A couple of weeks ago the New York Times published an Op-Ed byMichael O’Hanlon and Ken Pollack that claimed the Iraq “surge” was working. Glenn Greenwald interviewed Michael O’Hanlon and uses his responses to demolish the credibility of the Op-Ed, and of its authors.
Add comment August 13th, 2007
Micheal Moore replies to the CNN/Sanjay Gupta attack on his movie Sicko. Make sure to read the detailed line-by-line rebuttals cited in the letter:
An Open Letter to CNN from Michael Moore
7/14/07
Dear CNN,
Well, the week is over — and still no apology, no retraction, no correction of your glaring mistakes.
I bet you thought my dust-up with Wolf Blitzer was just a cool ratings coup, that you really wouldn’t have to correct the false statements you made about “Sicko.” I bet you thought I was just going to go quietly away.
Think again. I’m about to become your worst nightmare. ‘Cause I ain’t ever going away. Not until you set the record straight, and apologize to your viewers. “The Most Trusted Name in News?” I think it’s safe to say you can retire that slogan.
You have an occasional segment called “Keeping Them Honest.” But who keeps you honest? After what the public saw with your report on “Sicko,” and how many inaccuracies that report contained, how can anyone believe anything you say on your network? In the old days, before the Internet, you could get away with it. Your victims had no way to set the record straight, to show the viewers how you had misrepresented the truth. But now, we can post the truth — and back it up with evidence and facts — on the web, for all to see. And boy, judging from the mail both you and I have been receiving, the evidence I have posted on my site about your “Sicko” piece has led millions now to question your honesty.
I won’t waste your time rehashing your errors. You know what they are. What I want to do is help you come clean. Admit you were wrong. What is the shame in that? We all make mistakes. I know it’s hard to admit it when you’ve screwed up, but it’s also liberating and cathartic. It not only makes you a better person, it helps prevent you from screwing up again. Imagine how many people will be drawn to a network that says, “We made a mistake. We’re human. We’re sorry. We will make mistakes in the future — but we will always correct them so that you know you can trust us.” Now, how hard would that really be?
As you know, I hold no personal animosity against you or any of your staff. You and your parent company have been very good to me over the years. You distributed my first film, “Roger & Me” and you published “Dude, Where’s My Country?” Larry King has had me on twice in the last two weeks. I couldn’t ask for better treatment.
That’s why I was so stunned when you let a doctor who knows a lot about brain surgery — but apparently very little about public policy — do a “fact check” story, not on the medical issues in “Sicko,” but rather on the economic and political information in the film. Is this why there has been a delay in your apology, because you are trying to get a DOCTOR to say he was wrong? Please tell him not to worry, no one is filing a malpractice claim against him. Dr. Gupta does excellent and compassionate stories on CNN about people’s health and how we can take better care of ourselves. But when it came time to discuss universal health care, he rushed together a bunch of sloppy — and old — research. When his producer called us about his report the day before it aired, we sent to her, in an email, all the evidence so that he wouldn’t make any mistakes on air. He chose to ignore ALL the evidence, and ran with all his falsehoods — even though he had been given the facts a full day before! How could that happen? And now, for 5 days, I have posted on my website, for all to see, every mistake and error he made.
You, on the other hand, in the face of this overwhelming evidence and a huge public backlash, have chosen to remain silent, probably praying and hoping this will all go away.
Well it isn’t. We are now going to start looking into the veracity of other reports you have aired on other topics. Nothing you say now can be believed. In 2002, the New York Times busted you for bringing celebrities on your shows and not telling your viewers they were paid spokespeople for the pharmaceutical companies. You promised never to do it again. But there you were, in 2005, talking to Joe Theismann, on air, as he pushed some drug company-sponsored website on prostate health. You said nothing about about his affiliation with GlaxoSmithKline.
Clearly, no one is keeping you honest, so I guess I’m going to have to do that job, too. $1.5 billion is spent each year by the drug companies on ads on CNN and the other four networks. I’m sure that has nothing to do with any of this. After all, if someone gave me $1.5 billion, I have to admit, I might say a kind word or two about them. Who wouldn’t?!
I expect CNN to put this matter to rest. Say you’re sorry and correct your story — like any good journalist would.
Then we can get back to more important things. Like a REAL discussion about our broken health care system. Everything else is a distraction from what really matters.
Yours,
Michael Moore
mmflint@aol.com
www.michaelmoore.comP.S. If you also want to apologize for not doing your job at the start of the Iraq War, I’m sure most Americans would be very happy to accept your apology. You and the other networks were willing partners with Bush, flying flags all over the TV screens and never asking the hard questions that you should have asked. You might have prevented a war. You might have saved the lives of those 3,610 soldiers who are no longer with us. Instead, you blew air kisses at a commander in chief who clearly was making it all up. Millions of us knew that — why didn’t you? I think you did. And, in my opinion, that makes you responsible for this war. Instead of doing the job the founding fathers wanted you to do — keeping those in power honest (that’s why they made it the FIRST amendment) — you and much of the media went on the attack against the few public figures like myself who dared to question the nightmare we were about to enter. You’ve never thanked me or the Dixie Chicks or Al Gore for doing your job for you. That’s OK. Just tell the truth from this point on.
2 comments July 14th, 2007
Add comment July 10th, 2007
The story of the role of psychologists and the American Psychological Association in the development and maintenance of the US torture regime is beginning to break through to the mainstream. Yesterday the Charleston [WV] Gazette editorialized on the issue:
The Charleston Gazette: Torture.
Psychologists involvedShamefully, some American psychologists participated in interrogating and abusing Muslim prisoners at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and at Abu Ghraib and other prisons in Iraq.This disturbing news is contained in a newly declassified report by the Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General. Titled “Review of DOD-Directed Investigations of Detainee Abuse,” the report — requested by 110 members of Congress — documents the central role U.S. psychologists played in developing “the abusive interrogation paradigm” at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and other prisons.
Many current interrogation techniques were developed through the military’s “Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape” program, or SERE, which was created to help U.S. soldiers resist interrogation if they are captured in combat situations. Then SERE techniques were also used to break down Muslim detainees, after former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved the plan in late 2002.
During certain types of SERE questioning — such as “waterboarding,” in which water is continuously poured over the face of a detainee strapped to a board — a psychologist must be present, military rules say. SERE interrogation techniques also include extreme isolation, prolonged sleep deprivation, “noise stress,” abuse by dogs, as well as sexual and cultural humiliation.
Washington-based Physicians for Human Rights wants Congress to investigate prisoner abuse and the roles played by psychologists and other health professionals.
Leonard S. Rubenstein, executive director of the physicians’ group, asked the American Psychological Association in June to condemn SERE interrogations and the “collaboration” and “complicity” of psychologists in those practices.
Two years ago, then-APA President Gerald Koocher created a nine-member Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security. That group defended SERE and found that psychologists are in “unique position to assist in ensuring that such processes are safe and ethical for all participants.” But when names of task force members became public, six turned out to have direct ties to military or intelligence agencies.
Last month, after the OIG report was released, two of the three civilian members said the former APA report “should be annulled” because its investigative process was flawed.
Dr. Jean Maria Arrigo, one of those members, called for a moratorium in the involvement of psychologists in any military interrogations. Dr. Koocher himself condemned SERE practices as “torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.”
APA’s current leaders, however, have taken no public position about collaboration by some psychologists with inhumane questioning of prisoners.
Many political leaders and newspapers are calling for the closure of Guantanamo and for humane treatment of prisoners.
The American Psychological Association should condemn torture and censure any of its members who participate in it.
Now that the mainstream media is starting to understand the psychology-SERE-torture-APA connections, how many days, weeks, months, or years will it be until the leadership of the APA begins to get it? If the Charleston Gazette understands the meaning of the Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General’s report, maybe, just, maybe, our distinguished President and Ethics Director might take a read. They might even try paying attention to what it says and not just to the latest spin needed to distract the their fellow leadership and some of the membership from the horrors that were perpetrated by their psychologist colleagues. Perhaps the Charleston Gazette editorial board could provide reading lessons to the APA leadership. My colleagues and I have attempted to provide such lessons, but it appears that APA’s leaders are even less able to read and understand anything we say than they are the mainstream media.
Of course, the APA membership might decide, rather, to replace a leadership that is completely deaf to the numerous reports that psychology and psychologists are central players in America’s torture regime. Perhaps the membership could choose a leadership that has a sense of right and wrong rather than one steeped in arcane “ethics” rules cleverly designed to let the abusive status quo continue indefinitely.
2 comments July 8th, 2007
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