law and competitiveness.
The Heritage Foundation defines economic freedom as the right of every human being to control his or her own labor and property.
Says the Foundation: "In an economically free society, individuals are free to work, produce, consume, and invest in any way they please, with that freedom both protected by the state and unconstrained by the state. In economically free societies, governments allow labor, capital and goods to move freely, and refrain from coercion or constraint of liberty beyond the extent necessary to protect and maintain liberty itself."
Sounds like the U.S. should be at the top of that list doesn't it?
Unfortunately that is not the case. In fact the U.S. ranks 8th in the world among the freest economies. Ahead of the U.S. in first place is Hong Kong, followed by Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Switzerland and Canada. Only those top seven are considered "free" by the Index. The U.S. ranks as "mostly free."
Should we be surprised? No, not when you consider how the Obama administration has behaved in the past two years. It has inserted itself into just about every facet of American economic life in the name of "saving" the economy.
First, there was the huge stimulus spending package, coupled with government bailouts and takeovers of financial firms and auto makers. More recently we have seen the proposed nationalization of health care and an energy cap and trade program that are a distinct departure from the traditional American goals of economic and political freedom.
Interestingly, the rest of the world is not following the U.S. lead in these policies. Indeed, most of the nations have already experimented with managed economies and wealth redistribution and found them wanting not only in terms of cost, but in results.
Yet, here is the U.S. pursuing many of the failed policies other nations have already tried and rejected. As a result, the U.S. has dropped two places in the Index and now trails Canada. What's worse, it has dropped out of the "Free" category and for the first time has entered the "Mostly Free" category.
In pulling together its data, the Foundation found that increased government spending did not improve economic crisis performance. In fact, that policy has made those nations weaker.
The Index is created by examining 10 components of economic freedom. It assigns a grade to each ranging from 0 to 100, where 100 represents the maximum freedom. Hong Kong, which leads the list, has a ranking of 89.7 while the U.S at 8th, has a ranking of 78.0.
At the bottom with a ranking of 1.0 is North Korea. No surprise there. The next five from the bottom are Zimbabwe with a ranking of 21.4; Cuba (26.7); Eritrea (35.3); Burma (36.7); and Venezuela (37.1). Each of these nations is some form of a dictatorship. Once again, no surprise.
In my travels as a correspondent I never found one dictatorship that had formulated a successful economic policy--unless it was to enrich those at the top of the political pyramid.
It is interesting to note that the four freest economies are in Asia. The next two are in Europe and then there is Canada and the U.S. in North America, followed by Denmark and Chile.
Chile is a particularly interesting case. In the late 1970s following the 1973 military coup that deposed Salvador Allende, Chile adopted the economic policies of the so-called "Chicago Boys"--Chilean economists who had studied under the University of Chicago's Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman. Prior to that the Chilean economy was wilting under 140 percent inflation and was not considered part of the global mix.
In 1975 Chile adopted a "free market" economy and while that move created severe hardships for Chilean businesses, manufacturers, workers and financial institutions, it ultimately turned the economy around so that it was finally integrated with the rest of the global economy.
I recall visiting Chile at a time when unemployment was hovering around 20 percent. Not everybody in the country was convinced that a free market economy was the way to go. But by 1990 the country had become a democracy and its GDP growth was the highest in Latin America. Today it is number 10 on the Index of Economic Freedom.
Here is what the Obama administration and those in Congress who still want to keep their hands in our pocketbooks should heed: Gross domestic product per capita is much higher in countries that score well in the Index. And that is true for all levels of economic freedom. The idea that government can spend us to prosperty is absurd. It only enriches those who control the purse strings.
Finally, the report says: "Economic freedom improves the overall quality of life, promotes political and social progress and supports environmental protection. Economic freedom correlates with poverty reduction, a variety of desirable social indicators, democratic governance and environmental sustainability."
We can only hope that the U.S. will not fall further in the Index. I would hate to find myself living in a place that mirrors those failed government managed economies I once covered in the 1970s and 1980s.
When I think of that scenario I have to shudder and then I am reminded of what President Ronald Reagan once said: "The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help."
The objective was to manage economic growth, redistribute wealth and generally protect the nation from the pressures of global trade and competitiveness.
Unfortunately, as we have seen, managed economies are doomed to failure. Why? Because for the most part they undermine and often discourage things such as individual incentive, creativity, and entrepreneurship.
About 16 years ago the Washington-based Heritage Foundation began issuing something called the Index of Economic Freedom. Today the index looks at 183 nations and ranks 179 of them with an economic freedom score based on 10 measures of economic openness, regulatory efficiency, the rule of law and competitiveness.
The Heritage Foundation defines economic freedom as the right of every human being to control his or her own labor and property.
Says the Foundation: "In an economically free society, individuals are free to work, produce, consume, and invest in any way they please, with that freedom both protected by the state and unconstrained by the state. In economically free societies, governments allow labor, capital and goods to move freely, and refrain from coercion or constraint of liberty beyond the extent necessary to protect and maintain liberty itself."
Sounds like the U.S. should be at the top of that list doesn't it?
Unfortunately that is not the case. In fact the U.S. ranks 8th in the world among the freest economies. Ahead of the U.S. in first place is Hong Kong, followed by Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Switzerland and Canada. Only those top seven are considered "free" by the Index. The U.S. ranks as "mostly free."
Should we be surprised? No, not when you consider how the Obama administration has behaved in the past two years. It has inserted itself into just about every facet of American economic life in the name of "saving" the economy.
First, there was the huge stimulus spending package, coupled with government bailouts and takeovers of financial firms and auto makers. More recently we have seen the proposed nationalization of health care and an energy cap and trade program that are a distinct departure from the traditional American goals of economic and political freedom.
Interestingly, the rest of the world is not following the U.S. lead in these policies. Indeed, most of the nations have already experimented with managed economies and wealth redistribution and found them wanting not only in terms of cost, but in results.
Yet, here is the U.S. pursuing many of the failed policies other nations have already tried and rejected. As a result, the U.S. has dropped two places in the Index and now trails Canada. What's worse, it has dropped out of the "Free" category and for the first time has entered the "Mostly Free" category.
In pulling together its data, the Foundation found that increased government spending did not improve economic crisis performance. In fact, that policy has made those nations weaker.
The Index is created by examining 10 components of economic freedom. It assigns a grade to each ranging from 0 to 100, where 100 represents the maximum freedom. Hong Kong, which leads the list, has a ranking of 89.7 while the U.S at 8th, has a ranking of 78.0.
At the bottom with a ranking of 1.0 is North Korea. No surprise there. The next five from the bottom are Zimbabwe with a ranking of 21.4; Cuba (26.7); Eritrea (35.3); Burma (36.7); and Venezuela (37.1). Each of these nations is some form of a dictatorship. Once again, no surprise.
In my travels as a correspondent I never found one dictatorship that had formulated a successful economic policy--unless it was to enrich those at the top of the political pyramid.
It is interesting to note that the four freest economies are in Asia. The next two are in Europe and then there is Canada and the U.S. in North America, followed by Denmark and Chile.
Chile is a particularly interesting case. In the late 1970s following the 1973 military coup that deposed Salvador Allende, Chile adopted the economic policies of the so-called "Chicago Boys"--Chilean economists who had studied under the University of Chicago's Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman. Prior to that the Chilean economy was wilting under 140 percent inflation and was not considered part of the global mix.
In 1975 Chile adopted a "free market" economy and while that move created severe hardships for Chilean businesses, manufacturers, workers and financial institutions, it ultimately turned the economy around so that it was finally integrated with the rest of the global economy.
I recall visiting Chile at a time when unemployment was hovering around 20 percent. Not everybody in the country was convinced that a free market economy was the way to go. But by 1990 the country had become a democracy and its GDP growth was the highest in Latin America. Today it is number 10 on the Index of Economic Freedom.
Here is what the Obama administration and those in Congress who still want to keep their hands in our pocketbooks should heed: Gross domestic product per capita is much higher in countries that score well in the Index. And that is true for all levels of economic freedom. The idea that government can spend us to prosperty is absurd. It only enriches those who control the purse strings.
Finally, the report says: "Economic freedom improves the overall quality of life, promotes political and social progress and supports environmental protection. Economic freedom correlates with poverty reduction, a variety of desirable social indicators, democratic governance and environmental sustainability."
We can only hope that the U.S. will not fall further in the Index. I would hate to find myself living in a place that mirrors those failed government managed economies I once covered in the 1970s and 1980s.
When I think of that scenario I have to shudder and then I am reminded of what President Ronald Reagan once said: "The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help."
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
WikiLeaks and Journalism
At first glance one might think that journalists should be thankful that something like the 4 year-old WikiLeaks media organization exists. After all, WikiLeaks, the international non-profit media organization, publishes otherwise unavailable documents from anonymous sources and leaks.
WikiLeaks, which is lead by Australian Internet activist Julian Assange, has won a number of awards from organizations such as Amnesty International and the U.K.'s Economist Magazine and this year was a finalist for $500K in funding from the prestigious John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
WikiLeaks was back in the news again in a big way this past Sunday when it began publishing 251,287 leaked United States embassy cables, the largest set of confidential documents ever to be released into the public domain. The documents will give people around the world an unprecedented insight into the international activities of the U.S. Government.
Journalists worth their salt have an intuitive understanding of that kind of activity. Many of us, at one time or another have obtained information from confidential government and embassy sources that helped us better understand and report a story. I certainly did during the Vietnam War and in places like El Salvador, Guatemala, Argentina, Chile, China, Mexico, etc.
But there is a fine line between obtaining sensitive information from an anonymous government source and publishing information that could result in the exposure and death of people in places where freedom of the press is viewed as a liability and not a right. In this case, some of the information released by WikiLeaks could do serious damage to U.S. intelligence gathering efforts by putting highly vulnerable foreign sources in danger.
When I talked with secret U.S. and foreign government sources in Asia and Latin America I made sure these people could not be identified in my stories. When I met with them I took byzantine-like precautions in finding a safe meeting place. I knew that to do anything less could result in their arrest, torture or worse, their deaths.
We don't know yet just what impact the cables published by WikiLeaks will have on those who can be identified. The cables date from 1966 through the end of February this year and contain confidential communications between 274 embassies in countries throughout the world and the State Department in Washington DC. A significant number (15,652) of the cables are classified "Secret." Another 101,748 are classified "confidential."
The cables show the extent of US spying on its allies and the UN; turning a blind eye to corruption and human rights abuse in "client states"; backroom deals with supposedly neutral countries; lobbying for US corporations; and the measures US diplomats take to advance those who have access to them.
But most of all the documents reveal the contradictions between the US government's public persona and what it says behind closed doors. There is nothing shocking here. It's called "diplomacy." Every nation in the world practices it and every nation in world spies on its "allies."
I learned these lessons during my days in the U.S. Army intelligence community when I carried a Top Secret and Crypto Security Clearance. Embassies are notorious centers of intelligence gathering. Political and Economic Sections gather and analyze information on their host nations every day.
Of course most of that information is carefully guarded and never undergoes the scrutiny of the press, the public or an outfit like WikiLeaks.
All that changed when Pfc. Bradley Manning, who stands accused of stealing the classified files from Siprnet, handed them over to Julian Assange. The question many might have is how Pfc. Manning obtained access to these files in the first place? How does a young, low-level Army intelligence analyst gain access to a computer with hundreds of thousands of classified documents from all over the world?
The answer, apparently, is that those in the State Department or the U.S. military intelligence community can access these archives if they have: (1) a computer connected to Siprnet, and (2) a “secret” security clearance.
As Manning told a fellow hacker: “I would come in with music on a CD-RW labeled with something like ‘Lady Gaga’ … erase the music … then write a compressed split file. No one suspected a thing… [I] listened and lip-synched to Lady Gaga’s ‘Telephone’ while exfiltrating possibly the largest data spillage in American history.” Manning said he “had unprecedented access to classified networks 14 hours a day 7 days a week for 8+ months.”
So what does that say about the U.S. State Department and its ability to protect sensitive information? To me that is the real story here. As a journalist I would like to know just how the classic "need to know" dictum in the intelligence community was ignored or violated.
One of the first things we were taught in the Army Security Agency, which worked with the National Security Agency, was that information is made available only on a "need to know" basis. If you could not demonstrate a need to know something, you were not going to have access to that information.
Did Manning demonstrate a "need to know?" If not, how did he gain access to the database containing these sensitive cables?
The answer to that question will ultimately be learned during Manning's trial. Nevertheless, the fact that these supposedly “confidential” cables were so effortlessly leaked reveals the inexcusable incompetence of our cumbersome national security establishment.
Indeed, this week's episode involving WikiLeaks says as much about U.S. government ineptitude as it does about U.S. government policy.
WikiLeaks, which is lead by Australian Internet activist Julian Assange, has won a number of awards from organizations such as Amnesty International and the U.K.'s Economist Magazine and this year was a finalist for $500K in funding from the prestigious John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
WikiLeaks was back in the news again in a big way this past Sunday when it began publishing 251,287 leaked United States embassy cables, the largest set of confidential documents ever to be released into the public domain. The documents will give people around the world an unprecedented insight into the international activities of the U.S. Government.
Journalists worth their salt have an intuitive understanding of that kind of activity. Many of us, at one time or another have obtained information from confidential government and embassy sources that helped us better understand and report a story. I certainly did during the Vietnam War and in places like El Salvador, Guatemala, Argentina, Chile, China, Mexico, etc.
But there is a fine line between obtaining sensitive information from an anonymous government source and publishing information that could result in the exposure and death of people in places where freedom of the press is viewed as a liability and not a right. In this case, some of the information released by WikiLeaks could do serious damage to U.S. intelligence gathering efforts by putting highly vulnerable foreign sources in danger.
When I talked with secret U.S. and foreign government sources in Asia and Latin America I made sure these people could not be identified in my stories. When I met with them I took byzantine-like precautions in finding a safe meeting place. I knew that to do anything less could result in their arrest, torture or worse, their deaths.
We don't know yet just what impact the cables published by WikiLeaks will have on those who can be identified. The cables date from 1966 through the end of February this year and contain confidential communications between 274 embassies in countries throughout the world and the State Department in Washington DC. A significant number (15,652) of the cables are classified "Secret." Another 101,748 are classified "confidential."
The cables show the extent of US spying on its allies and the UN; turning a blind eye to corruption and human rights abuse in "client states"; backroom deals with supposedly neutral countries; lobbying for US corporations; and the measures US diplomats take to advance those who have access to them.
But most of all the documents reveal the contradictions between the US government's public persona and what it says behind closed doors. There is nothing shocking here. It's called "diplomacy." Every nation in the world practices it and every nation in world spies on its "allies."
I learned these lessons during my days in the U.S. Army intelligence community when I carried a Top Secret and Crypto Security Clearance. Embassies are notorious centers of intelligence gathering. Political and Economic Sections gather and analyze information on their host nations every day.
Of course most of that information is carefully guarded and never undergoes the scrutiny of the press, the public or an outfit like WikiLeaks.
All that changed when Pfc. Bradley Manning, who stands accused of stealing the classified files from Siprnet, handed them over to Julian Assange. The question many might have is how Pfc. Manning obtained access to these files in the first place? How does a young, low-level Army intelligence analyst gain access to a computer with hundreds of thousands of classified documents from all over the world?
The answer, apparently, is that those in the State Department or the U.S. military intelligence community can access these archives if they have: (1) a computer connected to Siprnet, and (2) a “secret” security clearance.
As Manning told a fellow hacker: “I would come in with music on a CD-RW labeled with something like ‘Lady Gaga’ … erase the music … then write a compressed split file. No one suspected a thing… [I] listened and lip-synched to Lady Gaga’s ‘Telephone’ while exfiltrating possibly the largest data spillage in American history.” Manning said he “had unprecedented access to classified networks 14 hours a day 7 days a week for 8+ months.”
So what does that say about the U.S. State Department and its ability to protect sensitive information? To me that is the real story here. As a journalist I would like to know just how the classic "need to know" dictum in the intelligence community was ignored or violated.
One of the first things we were taught in the Army Security Agency, which worked with the National Security Agency, was that information is made available only on a "need to know" basis. If you could not demonstrate a need to know something, you were not going to have access to that information.
Did Manning demonstrate a "need to know?" If not, how did he gain access to the database containing these sensitive cables?
The answer to that question will ultimately be learned during Manning's trial. Nevertheless, the fact that these supposedly “confidential” cables were so effortlessly leaked reveals the inexcusable incompetence of our cumbersome national security establishment.
Indeed, this week's episode involving WikiLeaks says as much about U.S. government ineptitude as it does about U.S. government policy.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Old Media vs. New Media
The other day I was listening to an NPR show called Talk of the Nation during which several current issues in journalism were broached. Among them were such things as the concept of reportorial objectivity, the dearth of foreign news bureaus staffed by trained professionals and the idea that individuals themselves are better able to gather news they want than allowing editors and producers to select it for them.
These are all critical questions and ones that journalists and journalism educators have been discussing for years.
In this case, former Nightline host Ted Koppel, who was representing what some call "old media", was squaring off against Jeff Jarvis, a media critic and director of the interactive journalism program at the City University of New York.
Koppel was making a point that goes to the heart of all of these issues: objectivity, the decline in sustained international news coverage and the "Internetization" of journalism.
Here is what he said:
"We now live in a cable news universe that celebrates the opinions of Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly, individuals who hold up the twin pillars of political partisanship and were encouraged to do so by their parent organizations because their brand of analysis and commentary is highly profitable. Beginning perhaps from the reasonable perspective that absolute objectivity is unobtainable; Fox News and MSNBC no longer even attempt it.
"It has to do with the corporations that own those two networks and their interest in making money. And operating foreign bureaus, for example - whether they're operated the way they used to be run 20 or 30 years ago or whether there is some new and better way of operating them - is not the issue. They're expensive and, as I said talk is cheap.
"And the fact that you have these many voices on cable television, in effect, debating one another day in and day out, is an inexpensive way of attracting an audience and making money. And that's why they're there - not because of any search for a new, brighter form of journalism."
Amen. These programs have nothing to do with journalism. They are places where people can rant and pontificate ad nauseam. The people who sit behind the desks are journalists in name only. Few have actually spent much time working in a newsroom and if they did, it was likely brief and in the case of TV talent, they were little more than talking heads.
There was another discussion about foreign news and the fact that U.S. networks and newspapers have severely degraded and in most cases, shut down foreign bureaus. Why? Because they are expensive and, according to the green eye shade people who run today's news organizations, they are simply not cost effective as "profit centers."
At the Chicago Tribune (my home for some 27 years) and other places with foreign bureaus, it was common knowledge that the bean counters would divide the cost of operating a foreign bureau by the number of stories produced. That gave the bottom-liners a number they could use to show how much each story from Tokyo or Buenos Aires or Nairobi cost in relation to those produced locally or regionally.
Was there any doubt that the foreign stories cost a lot more? Not at all. But that is not why news organizations had bureaus back in the old media days. There were a couple reasons. First, it was considered prestigious to have one's own correspondent covering events from afar. But second, and most important, the people who ran news organizations back during the "old media" days were journalists--often former foreign correspondents themselves or editors who believed it was the news organization's responsibility to provide international news to their reading or viewing publics.
Today, many news organizations have opted to use "local talent" to cover foreign news. In other words, they hire a Chinese reporter to cover news in China or a Russian to cover news in Russia. This is usually much less expensive and as "New Media" mavens like Jarvis told Koppel on the NPR program: "We have people who actually know the territory and are natives. Do you think we have to have Americans tell Americans the news?"
Here is how the exchange went after that:
KOPPEL: I would like to have American reporters conveying the news to Americans, yes.
JARVIS: Whoa. That seems like a kind of strange bit of xenophobia, journalistic xenophobia. I would love to have people - I love being able to go to blogs and elsewhere and read the people who are in Iraq and in Iran explain it to me far better than someone who just jetted in.
KOPPEL: You're making precisely my point. I don't want someone who just jetted in. I want someone who's lived there for two or three years, speaks the local language, and knows something about it.
JARVIS: How about someone who's lived there for 40 or 50 years and truly understands it and can use these magnificent new tools - which you still haven't answered for me. What do you think of the new tools? Do you see new hope for journalism here?
KOPPEL: I don't see new hope for journalism; I see new hope for the exchange of information. But you haven't responded to my part, which is unless one knows the provenance of the information, unless I know who's putting the information out, I can't judge the validity of that.
And that is why having American correspondents on the ground is so important. When I was covering places like China, S.E. Asia, Latin America, etc. I made sure I knew who was putting out information. I was also not afraid to push officials for it or to demand that they verify some point or another. However, a Chinese reporter working in Beijing is putting his or her life on the line or at least risking prison time doing something like that.
So, if the world of New Media is about "exchanging information," that is fine. However, it is NOT journalism in any sense of the word. People who do journalism are, for the most part, professionals who take their jobs seriously. In fact, as one of my professors once said: "You don't think of journalism as a job. It is a calling. It carries serious responsibility with it. People depend on you for accurate, unbiased information."
There are, of course, those professionals who are less professional than others. It's the same with attorneys, the clergy, teachers and yes, even politicians. There is a reason that journalism is the only business that is protected by a Constitutional Amendment.
Those who founded this nation had no idea that something called The Internet would emerge as a global force for information exchange, but they did understand the value of a free and independent press and its value as a "fourth estate" with the responsibility to be a watchdog of government and to be a open market for the free exchange of ideas.
Bloggers, tweeters, information exchangers and bombastic talking heads on TV are not part of that fourth estate. They are the back benchers of journalism. They can fulminate, blame and pontificate, but they will never break a story that results in a Pulitzer Prize or a Peabody Award. They aren't interested in producing compelling journalism.
That's not their job. Their job is to preach to their choirs--to bring forth opinions and judgments that coincide with the attitudes and values of their slavish audiences--be they liberal or conservative.
And that, my friends, is NOT journalism.
These are all critical questions and ones that journalists and journalism educators have been discussing for years.
In this case, former Nightline host Ted Koppel, who was representing what some call "old media", was squaring off against Jeff Jarvis, a media critic and director of the interactive journalism program at the City University of New York.
Koppel was making a point that goes to the heart of all of these issues: objectivity, the decline in sustained international news coverage and the "Internetization" of journalism.
Here is what he said:
"We now live in a cable news universe that celebrates the opinions of Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly, individuals who hold up the twin pillars of political partisanship and were encouraged to do so by their parent organizations because their brand of analysis and commentary is highly profitable. Beginning perhaps from the reasonable perspective that absolute objectivity is unobtainable; Fox News and MSNBC no longer even attempt it.
"It has to do with the corporations that own those two networks and their interest in making money. And operating foreign bureaus, for example - whether they're operated the way they used to be run 20 or 30 years ago or whether there is some new and better way of operating them - is not the issue. They're expensive and, as I said talk is cheap.
"And the fact that you have these many voices on cable television, in effect, debating one another day in and day out, is an inexpensive way of attracting an audience and making money. And that's why they're there - not because of any search for a new, brighter form of journalism."
Amen. These programs have nothing to do with journalism. They are places where people can rant and pontificate ad nauseam. The people who sit behind the desks are journalists in name only. Few have actually spent much time working in a newsroom and if they did, it was likely brief and in the case of TV talent, they were little more than talking heads.
There was another discussion about foreign news and the fact that U.S. networks and newspapers have severely degraded and in most cases, shut down foreign bureaus. Why? Because they are expensive and, according to the green eye shade people who run today's news organizations, they are simply not cost effective as "profit centers."
At the Chicago Tribune (my home for some 27 years) and other places with foreign bureaus, it was common knowledge that the bean counters would divide the cost of operating a foreign bureau by the number of stories produced. That gave the bottom-liners a number they could use to show how much each story from Tokyo or Buenos Aires or Nairobi cost in relation to those produced locally or regionally.
Was there any doubt that the foreign stories cost a lot more? Not at all. But that is not why news organizations had bureaus back in the old media days. There were a couple reasons. First, it was considered prestigious to have one's own correspondent covering events from afar. But second, and most important, the people who ran news organizations back during the "old media" days were journalists--often former foreign correspondents themselves or editors who believed it was the news organization's responsibility to provide international news to their reading or viewing publics.
Today, many news organizations have opted to use "local talent" to cover foreign news. In other words, they hire a Chinese reporter to cover news in China or a Russian to cover news in Russia. This is usually much less expensive and as "New Media" mavens like Jarvis told Koppel on the NPR program: "We have people who actually know the territory and are natives. Do you think we have to have Americans tell Americans the news?"
Here is how the exchange went after that:
KOPPEL: I would like to have American reporters conveying the news to Americans, yes.
JARVIS: Whoa. That seems like a kind of strange bit of xenophobia, journalistic xenophobia. I would love to have people - I love being able to go to blogs and elsewhere and read the people who are in Iraq and in Iran explain it to me far better than someone who just jetted in.
KOPPEL: You're making precisely my point. I don't want someone who just jetted in. I want someone who's lived there for two or three years, speaks the local language, and knows something about it.
JARVIS: How about someone who's lived there for 40 or 50 years and truly understands it and can use these magnificent new tools - which you still haven't answered for me. What do you think of the new tools? Do you see new hope for journalism here?
KOPPEL: I don't see new hope for journalism; I see new hope for the exchange of information. But you haven't responded to my part, which is unless one knows the provenance of the information, unless I know who's putting the information out, I can't judge the validity of that.
And that is why having American correspondents on the ground is so important. When I was covering places like China, S.E. Asia, Latin America, etc. I made sure I knew who was putting out information. I was also not afraid to push officials for it or to demand that they verify some point or another. However, a Chinese reporter working in Beijing is putting his or her life on the line or at least risking prison time doing something like that.
So, if the world of New Media is about "exchanging information," that is fine. However, it is NOT journalism in any sense of the word. People who do journalism are, for the most part, professionals who take their jobs seriously. In fact, as one of my professors once said: "You don't think of journalism as a job. It is a calling. It carries serious responsibility with it. People depend on you for accurate, unbiased information."
There are, of course, those professionals who are less professional than others. It's the same with attorneys, the clergy, teachers and yes, even politicians. There is a reason that journalism is the only business that is protected by a Constitutional Amendment.
Those who founded this nation had no idea that something called The Internet would emerge as a global force for information exchange, but they did understand the value of a free and independent press and its value as a "fourth estate" with the responsibility to be a watchdog of government and to be a open market for the free exchange of ideas.
Bloggers, tweeters, information exchangers and bombastic talking heads on TV are not part of that fourth estate. They are the back benchers of journalism. They can fulminate, blame and pontificate, but they will never break a story that results in a Pulitzer Prize or a Peabody Award. They aren't interested in producing compelling journalism.
That's not their job. Their job is to preach to their choirs--to bring forth opinions and judgments that coincide with the attitudes and values of their slavish audiences--be they liberal or conservative.
And that, my friends, is NOT journalism.
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