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WPKN Radio, 89.5 FM

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"The Rest of the News," New Haven Advocate, July 3, 2003

Between The Lines

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Between The Lines
For The Week Ending Sept. 19, 2003

THIS WEEK'S PROGRAM

ANNOUNCEMENTS: Our archive server through WPKN's webhost service is back up. Previous archive restoration is underway, some files older than Nov. 2001 may not be available. Please let us know of any nonworking links.

  • Former UN Weapons Inspector
    Charges Bush Launched Iraq War
    to Pursue Agenda of 'Global Hegemony'

    For story text and audio, Click here!

  • On 2nd Anniversary of 9/11 Attack,
    Americans Ask if U.S. Wars
    Have Made Them Safer

    For story text and audio, Click here!

  • Grassroots Movement
    Working to Derail
    FCC Media Deregulation Plan

    For story text and audio, Click here!

  • Underreported News Summary
    from Around the World

    For full summary and audio, Click here!
LISTEN to this week's half-hour program of Between The Lines by clicking on one of the links below. MP3 files available until Sept. 23, 2003.

This week we present Between The Lines' summary of under-reported news stories and:

Former UN Weapons Inspector
Charges Bush Launched Iraq War
to Pursue Agenda of 'Global Hegemony'

Interview with Scott Ritter,
former U.S. Marine and U.N. weapons inspector,
conducted by Scott Harris

As violence continued to consume U.S.-occupied Iraq, President Bush addressed the nation on Sept. 7 to explain his administration's policies there and request $87 billion for the pacification and reconstruction of both Iraq and Afghanistan. Although the president conspicuously omitted any mention of the U.S. failure to capture Osama bin Laden or to locate any of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction used by his administration to justify its war, he maintained that Iraq was now the central front in the war against terrorism. As he has many times before, the president linked the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks against the U.S. to the toppled regime of Saddam Hussein, despite the lack of any evidence connecting Iraq with the al Qaeda network.

Acknowledging the fact that his administration's "go it alone" approach was not working, Bush also announced a new initiative to ask for soldiers and money from United Nations member states to stabilize Iraq.

Scott Ritter is a former Marine intelligence officer and U.N. weapons inspector who served in Iraq for seven years before resigning in 1998. In the months before the U.S. invasion, Ritter had publicly challenged the Bush administration's contention that Baghdad's weapons systems posed a grave risk to the U.S and necessitated a war. Between The Lines' Scott Harris spoke with Scott Ritter about the Bush administration's justification for war and the U.S. occupation of Iraq detailed in his new book titled, "Frontier Justice, Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Bushwhacking of America," published by Context Books.

Related links:

On 2nd Anniversary of 9/11 Attack,
Americans Ask if U.S. Wars
Have Made Them Safer

Interview with John Gershman,
Interhemispheric Resource Center senior analyst,
conducted by Scott Harris

As Americans observe the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that killed some 3,000 people, President Bush's "pre-emptive" military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq are meeting heavy resistance. Forces connected with Afghanistan's Taliban government, toppled by the U.S., have regrouped and are now conducting regular attacks against U.S. and Afghan government soldiers, as well as aid workers from around the world.

In Iraq, guerrilla assaults on U.S. and British soldiers have killed and wounded an increasing number of troops, while deadly bombings have targeted United Nations headquarters, a Shiite holy shrine and the Jordanian embassy. Victims of the attacks have included top U.N. diplomat Sergio de Mello and powerful Shia cleric Mohammed Bakr al Hakim. At the same time, sabotage of Iraq's oil production and utility infrastructure has deprived the wartorn nation of basic services and desperately needed revenue.

President Bush recently told the nation that, "We are fighting that enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan today so that we do not meet him again on our own streets, in our own cities." On the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, many Americans are asking themselves if the Bush administration's foreign and domestic policies have made the nation safer and less vulnerable to future terrorist strikes. Between The Lines' Scott Harris spoke with John Gershman, senior analyst with the Interhemispheric Resource Center, who assesses the effectiveness of President Bush's initiatives to counter terrorism.

Read John Gershman's articles online at www.wpif.org

Related links

Between The Lines Reports on the 9/11 Terror Attack

Grassroots Movement
Working to Derail
FCC Media Deregulation Plan

Interview with Josh Silver,
managing director of Free Press,
conducted by Scott Harris

A three-judge panel of the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia acted on Sept. 3 to temporarily block the Federal Communications Commission from implementing new rules which abandoned regulations that had restricted the concentration of ownership of the nation's print and broadcast media outlets. The June 2 vote by a majority of GOP-appointed FCC Commissioners, led by chair Michael Powell, allowed media corporations to reach up to 45 percent of the national TV audience, up from 35 percent, and lift the prohibition on one company from owning a newspaper and television station -- or multiple TV stations -- serving the same market.

The court decision was made in reaction to a lawsuit filed by the Prometheus Radio Project, a group which promotes the expansion of low power FM broadcasting. The judges issued the stay, which could remain in force until late November, in order to review the impact of the new FCC rules on the public interest.

The FCC's recent move to deregulate the nation's media, widely expected to increase the concentration of ownership of TV, radio and publishing companies, spawned the growth of a national grassroots movement to oppose the rules change and advocate for increased diversity on the airwaves. Between The Lines' Scott Harris spoke with Josh Silver, managing director of the group Free Press, who looks at the significance of the FCC court ruling and the growing strength of groups working to reform the U.S. media system.

To find out more about the nation's media reform movement call Free Press toll free at 1 (866) 666-1533 or visit their website at www.mediareform.net

Related links

This week's summary
of under-reported news

Compiled by Bob Nixon

  • To draw attention to intrusive police surveillance, hundreds of international social justice activists traveling to demonstrate at the World Trade Organization in Cancun, Mexico, asked to be put on the Mexican security watch list. ("Indignant activists demand names go on police list," The Guardian, Sept. 1, 2003)
  • In the weeks after the Sept 11 terror attacks, Attorney General John Ashcroft gained access to the personal records of 300 million Latin American citizens with the assistance of ChoicePoint, the Atlanta firm implicated in the 2000 presidential election purge of black voters in Florida. ("A Mexican Data Grab," The Progressive, August 2003).
  • Critics charge Citigroup of making big profits off of indebted moderate-income consumers by employing predatory lending practices. ("Banking on Poverty," Mother Jones, July/August, 2003)

DOWNLOAD this week's half-hour program of Between The Lines by clicking on one of the links below. Note: Make sure your browser is set for streaming or download depending on your connection speed. MP3 files available until Sept. 16, 2003

Note to our broadcast affiliates: We are now offering FTP access for faster, more reliable download of our broadcast quality files. Please call Anna Manzo at (203) 268-8446 ext. 2, to register for FTP logon access or send feedback to us at betweenthelines@snet.net.

Credits:
Senior news editor: Bob Nixon
Program narration: Sasha Summer Cousineau
News reader: Denise Manzari
Distribution: Anna Manzo, Harry Minot, Jeff Yates and Bill Cosentino
Senior Web editor/producer: Anna Manzo
Web producer: Jeff Yates
Web editor: Bill Cosentino
Executive producer: Scott Harris
Theme music: Mikata

... MORE ...

Last Week's Program

Between The Lines Week Ending 9/12/03

Bush Re-Election Issues

"Why Don't We Have Answers to these 9/11 Questions?" The Philadelphia Daily News, Sept. 11, 2003

" Democrats Focus On Halliburton," Senate Leaders Promise Scrutiny of War 'Profiteering,' Roll Call, Sept., 10, 2003

"Al-Qaida Issues a Chilling Warning," The Guardian, Sept. 8, 2003

"From Swagger to Stagger," New York Times, Sept. 7, 2003

"U.N. Role Won't Fix U.S. Mess in Iraq," Boston Globe, Sept. 4, 2003

"Bush Seeks an Exit Strategy as War Threatens His Career," The Observer, Sept. 7, 2003

"Who's Counting the Dead in Iraq?" Knight Ridder, Sept. 6, 2003

"Iraq: Civil War a Credible Hypothesis," La Liberation, Sept. 4, 2003

"White House CoverUp: What Was Known About Post-9/11 Air," NBC News, Sept. 3, 2003

"U.S. Failures in Iraq Set Stage For Deeper Trouble," by Georgie Anne Geyer, Universal Press Syndicate, Aug. 29, 2003

"Killing of Ayatollah Is Start of Iraqi Civil War," Pacific News Service, Aug. 29, 2003

"Is a Perfect Storm Brewing for Bush?" Reuters, Aug. 24, 2003

"A Tally of US Taxpayers' Tab for Iraq," by David R. Francis, The Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 25 2003

"The Bush Administration Adopts a Worse-than- Nixonian Tactic: The Deadly Serious Crime Of Naming CIA Operatives," by John W. Dean, Aug. 15, 2003

"Read Between The Lines of Those Missing 28 Pages," The Nation, July 29, 2003

"Impeaching Bush,"Counterpunch, July 25, 2003

American Empire/War Profiteering

"A Debate Over U.S. 'Empire' Builds in Unexpected Circles," The Washington Post, Aug. 10, 2003

"As Ordered, It's About Oil," San Francisco Chronicle, Aug. 8, 2003

"Immunity for Iraqi Oil Dealings Raises Alarm," Los Angeles Times, Aug. 7, 2003

"North Korea Next to Hear U.S. War Drum," Toronto Globe and Mail, Aug. 7, 2003

"Rivals Say Halliburton Dominates Iraq Oil Work," New York Times, Aug. 8, 2003

"Pipeline Politics: Oil, The Taliban, and the Political Balance of Central Asia," World Press Review Special Report, Nov.-Dec. 2001

"War Profiteering," by The Nation editors, April 24, 2003

Postwar Occupation of Iraq

"Iraq: Civil War a Credible Hypothesis; Religious and Ethnic Tensions Threaten the Country," by Marc Semo, La Liberation, Sept. 4 2003

"Massive Explosion at U.N. Headquarters in Iraq," www.truthout.org, Aug. 18, 2003, CBS video

"Democracy Might be Impossible, US Was Told," The Boston Globe, Aug. 14, 2003

Civil Liberties

"Conservative Backlash," Conservative Backlash, Baltimore Sun Editorial, Aug. 22, 2003

"Fascism Anyone?" 14 Signs of Fascism, Free Inquiry Magazine, Volume 23, No. 2

"Germany In 1933: The Easy Slide Into Fascism," The Crisis Papers, June 9, 2003

Multi-Ethnic Issues Advocacy

Dr. Earl Ofari Hutchinson's Commentaries, The Hutchinson Report
and in Audio (needs RealPlayer)

 


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