Spitfire List Web site and blog of anti-fascist researcher and radio personality Dave Emory.

For The Record  

FTR #308 Miscellaneous Articles and Updates

Lis­ten:
MP3 One Seg­ment
RealAu­dio
NB: This RealAu­dio stream con­tains FTRs 307 and 308 in sequence. Each is a 30-minute seg­ment.

1. The pro­gram begins with dis­cus­sion of Vice-Pres­i­dent Dick Cheney’s stew­ard­ship of a pro­gram to coun­ter­act ter­ror­ism and pre­pare for dis­as­ter reac­tion. (“Bush Taps Cheney to Study Antiter­ror­ism Steps” By Frank Bruni; New York Times; 5/9/2001; p. A21.)

2. The pro­gram Cheney heads could be seen as anal­o­gous to the mar­tial law con­tin­gency plan­ning that went on under the elder George Bush, when he was Vice Pres­i­dent.

3. It is also inter­est­ing to note that, just like the Rea­gan and George H.W. Bush admin­is­tra­tions, this admin­is­tra­tion main­tains sur­pris­ing­ly cozy rela­tions with the very ter­ror­ist ele­ments we are told we must wor­ry about. The U.S. recent­ly donat­ed $43 mil­lion to the Tal­iban, who are shel­ter­ing Osama Bin Laden, want­ed by the Unit­ed States for, among oth­er things, bomb­ing the destroy­er U.S.S. Cole dur­ing the height of the 2000 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign. (“Bush’s Faus­t­ian deal with the Tal­iban” by Robert Scheer; Los Ange­les Times; 5/22/2001; p. A15.)

4. Inter­est­ing­ly, con­ser­v­a­tive jour­nal­ist Arnaud de Borch­grave was jet­ting off for a report­ed inter­view with Bin Laden at that time. (“Sup­port­ive Spouse” by Ann O’Neill; Los Ange­les Times; 5/22/2001; p. D2.)

5. The pro­gram then updates the career of Milan Pan­ic, the Yugosla­vian-born phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals mag­net who briefly became Prime Min­is­ter of Yugoslavia dur­ing the recent Balkan cri­sis.

6. Pan­ic is under fire by direc­tors of the firm he heads. (“3 Dis­si­dents win Seats on ICN Board” by Marc Bal­lon; Los Ange­les Times; 5/22/2001;pp. C1-C6.)

7. Pan­ic’s tenure as the leader of Yugoslavia is reviewed. (“Ger­man and U.S. Involve­ment in the Balka­ns: A Care­ful Coin­ci­dence of Nation­al Poli­cies?” by T.W. (“Bill”) Carr; paper pre­sent­ed at the sym­po­sium on the Balkan War, Yugoslavia: Past and Present.)

8. The pro­gram con­cludes with an exam­i­na­tion of the SV40 can­cer-caus­ing mon­key virus that con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed the polio vac­cine. Sci­en­tists at the Nation­al Insti­tute of Health are begin­ning to acknowl­edge the onco­genic prop­er­ties of SV40 and, from their state­ments, appear to fear legal lia­bil­i­ty stem­ming from their obfus­ca­tion on the sub­ject of the viral con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of the polio vac­cine. (“Can­cer War­rior” by Deb­bie Bookchin and Jim Schu­mach­er; Pent­house; July/2001; pp. 24–162.)

Discussion

2 comments for “FTR #308 Miscellaneous Articles and Updates”

  1. Read­ing an L.A. Times obit­u­ary 18 Feb 2015 on death of “Fabled for­eign cor­re­spon­dent” Arnaud de Borch­grave, I was struck by the insou­ciant prose describ­ing de Borch­grave’s stint at the Wash­ing­ton Times. A ques­tion aris­es: “What does the word ‘fabled’ mean in “Fabled for­eign cor­re­spon­dent”? How did Borch­grave come to all those “con­nec­tions” in his “fabled” career? Response: de Borch­grave appears to have act­ed in some large capac­i­ty as a “jour­nal­ist,” as a fifth col­umn man, one with unsa­vory con­nec­tions to elite inter­ests with very lit­tle col­or of demo­c­ra­t­ic ideals.

    Spit­fire item #4, above, seems to have some bear­ing: “Inter­est­ingly, con­ser­v­a­tive jour­nal­ist Arnaud de Borch­grave was jet­ting off for a report­ed inter­view with Bin Laden at that time. (“Sup­port­ive Spouse” by Ann O’Neill; Los Ange­les Times; 5/22/2001; p. D2.)”

    Posted by J Edward Tipre | February 19, 2015, 1:14 pm
  2. @J. Edward Tipre–

    I would describe de Borch­grave as a pro­pa­gan­dist, rather than a jour­nal­ist.

    Best,

    Dave

    Posted by Dave Emory | February 19, 2015, 1:59 pm

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