BETWEEN THE LINES
A weekly radio newsmagazine
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Hungry for more news from Between The Lines?

Many BTL interviews are excerpted from Scott Harris' live, 2-hour program, Counterpoint. To hear more in-depth analysis you won't get in mainstream media, listen to Counterpoint LIVE Monday nights from 8 to 10 p.m. EST on WPKN Radio

Counterpoint is now archived in its entirety on The White Rose Society website


Check out our
collection of selected in-depth interviews and other audio collectibles on our distribution production company's site at www.squeakywheel.net

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WPKN Radio mentioned in Danny Schechter's "The News Dissector" column

on independent media values.


New Haven Advocate's
"Best of New Haven 2001"
-- Staff Picks --
Scott Harris, Best Radio News Reporter
WPKN Radio, 89.5 FM

New Haven Advocate's
"Best of New Haven 2001"
-- Staff Picks --
Scott Harris, Best Radio News Reporter
WPKN Radio, 89.5 FM



ISSUES IN DEPTH
War And Profiteering

"The Future of Iraq: The Spoils of War," Blood and oil: How the West will profit from Iraq's most precious commodity, by Danny Fortson, Andrew Murray-Watson and Tim Webb, The Independent/UK, Jan. 7, 2007

"Cheney is Longtime Bad News for U.S.," by John Nichols, by the Madison Capital Times (Wisconsin), Jan. 16, 2007

"Bush administration provokes open war on Iran: Irbil raid, and other operations, authorized "several months ago," by Larry Chin, Global Research, Jan. 15, 2007

"Iran: The Next War," by James Bamford, Rolling Stone, July 24, 2006

"Noam Chomsky on Middle East Conflict and U.S. War Plan Against Iraq," Between The Lines interview with Noam Chomsky, conducted by Scott Harris, for the Week Ending May 3, 2002

"The Iraq War & The Bush Administration's Pursuit of Global Domination," Counterpoint, Sept. 15, 2003

The Iraq Crisis, a Global Policy Forum, U.N. Security Council section on the 13 years of sanctions and other background of the war, the humanitarian situation, the importance of Iraq's huge oil resources, and disputes over a post-war government and reconstruction plan

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



Civil Liberties

"Martial Law Threat is Real," by Dave Lindorff, commondreams.org, July 27, 2007

"ACLU: US Constitution in Grave Danger,"United Press International, July 25, 2007

"Old-line Republican warns 'something's in the works' to trigger a police state," by Muriel Kane, Rawstory.com July 19, 2007

"Fascist America, in 10 easy steps," by Naomi Wolf, The Guardian, April 24, 2007



"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

Between The Lines

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Between The Lines
For The Week Ending Aug. 8, 2008


PRE-ELECTION 2008 APPEAL -- FOCUS ON THE ISSUES

The


A participatory democracy functions best with well-informed citizens. Listen to Between The Lines and arm yourself with information and analysis that those in power would prefer you don't have.

This year's presidential election could very well determine the course of the United States for the next decade and beyond.

Each week, Between The Lines provides dissenting views on the status quo, reporting on issues that matter including: skyrocketing energy prices and oil company profiteering; the growing debt crisis; the Republican party and religious extremism; the neoconservative drive for American empire; and the failing U.S. healthcare system.

Here's how you can support our efforts to get the word out to more people during this critical juncture in history:
  • Make a donation. As a thank you gift for your contribution in support of Between The Lines, one of the gifts we are offering is video DVD: "Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Dependency on Foreign Petroleum," a Media Education Foundation documentary featuring renowned energy and security expert Michael T. Klare, who unearths declassified documents and highlights forgotten passages in prominent presidential doctrines to show how concerns about oil have been at the core of American foreign policy for more than 60 years - rendering our contemporary energy and military policies virtually indistinguishable.

    Get more details including video and audio samples of this and other exciting thank you gifts, such as books, DVDs and CDs from historian Howard Zinn, Pulitzer prize-winning writer Chris Hedges, Physicians for a National Health Program Co-Founder Dr. Stephanie Woolhandler and Unite Here President John Wilhelm on universal health care, and award-winning documentary filmmaker Danny Schechter, at www.squeakywheel.net


THIS WEEK'S PROGRAM

 RealAudio  MP3
RSS feed broadcast-quality MP3 RSS feed near-broadcast quality MP3


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

Iraq Spike in Violence Underscores Rising Political Instability
 RealAudio  MP3

Interview with Dahr Jamail,
independent journalist,
conducted by Scott Harris


iraq

In the worst suicide bomb attack in Iraq in over a month, four suicide bombers struck a Shiite pilgrimage in Baghdad and a Kurdish protest rally in northern Iraq on July 28. The attacks, believed to have been carried out by women, killed at least 57 people and wounded nearly 300.

The attack in the northern oil-rich city of Kirkuk targeted Kurdish protesters who were demonstrating their anger at a political deadlock in the national parliament over the scheduling of provincial elections. The Kurds in control of Iraq's semiautonomous northern region are seeking to annex Kirkuk,, which has created a backlash among the city's Arab and Turkmen population.

Rising tensions between Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi army and the U.S.-backed Badr Brigade of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq could trigger new violence among these powerful Shiite rivals. And while Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki recently endorsed Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama's timeline to withdraw U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months of taking office, political instability could dramatically reverse the decline in violence seen in Iraq in recent months. Between The Lines' Scott Harris spoke with independent journalist and author Dahr Jamail, who reported from Iraq for eight months between November 2003 and February 2005. Jamail assesses the success of the surge and how changing conditions on the ground in Iraq could affect the U.S. presidential election campaign.

Read Dahr Jamail's articles online at www.dahr.org. Jamail is the author of "Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq."



Mississippi River Oil Spill Worst in Decade
 RealAudio  MP3

Interview with Wilma Subra,
Louisiana Environmental Action Network advisor,
conducted by Melinda Tuhus


oilspill

On July 23, a ship in the Mississippi River passing through New Orleans rammed an oil barge, cutting it in two and creating the largest oil spill on the lower Mississippi in at least a decade. Almost 400,000 gallons of heavy fuel oil flowed into the river, and the barge continued to leak oil days later as it sat at a pier below the Crescent City Bridge.

The river closure has trapped 200 ships around New Orleans, and the oil has contaminated 100 miles of riverbank and marshes between New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico. Wilma Subra, a native Louisianan, chemist, and winner of a MacArthur "genius award," provides technical assistance to the Louisiana Environmental Action Network. In that capacity, she spent several days examining the spill on the water and from the air to try to determine the extent of damage it caused.

Between The Lines' Melinda Tuhus spoke with Subra about the nature of the spill, clean-up efforts, and how this environmental disaster may affect recent efforts to open up offshore areas to oil drilling, which Republican John McCain supports and Democrat Barack Obama opposes.

Wilma Subra is principle in the Subra Company and adviser to the Louisiana Environmental Action Network. Contact Wilma Subra at (337) 367-2216 or LEAN at (225) 928-1315 or on the web at www.leanweb.org



CBS News Sanitizes McCain Interview Gaffes
 RealAudio  MP3

Interview with Jioni Palmer,
national press secretary of Media Matters for America,
conducted by Scott Harris




CBS News interview with Republican presidential candidate John McCain, conducted by anchor Katie Couric on July 22, has come in for some very harsh criticism for what the network chose not to broadcast. CBS editors inexplicably removed two statements in which the candidate made embarrassing factual errors. McCain falsely stated that the 2007 troop surge "began the Anbar Awakening," a reference to the U.S.-Sunni alliance that has reduced attacks in the province. CBS replaced the inaccurate statement with an answer McCain had given to a different question during the interview.

Another instance of selective editing found CBS deleting a second false statement where McCain asserted that the war in Iraq was, "the first major conflict since 9/11," when in fact the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan was launched in October 2001, and the invasion of Iraq occurred in March 2003.

The network responded to criticism by maintaining that the report was edited under extreme time constraints and one piece of tape was put in the wrong order. CBS News senior vice president Paul Friedman denied that the editing had in any way distorted what Sen. McCain was saying. However, the group Media Matters for America has called on CBS News to broadcast the complete John McCain interview and inform their audience about their policy on editing interviews. Between The Lines' Scott Harris spoke Jioni Palmer, national press secretary with Media Matters, who discusses why many find CBS's decision to sanitize a presidential candidate's words on their national newscast so disturbing.

Contact Media Matters by calling (202) 756-4100 or visit their website at www.MediaMatters.org

Related links:

  • "CBS splices McCain interview clip, expunging his false claim on surge timeline and falsely suggesting he gave different answer,"www.mediamatters.org


This week's summary
of under-reported news


 RealAudio  MP3
Compiled by Bob Nixon

  • The arrest of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic for war crimes will likely pave the way for Serbia's entry into the European Union. ("Bosnian Serb Under Arrest for War Crimes, " New York Times, July 22, 2008; "The Double Life of an Infamous Serbian Fugitive," New York Times, July 23, 2008; "Kardzic Faces the Hague, but Hunt Goes on For His General," The Guardian, July 22, 2008; "Arresting Developments," American Prospects, July 23, 2008)
  • A federal grand jury has issued subpoenas to the nation's largest sub-prime lenders: Countrywide Financial, New Century Financial and IndyMac Federal Bank, which was recently taken over by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. ("Federal Grand Jury Investigating Countrywide, IndyMac, New Century" Los Angeles Times, July 23, 2008)
  • Oil and gas industry contributions to John McCain's presidential campaign surged after he changed his position and endorsed opening off-shore areas of the U.S. coast to oil exploration. ("Industry Gushed Money After Reversal on Drilling," Washington Post, July 27, 2008)


Credits:
Executive producer: Scott Harris
Segment producers: Scott Harris, Melinda Tuhus
Senior news editor: Bob Nixon
Program narration: Denise Manzari
News reader: Chris Ferrio
Senior web editor/producer: Anna Manzo
Web producer: Jeffrey P. Yates
Web consultant: Gary Trujillo
Newswire editor: Bob Nixon
Photo editor: Scott Harris
Outreach coordinator: Anna Manzo
Distribution: Anna Manzo and Jeffrey P. Yates
Theme music: Written by Richard Hill and Jody Gray, and performed by Mikata


Between The Lines
Airs on WPKN 89.5 FM ET
Tuesdays, 5:30 p.m. - 6 p.m.
Wednesdays, 8 a.m. - 8:30 a.m.
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Last Week's Program

Between The Lines Week Ending 8/1/08

Between The Lines' Blog

"Reading Between The Lines"

U.S. Politics

"Air tanker drops in wildfires are often just for show,'"by Julie Cart and Bettina Boxall, Los Angeles Times, Second of five parts July 29, 2008

"Rampage Attributed to Hatred of Liberalism," Associated Press, July 23, 2008

"Lieberman Praises Pastor Repudiated by McCain," by Andy Sullivan, Reuters July 22, 2008

More newswire ...

Bush Regime

"Execution by Military Is Approved by President," by Steven Lee Myers, New York Times, July 29, 2008

Internal Justice Dept. Report Cites Illegal Hiring Practices by Carrie Johnson, The Washington Post, July 29, 2008 More newswire ...

American Empire/War Profiteering

"Iraq Contract Fraud: Senators Call For Arrests, Recovery of Funds," by Bruce Falconer, MoJo Blog, July 23, 2008

More newswire ...

"Postwar" Occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan

"Pasadena's Parsons Corp. blamed in failure of $40-million Iraq prison project," by Jim Puzzanghera and Peter Spiegel, Los Angeles Times, July 29, 2008

"Is Blackwater Leaving the Security Biz?" MoJo blog, July 22, 2008

"Maliki's Walk Forward," by Matthew Yglesias, The American Prospect (web only), July 21, 2008

More newswire ...

Civil Liberties/ Human Rights

"Guantanamo jurors shown graphic film on Al Qaeda," by Carol J. Williams, Los Angeles Times, July 29, 2008

More newswire ...

Environment and Sustainability

"Olympics environment: Beijing shuts all building sites and more factories to clear the smog," by Jonathan Watts in Beijing, The Guardian, July 29, 2008

"Air tanker drops in wildfires are often just for show,'"by Julie Cart and Bettina Boxall, Los Angeles Times, Second of five parts July 29, 2008

More newswire ...

Media Issues

"Vanity Fair Covers The New Yorker," by Vanity Fair, July 22, 2008

"CBS splices McCain interview clip, expunging his false claim on surge timeline and falsely suggesting he gave different answer," Media Matters, July 23, 2008

More newswire ...

Activism

"Md. Police Infiltrated Groups Opposed to War and the Death Penalty," by Matthew Rothschild, The Progressive, July 18, 2008

More newswire ...



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