Trick Or Treat?
One of the things that rankles some folk about the Reuters news service is how it will occasionally editorialize within a 'news' item. For years organizations had slanted the news by not including items relevant to what's being presented. They by and large got away with this because no one interested had a sufficiently equal soapbox to challenge them.
That Reuters and other news outlets have begun in recent years to add 'editorial' content seems kind of a stupid move, as the advent of the internet has made pointing out this bogus commentary as easy as taking candy from a baby.
But the habit of omitting relevant facts and context continues apace along with the opinion peddling. Today's item is one that would seem to be missing context, if not humor:
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Friday that Cuban leader Fidel Castro was walking about and making nocturnal trips outside Havana, countering rumors the ailing 80-year-old was dead."He is walking about and goes out at night to visit the countryside, villages and towns."
Now, Fidel's shade may be making nocturnal visits to the countryside, perhaps to good naturedly scare the children as Halloween creeps up on us, but that Hugo's words are reported without irony seems to indicate that Reuters has been sniffing the same brand of Voodoo dust as the leading Venezuelan.
What the heck. While we're at it here's another Reuters 'news' story, this one with selected context and editorial.
It's ostensibly about the success of a test of a Military Laser that will be mounted on a 747 and used to shoot down ICBMs like the ones Korea is fixing to aim at us. Swell. Here's the 'context':
But the Pentagon's former top weapons tester cast doubt on project, calling it far from militarily effective and perhaps easily defeated by a simple countermeasure…snip…Philip Coyle, the Pentagon's chief weapons tester under former President Bill Clinton and now at the private Center for Defense Information, said in an e-mail reply to Reuters that its real effectiveness appeared doubtful….snip…..
"If a laser can be developed with enough power to penetrate the atmosphere and still be lethal once it reaches a target, an enemy would only need to put a reflective coating on the outside of its missiles to bounce off the laser beam, making it harmless," he said.
"The Romans could have done the same thing in the myth about Archimedes. Any grade schooler knows that you can set a dry leaf on fire with a magnifying glass. The challenge is to achieve militarily effective damage," he added.
Neither Boeing nor the Missile Defense Agency responded immediately to an offer to rebut Coyle's comments.
Did they really mean immediately? Kind of like a "when did you stop beating your wife?" deal. Hey gee fellas, this guy from the Clinton administration, which by the way pulled the plug on Missile Defense research for eight years, said your big new weapon is a piece of crap, care to respond? Times up! Publish.
Did Coyle really mean to say that the Missile Defense Agency consists of a bunch of "grade schoolers?" Here is the military component of the next Democratic administration. Still want to stay home and not vote?
The Center For Defense Information also includes on its roster former General Anthony C. Zinni, also not a fan of the current administration.
On staff at the CDI at the top of the page is one Bruce G. Blair, who is touted as the President of the World Security Institute. Blair seems to be famous for pushing the idea that the world is living under a "nuclear hair trigger. He's mentioned as a main source in this article from the Manchester Guardian circa June 15, 2002 titled "The Secrets Are Unveiled Of America's Nuclear Madness":
We know this thanks to insiders breaking cover, principally Bruce G Blair, for 25 years a specialist in strategic operations, who was once a missile launch officer in Strategic Air Command. He published classified details from the war plan in the New York Times this week [June 2000], following a Senate speech, drawing on his research, by Senator Robert Kerrey in the week Clinton met Putin: a meeting designed among other things to persuade Putin to modify the 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty and pave the way for the latest American venture into global instability, a national missile defence system.
Hmmm. A guy that's against the Missile Defense System. Coincidence? I wonder.
His famous paper seems to be " Hair-Trigger Missiles Risk Catastrophic Terrorism," which you can find here at counterpunch or here in Word format.
There are more members to investigate here.
So what am I complaining about? A foreign press agency publishes a straight news article about the success of a military laser system, fishes for commentary from a hostile left wing anti-administration source, then immediately publishes said commentary without waiting for a response.
Reuters: About as anti-American as they come.
