Information is Democracy for Iran Policy or Military Sexual Trama Cases
Gareth Porter, Jordan Flaherty and Taylor Asen, Yale Law Veterans Clinic
TRT:29:19
Download at Pacifica Network here then at archive.org and radio4all.net
Produced by, Dori Smith, Storrs, CT and syndicated nationally with Pacifica Network
First broadcast on WHUS Storrs, FM 91.7, a Pacifica Affiliate Station in Connecticut
Wed. 5 PM EST
We’ll hear the second half of our interview with journalist and historian Gareth Porter. He writes for Inter Press Service News and other media outlets and is author of several books including, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam. Then Taylor Asen, of the Yale Law Veterans Clinic explains why he and other students at Yale Law school filed a FOIA and ultimately a lawsuit to obtain the military records of victims of MST, Military Sexual Trauma. The lawsuit was filed December 15, 2010 with the Connecticut and national ACLU and SWAN, The Service Women’s Action Network. (Case PDF file) And Jordan Flaherty, author of the book, Floodlines, Community and Resistance from Katrina to the Jena Six, explains why one group is being called the Wikileaks of New Orleans.
Last time Gareth Porter explained that New York Times reporters including David Sanger had ignored some key information about Iranian missile capabilities while reporting that Iran had acquired a long-range missile from North Korea that could be used to target Europe. We’ll play Gareth Porter’s detailed explanation of what the Wikileaks documents really said about Iranian missile technologies, showing where the New York Times and also Washington Post cherry picked the data. David Sanger and former CIA Director Admiral James Woolsey were interviewed by NPR about this story, and they were also asked to comment on their interpretation that the Wikileaks cables showed that Gulf Arab states were worried enough about Iranian nuclear and missile technology to want the U.S. to attack Iran. Woolsey has been a frequent guest on American radio and TV stations as a commentator on the Middle East, especially Israel and Iran, and Iraq during the start of the Iraq War. (Note article about the Ames affair, and Woolsey's eventual resignation.)
In Israel, the newspaper Haaretz has revealed that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barack set a kind of deadline for an attack on Iran. Cables released by Wikileaks showed that Barack said he was concerned that unless the attack took place before the end of 2010, collateral damage would be quote unquote, unacceptable. Is war against Iran a possibility for 2010? What might the impact be of letting the hard right wing use cherry picked cables from the Wikileaks documents released recently?
With so much at stake the media has not worked hard enough to get the story straight according to Gareth Porter. He has identified flaws in many reports on Iranian weapons technology, and we’ll hear more about the way the science was dismissed by Russian officials.
