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We find ourselves immersed in useless stories about Michael Jackson, Paula Abdul and Georgia's ''runaway bride,'' yet we get little or no information about war and peace. Three stories in particular raise questions about how much we know about compelling national security issues.

In a story broken by the Washington Post, former NFL player Pat Tillman's family has spoken out harshly against the Army, alleging that its investigation into Tillman's friendly-fire death in Afghanistan last year was a sham and that the subsequent effort to maintain a cover up has made it difficult for the family to cope with their loss.

According to the Post: ''Soldiers in Afghanistan knew almost immediately that they had killed Tillman by mistake in what they believed was a firefight with enemies on a tight canyon road. The investigation also revealed that soldiers later burned Tillman's uniform and body armor.'' A nationally televised memorial service honored Tillman on May 3, 2004. By then, the theater commander, Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, knew Tillman had been shot by his fellow Rangers. Nonetheless, that information was withheld from the Tillman family for a few more weeks.

The soldier's mother, Mary Tillman, now says the government used her son for weeks after his death, spinning a useful fable to capitalize on Tillman's valor. This was taking place just as the Abu Ghraib prison scandal was beginning to come into public focus. Mary Tillman said she was particularly offended when President Bush offered a taped memorial message to Tillman at an Arizona Cardinals football game shortly before the 2004 presidential election. She viewed this as part of a campaign to usurp her son's name to aggrandize the Bush agenda. Every American with a yellow ribbon car emblem should be horrified by the way the truth about Tillman's death has been misrepresented over the last year.

Official reports bragged about Cpl. Tillman's bravery, just as a year prior they disingenuously advised us about Pvt. Jessica Lynch firing her weapon at the enemy until she ran out of ammunition. Unfortunately, these stories were grossly embellished.

Underreported story two: A Senate committee led by Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., accused George Galloway, a member of the British Parliament, of improprieties regarding the U.N. Oil-for-Food program in Iraq. Sen. Coleman subpoenaed Mr. Galloway, apparently assuming Galloway would roll over for his committee the way Democrats in this country usually roll over for Republicans these days.

To everyone's surprise, Galloway roared into Washington and proceeded to make a fool out of the unctuous Sen. Coleman. When Coleman questioned Galloway about allegations that he had been advancing the interests of Saddam Hussein, Galloway responded: ''Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1,600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.'' Galloway's Senate testimony was simply bombastic, but if you want to read it in its entirety, you'll have to look it up on the internet. It received scant coverage in the press.

Underreported story three: We also have ''The Downing Street memo,'' which nearly caused Tony Blair to lose his government. In this memorandum, British foreign-policy aide Matthew Rycroft summarized a July 23, 2002, meeting between Blair and his top security advisers. Rycroft also analyzed a U.S. visit by Richard Dearlove, who then led Britain's intelligence service. The Dearlove visit occurred while President Bush was still promising Americans that no decision had been made to launch a war against Iraq. The memo said that ''the intelligence and facts were being fixed'' by the Bush administration to support its previous determination to invade Iraq. According to the memo, the British attorney general also seriously questioned the legality of the war. U.S. media have given short-shrift to the Downing Street memo, which essentially affirms that Americans were lied to in the fall of 2002 about the decision to invade Iraq.

There is a fourth story, still unwritten. It should examine exactly what has happened to the U.S. media. Many vital news events now receive minimal coverage. This is a shameful development. We should demand more hard news coverage, because we have a right to be well-informed. It is not unpatriotic to print stories unfavorable to the Bush administration.

Donald P. Russo is an attorney in Bethlehem.

© 2005 Morning Call Newspapers

NEW YORK/UNITED NATIONS - A United Nations review of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is ending in failure today, according to a Japanese delegate who said there is no agreement on new steps toward disarmament or measures to block nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea.

The danger of a nuclear holocaust may never have been greater, yet the 188 signatories to the global pact against nuclear weapons have rarely been more divided, arms experts and diplomats said. The United States is sending the wrong signal to signatories of the global pact against nuclear weapons by backing out of previous arms control pledges, arms experts and diplomats said. Friday is the final day of the review conference of the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a monthlong meeting held once every five years to take stock of the landmark accord. United Nations Secretary General Annan addresses the 2005 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in New York, in this May 2, 2005 file photo. Photo by Mike Segar/Reuters

None of the three committees created to deal with the issues of disarmament, proliferation, peaceful uses of nuclear energy and terms of withdrawal from the treaty presented a substantive report. Brazilian diplomat Sergio Duarte, president of the conference, began the last meeting by telling delegates there would be no comprehensive outcome document.

The conference, a five-year review of the 1970 treaty, began on May 2 with Secretary-General Kofi Annan telling delegates that ``the consequences of failure are too great to aim for anything less'' than new measures to block proliferation of nuclear weapons and reduce the number of existing arms.

Iran, North Korea

The U.S. called for amendments to the treaty to block the development of nuclear weapons by Iran and North Korea, or a determination to refer those issues to the UN Security Council. Delegations led by Egypt and Iran demanded assurances of the nuclear powers that they wouldn't attack non-nuclear nations, and that they would ratify the proposed test ban treaty.

Neither side compromised and the delegates didn't adopt an agenda until May 11 or refer key issues to committees until May 19, leaving too little time for agreements.

``This appears to be the most acute failure in the treaty's history,'' Thomas Graham, a U.S. envoy to disarmament talks under Democratic U.S. President Bill Clinton told reporters at the UN yesterday. ``It comes at a time when the treaty is under heavy pressure, weaker than it has ever been because of the Iranian and North Korean situations, and will have an effect on keeping the regime going.''

Diplomats put much of the blame on the U.S., saying the Republican Bush administration wasn't willing to reaffirm disarmament commitments made at previous conferences or allow discussion of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East that would include destruction of Israel's undeclared arms. Israel, which has never acknowledged having nuclear weapons, has not ratified the treaty.

Blaming the U.S.

``You need to compromise, show recognition for the key priorities of other states,'' Paul Meyer, head of Canada's delegation, said in an interview. ``The positions of the vast majority of states have to be acknowledged, but we did not get that kind of diplomacy from the U.S.''

Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, a Democrat, said in a news conference at the UN yesterday that U.S. nuclear policies were ``immoral, illegal, militarily unnecessary and destructive of the non-proliferation regime that has served us so well over the 40 years.''

Richard Grenell, spokesman for the U.S. mission to the UN, said Egypt and Iran sabotaged the conference by blocking agreement on an agenda until May 11. He said the U.S. wanted to use the ``precious'' remaining time to deal with the emerging problems of Iran and North Korea rather than discussing past disarmament commitments.

U.S. Nuclear Deterrent

``This conference is as much about nonproliferation as it is disarmament,'' Grenell said. ``We have discussed disarmament, made commitments and are proud of our record. But a credible U.S. nuclear deterrent is an important statement that will always be there.''

North Korea, which has said it has nuclear weapons, withdrew from the treaty in 2003 and didn't attend the conference. U.S. officials met North Korean representatives at the UN on May 13, the first such meeting in six months, amid efforts to convince the communist country to restart talks aimed at dismantling its nuclear weapons that include the U.S., Japan, China, South Korea and Russia.

Iran agreed last November to suspend its enrichment of uranium, a program the U.S. believes is meant to produce nuclear weapons, during talks with the U.K., Germany and France. Iran said after a May 25 meeting with European nations, known as the EU-3, that it would continue the suspension while they prepare a ``detailed proposal'' to end the crisis.

``At the same time the conference was arguing about procedures the EU countries were negotiating a continuation of Iran's enrichment moratorium, which shows that the most important nonproliferation work is being done in capitals and not at the UN,'' former U.S. State Department policy planner and Pentagon adviser Lee Feinstein, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said in an interview.

© Copyright 2005 Bloomberg

And based on the packed corridors at the sold-out conference, the media reform movement is going places--even if the 2,500 attendees at this mid-May conference weren't all traveling in the same direction.

Nonpartisan anti-consolidation activists bumped chests with passionate anti-Republican media monitors. Fierce advocates of public broadcasting went toe-to-toe with Indymedia activists who denounced NPR as "National Propaganda Radio." And both media makers and advocates for diversity and gender equity in media--relegated to caucuses and informal meet-ups at a conference rich in sessions on media activism--groused at organizers from Free Press, the media reform group that made it all happen.

Juan González of the New York Daily News and Pacifica Radio's "Democracy Now!" noted that he has been working in both media reform and minority organizations for many years, and wishes the former were more multicultural and the latter more radical. "Progress is not keeping pace with the times on either side," he said. This theme echoed throughout the conference, intersecting with debates over what activists should pursue: media "reform," "justice," "democracy," or "revolution"? "We cannot have a media democracy without social justice," argued Sydney Levy of Media Alliance, a San Francisco resource center for media workers and activists. "There is no free press without freedom for people who are oppressed."

Publishers, producers and writers struggled for a toehold at the conference, seeking to understand how once-arcane policy struggles over broadband licenses and ownership limits have reconfigured the swiftly changing media landscape. Conversations about new online and viral distribution systems for digital video and audio dovetailed neatly with policy discussions about the need to protect broadband pipelines and community Internet from commercial predation. Activists from cities around the country shared stories of working to secure free Internet access in order to spur local economic development and bridge the digital divide. (See "Is Low-Cost Wi-Fi UnAmerican?" May 9.)

The potential of such developments to dramatically cut the cost of media distribution is exciting, but the question of how content might be funded remained unanswered.

"I can't emphasize enough the importance of building an infrastructure and support for independent media," said Linda Jue of the Independent Press Association. That media will have to do its job as well, passing what Adam Werbach of Common Assets termed "the dinner conversation challenge"--providing content that's engaging as well as political. And it must stay true to its roots. "We've cast light, we've created heat," said writer and radio host Laura Flanders. "But will this new [independent] media remain accountable to the movement that called it forth?"

Despite their multiple approaches, most conference-goers seemed to find the event both valuable and motivating. "If people can't stand under the same umbrella, should the movement just stop?" asked Glen Ford, co-publisher of The Black Commentator, an online publication. "Standing under the umbrella and believing that this is the place to be means not moving forward. There's energy in this conference, and we need to harness the forward motion."

Conservative attempts to dominate mainstream media also brought attendees together. The Institute for Public Accuracy's Norman Solomon criticized the "warnography" that characterizes much of the reporting on the Iraq conflict. Author and activist Naomi Klein noted, "We have more than enough facts to bring down this government every week, but we lack amplification." One-time conservative David Brock of Media Matters for America explained that his group is "attempting to organize the progressive base so that the media can hear from us every day."

Brock's group is just one of several media reform projects that have blossomed since the first conference in November 2003. A few standouts from this year include a multi-organization campaign spearheaded by Common Cause to promote a "Bill of Media Rights"; an ambitious project by Consumers Union called Hear Us Now that offers citizens an accessible guide to the tangle of media, technology and communications issues; and Project: Think Different, which works with students and artists to create pop culture that promotes civic dialogue and action.

"This has been a remarkable event," said Free Press Field Organizer Amanda Ballantyne. "This has made me so confident that this movement is going to prevail."

© 2005 In These Times

I'm sick and tired of hearing things
From uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocritics
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth.

As the Iraq war grinds on, and it becomes more obvious that the nation is lurching towards disaster, many of us are literally starved for the truth. We hunger for leaders who will be candid about our circumstances, those who believe as Emerson did that truth is the "treasure of all men". Sadly, what we get instead is "uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocritics."

One of the major casualties of this war has been the truth. Even when most Americans accept that dissembling is an everyday part of politics, the level of mendacity practiced by the Bush Administration has plumbed new depths. Interestingly, it was Adolph Hitler who observed that everyday citizens, "more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously."

This has been the war of the big lie. As a consequence, America's political process has been severely damaged: for the principle of informed consent to work, citizens have to trust the government to provide them with accurate information. Thus, to restore democracy we need to return to the basics - tell the truth.

When George W. Bush accepted the Republican nomination 5 years ago, he sought to distinguish himself from Bill Clinton and Al Gore on the basis of his trustworthiness. Invoking a moral framework based upon duty and honor, Bush pledged to "lead this nation to a responsibility era."

Now we know the truth. Bush followed the teachings, not of honorable leaders such as Jefferson and Churchill, but of tyrants such as Hitler and Goebbels. In his conduct of the war in Iraq, the President borrowed a page from Lenin, who famously observed, "A lie told often enough becomes truth."

During the past two years, George Bush has stuck to his justification for the invasion of Iraq, that the US "saved the world from a tyrant, who was developing weapons of mass destruction, and cultivating ties to terror." Thanks to a series of leaked documents, we now know that he fabricated his entire case for the war; it was not a mistake, a well-intended action subverted by erroneous information, "faulty intelligence." Rather, it was a willful perversion of the truth.

Two months after 9/11, President Bush ordered Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld to begin planning an invasion of Iraq. After eight months, on July 23, 2002, momentum had gathered and the British "war cabinet" gathered to consider their involvement. According to a secret transcript of the meeting, published May 1st in the London Sunday Times, the Brits were very aware that "facts were being fixed around the policy" of the Administration to take out Saddam Hussein. As the year progressed, the Bush Administration's propaganda campaign swung into full gear. The first phase convinced Congress, and the American people, that Iraq constituted an imminent threat. The second phase saw a wily feint in order to gain the approval of the UN and a reprise of weapon inspections - a condition that the Blair government insisted upon. The final phase systematically discredited the work of the UN; in his infamous February, 2003, UN speech, Secretary of State Powell insisted that Saddam had fooled the inspectors and had caches of WMDs hidden throughout Iraq.

A rereading of this treacherous history raises two questions: Why should the American public believe anything that the Administration says? Why don't the Democrats make Bush's dishonesty a major political issue?

Clearly the Administration's moral stance is that the ends justify the means; they have followed the advice of Niccolo Machiavelli, "politics have no relations to morals," This immorality stains their entire agenda; for example, it explains why the Bushies continue to insist that tax cuts for the wealthy benefit the economy. No one who cares about truth, or democracy, should believe anything that the Administration says.

The fascinating question is why haven't the Democrats made more of the Bush duplicity and venality? In the 2004 Presidential campaign, John Kerry decided to hold back, to talk about policy, rather than Bush's competence and credibility. Kerry set a tone of appeasement that continues to this day. With the notable exception of House Leader Nancy Pelosi, leading Democrats have coddled the Bush Administration, treating them as errant children rather than as vipers.

The gloves have to come off. Democrats must take the aggressive stance that John Lennon's song evokes. The war in Iraq, the stability of the Middle East, and America's credibility as an exemplar for democracy are too important to be left to the purview of "uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocritics." What we need is the truth, "just gimme some truth."

Bob Burnett is a Berkeley writer and activist. He can be reached at boburnett@comcast.net.

Even among grassroots Republicans, there was broad discomfort with the idea of creating a tyranny-of-the-majority scenario in which the minority party in the Senate would no longer be consulted regarding lifetime appointments to the federal courts.

So there were plenty Republican senators who were looking for a way out of the corner into which Senate majority leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., had maneuvered them. Democrats simply needed to hold the line, while attracting Republicans who were uncomfortable with Frist's machinations, and they could have secured the will of the people.

Unfortunately, the Democrats buckled. So Republicans will get the votes they want on at least three federal appeals court nominees who should not be allowed on the bench.

Under a compromise worked out by moderate Republicans and Democrats, the "nuclear option" has been averted for the time being -- and perhaps permanently.

But in return for that concession by the Republicans, the Democrats have agreed to allow confirmation votes on three judicial nominations that had been blocked: Janice Rogers Brown, William Pryor Jr. and Priscilla Owen. The trio were among the ten appeals court nominees whose records of judicial activism, ideological rigidity and ethical misdeeds were so troubling that a substantial number of senators felt they ought not be given lifetime tenures on key appellate court benches.

It now appears that confirmation is all but certain for the nominees: That's bad news for Americans in general and, in particular, for low-income citizens, people of color and women who look to the nation's highest courts for a measure of protection against discrimination and other forms of government-sanctioned abuse.

Brown, who has been nominated to serve on the powerful US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, has condemned the New Deal, which gave the United States Social Security, the minimum wage and fair labor laws. She has expressed doubts about whether age discrimination laws are a good idea. And she has made it clear that she is no fan of affirmative action or other programs designed to help minorities and women overcome centuries of oppression.

Pryor, while serving as attorney general of Alabama, fought to undermine the authority of Congress to prohibit discrimination and to protect the environment, to maintain separation of church and state, to protect reproductive freedom and to guarantee equal protection under the law for gay men and lesbians. He has been nominated to serve on the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

Owen, who has been nominated to serve on the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, established a record on the Texas Supreme Court of unswerving loyalty to corporate interests. She has, in addition, adopted such extreme antiabortion rights stances that even her fellow conservatives, including Alberto Gonzalez, who was then a Supreme Court justice but now servers as US Attorney General, have distanced themselves from her.

All three nominees have drawn broad opposition from civil rights, women's rights, public interest, religious, environmental and labor groups. None of them should ever be allowed anywhere near an appeals court bench. Yet it is likely that, as a result of the deal worked out by the moderate senators, all three will soon be donning the robes of the federal judiciary.

This "compromise" may have averted the "nuclear option" for a time. But it will saddle the federal bench with more bad judges.

That's a bad deal, especially when there is such overwhelming public sentiment for maintaining the right of senators to block inappropriate judicial nominees. Democrats were right to oppose Brown, Pryor and Owen. They will come to regret cutting the deal to let these unacceptable nominees -- and the others who are now sure to be nominated by the Bush Administration -- to be approved.

John Nichols has covered progressive politics and activism in the United States and abroad for more than a decade. He is author of the book, Against the Beast: A Documentary History of American Opposition to Empire.

BAGHDAD, IRAQ -- Hostile fire has killed more U.S. soldiers and Marines in Iraq in May than during each of the three previous months.

If the trend continues, May will be one of the deadliest months for U.S. troops during the past year.

So far, insurgents have killed 54 American troops in May, including 14 in the last three days. With a week left, the month will likely eclipse all but two others - November and September 2004 - for deaths by hostile fire since June 2004, based on figures tabulated by Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, a group that tracks troop deaths from Department of Defense news releases.

The casualty figures appear to end a trend that started soon after national elections in January, when insurgents seemed to shift from targeting U.S. forces to attacking the nascent Iraqi army and police.

With sectarian violence increasing between the nation's Shiite and Sunni Muslims, the figures raise the question of whether Iraq is turning into two battlefields: one of insurgents vs. the U.S. military and another of Iraqi sects fighting each other.

Since the nation's interim government took office on April 28, more than 590 Iraqis have been killed in attacks, most of them civilians.

"There is going to be a wave of violence (targeting U.S. forces) as long there is occupation," said Amer Hassan Fayadh, a Baghdad University political science professor. At the same time, "when the regime fell, the Iraq state collapsed, too. The replacements for the police were (sectarian) militias."

Those militias, and the groups behind them, have become entangled in a tit-for-tat killing of religious and political leaders as the minority Sunni population, which didn't vote in large numbers during national elections, struggles to find its footing in a nation increasingly dominated by the majority Shiite sect.

With May's figures, though, it's clear that insurgents continue to target U.S. troops, even while fighting rages among Iraqis.

In the months after the elections, the number of insurgent attacks per day plummeted, averaging between the low 30s and mid-40s. They spiked back up this month, hitting an average of about 70 a day before starting to dip during the past couple days.

A Marine offensive this month in Iraq's restive Anbar Province contributed to the U.S. death count. Marines encountered heavy resistance in areas near the Syrian border. Nine Marines were killed and 40 were wounded; at least 125 insurgents were reported killed.

"The insurgents are trying to get back into Fallujah, with little success, but they are operating in and around (nearby) Ramadi and up the Euphrates valley," Marine Lt. Col David Lapan wrote in an e-mail from his base in Fallujah. Soldiers and Marines retook that city in bloody battles with insurgents in November.

Many American military officials have pointed to less-effective roadside and car bombs as proof that a series of captures of top insurgent leaders had weakened the insurgency. But 39 of the 54 soldiers and Marines killed so far this month died as the result of those devices.

Insurgents are also using more sophisticated tactics.

During an unsuccessful raid on an Iraqi police station south of Baghdad on Saturday, for example, soldiers responded to a tip about a possible car bomb. As they arrived at the station, the bomb exploded, and a gun battle with insurgents followed. Investigators also found four unexploded 160 mm artillery rounds rigged with timers, according to a military release.

"There has been at least an appearance of things being more sophisticated, more coordinated," said Lt. Col. Steve Boylan, a top military spokesman in Baghdad. "I'm not sure we've seen anything that links different groups, but there's definitely more sophistication in the execution" of attacks.

Bloodshed has continued despite the arrests of suspected insurgent commanders.

The U.S. military revealed Tuesday that a man alleged to be a top insurgent leader in the western city of Ramadi had been captured the day before. Muhammed Hamadi, military officials said, commanded several insurgent cells responsible for attacks against U.S. and Iraqi forces and was instrumental in a series of kidnappings meant to fund operations. He may be linked to Jordanian terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

The military also announced the capture of Mullah Kamel al-Aswadi, the most wanted insurgent in all of north-central Iraq. Caught by Iraqi soldiers at a checkpoint, al-Aswadi is also suspected of having ties with al-Zarqawi and of funding and training insurgents across the region.

A militant Islamic Web site also revealed, with few details, that al-Zarqawi himself may have been injured.

On the same day, a car bomb killed six people and wounded four in front of a girls' junior high school in Iraq. A national assembly member barely escaped assassination on a highway south of Baghdad; four of her guards were seriously injured. And another national assembly member announced in open session that the northern town of Tal Afar was on the brink of "street wars."

"They go down to the streets and fight each other," said councilman Muhammed Taqi al-Mawla. "You know what will happen if this tragedy continues. It will lead to the death of many innocent people."

Even if al-Zarqawi, the most wanted man in Iraq, were killed, it's difficult to gauge how much of a long-term effect it would have on the insurgency, a diffuse enemy thought to be made up of fighters loyal to former dictator Saddam Hussein's Baath party, domestic jihadists, foreign fighters and criminals, said Boylan, the military spokesman.

"Once we kill or capture him that won't end it. ... We're pretty confident that someone else will step in," Boylan said. "Will it have an effect? Sure. But how much? We don't know."

For more information, see http://icasualties.org/oif/.