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propaganda, but I think we should pay attention to these passionate and very direct words: "...this is not about Bilal Hussein. He is an innocent victim. It is about the Associated Press. We are the target. Freedom of the press is the target."
Now think about this for a minute. This is an AP chief saying this. Any organization--even a global corporate predator organization--is made up of PEOPLE. Individual people. Some savvier than others. Some braver than others. Some maybe hiding their light. Some in different stages of enlightenment. Some with family responsibilities (can't just throw over their jobs, even if they wanted to). Some merely ambitious. Some with consciences. Some not. People with mixed motives. A number of potential rebels, whistleblowers, fighters for the good.
It's possible that this is grandstanding--an easy topic for an AP chief to get mad about, perhaps in some sort of cynical effort to recover some journalistic cred thereby. AP chiefs and reporters must be aware of the growing contempt for their reporting on the part of the increasingly aware American public, and most certainly have heard criticism from the international press, if not from domestic colleagues. So there may be motive to grandstand--to make a show. One part of the above text says that it is "AP executives" who are "fuming mad." Another part identifies an "AP chief" confronting the Pentagon. I'm not sure what an "AP chief" does, but I don't think of a "chief" as an executive, but rather more as a dispatcher of reporters, a hands-on manager. I would be more suspicious of "AP executives" than of a hands-on manager, who has personal relationships with reporters, and has seen the bloody cost of this war.
And there are other possible scenarios (than grandstanding, putting on a show): For instance, that AP staff are getting fed up with the directives and restrictions on their reporting (or on the rewrites from above), and maybe also with the high-handed Pentagon behavior, and probable fraggings of reporters. Those would be Rumsfeld policy. They may feel that they have a better chance of being heard by Petraeus. The hands-on manager would be the most likely to hear those complaints. This would put him in a mood to be pissed off at the Pentagon, and also the change in leadership would possibly make him feel freer to express himself. (Why didn't he do this shit-fit LAST year, when Bilal Hussein had been six months in prison, with no charges? One big difference--Rumsfeld is gone!). General meaning of this scenario: It is a sign of the decline of the Bush Junta's power. Pent-up frustrations and anger are coming out.
Review his words again: "It is about the Associated Press. We are the target. Freedom of the press is the target."
Those are very direct and meaningful words. "We are the target."
Another scenario: AP has been trying to do a better job--is trying to be less of the Bush asslickers than they have been. This is a perilous time for Bushites. All are criminals. All are impeachable and indictable. Their desperation to keep control of the newsstream may be getting very great. Could be they are keeping this guy in jail for just that reason. Lesson to all AP reporters, chiefs and editors. Any of you can be Bilal Hussein. Watch your step!
This is such an unusual cry from an AP employee--this AP chief--that it has the edge to it of being a reply to a threat. ("We are the target.") You can say all you want about how they should have figured this out a long time ago--but it's hard not to respond with sympathy anyway--and also it's hard not to feel some alarm about it. If the Bush Junta is going after even the FRIENDLY news media, what might they not do? It is both a good sign, and a dangerous one. Good that AP is fighting back about something; good that they feel some opening--some hope--that a reporter's basic rights can be restored; and good in that it shows a crack in the Corporate Ruler edifice. But bad in terms of Bush/Cheney/Rove desperation--since they are capable of anything in order to keep their claws on power.
As with the spats between Bush and Congress (which is all they have been, so far), you get the feeling of a sort of Magna Carta situation: The barons and the dukes and the counts fighting with the king--while the poor peons (the rest of us) don't get much of a say, or no say. One of the barons' retainers (Bilal Hussein) has been seized by the king, and the barons are pissed.
On the other hand, the peons of old didn't have the internet--a plain threat to AP (since its main business is feeding corporate lies to corporate newspapers and TV/radio), and, in that sense, they may feel that they need to become more populist and more honest, which is okay by me--if it's not just grandstanding and/or defense of corporate borders, but a real movement within the corporate press, driven by the more honest and intelligent journalists, as well as by news media bottom lines. Defense of this imprisoned reporter may be a signal of something deeper going on--is all I'm saying. I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand, and just sneer at the irony.
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