Newsgroups: alt.activism.d
Subject: Re: NBC news and Dan Quayle
From: ivler@mdcbbs.com (J.M. Ivler    ivler@mdcbbs.com)
Date: 25 Aug 92 16:46:26 GMT
Organization: M&E (Division of EDS), Cypress CA
Nntp-Posting-User: schuster

In article <1992Aug25.015306.10987@afit.af.mil>, 
jswitzer@afit.af.mil (Chip Switzer) writes:
> donb@igor.tamri.com (Don Baldwin) writes:
> 
>>In article <1992Aug22.212130.21365@afit.af.mil> jswitzer@afit.af.mil
>>(Chip Switzer) writes:
> 
>>Chip,
> 
>>Personally, I'm glad that the media didn't give away your location.
> 
>>However, taking that further and implying that there is something
>>wrong with wanting to know in advance that Grenada was about to be
>>invaded.  Personally, I think it's REALLY dangerous when the military
>>gets too carried away thinking "They don't need to know we're invading
>>(name the country)"...because that isn't a military decision to make!
>>If the government is thinking about invading Grenada/Panama/Cambodia,
>>etc, I think that the people should have something to say about it.
> 
> Grenada and Panama were *sneak attacks*.  How do you reconcile telling
> the media we were planning it? Do you see how that just might get
> some Americans killed that wouldn't have been if they had had the element
> of suprise on their side?

Then there was the attack that didn't happen. the one that the president wanted 
to give him the "bounce" he needed during the Republican Convention. Why didn't 
it happen? Because a news reporter wrote an article about how Bush was using 
the UN Inspection Team as bait to launch an attack on Saddam for political 
gain.

A free press is a dangerous thing. If you don't beleive that talk to Freddy 
Elizalde. He owns some radio stations in the Philipines. During Marcos' last 
"election" (the one that forced him to leave the country) Freddy was phoned 
three times by members of the Marcos family. The first call was from the 
President asking his old friend not to report the results until they were 
official (his stations were reporting the counts as they came in). The second 
was from Mrs. Marcos, threatening him with the loss of all of his licenses to 
be on the air unless he discontinued the reporting of results. The final call 
he received from a member of the Marcos family was from the eldest daughter, 
who stated that she was issuing a directive to the military to shut his 
stations down unless he started to report the results that were being given out 
by the palace instead of the ones that he was reporting from the place where 
they were being counted.

Freddy finished the last call and then had a prepared speach broadcast on his 
stations that said that the voice of the free press was going to be shut down 
unless they only provided the "official" policy, and that if the people wanted 
a free press and unbiased information, they should march down and surround the 
stations with their bodies, and keep the armed forces from taking over the 
radio. The response was overwelming. Not one of his radio stations was shut 
down by the armed forces, and the free presses (the "free news media") made it 
possible for the power of the people to prevail in a democracy.

In the United States we saw the power of a free press in Veitnam. It taught our 
leaders that one of the key things they *must* do to have support of the people 
at home is *NOT* allow a free press to operate in a war zone. Since Veitnam we 
have been engaged in battles in Granada, Pananma and Iraq. In all three of 
these encounters the press has been muzzeled well beyond that which they were 
in Vietnam.

The cost of this censorship is too high for a free America to bear. If the 
president had his way, on the eve of the opening of the convention for his 
party, he would have provided fireworks over the skys of Iraq as proff that he 
was a world leader who wouldn't let the Bully in Bagdad set the agenda for him. 
He would have looked like a man with a backbone, who stood poised to take on 
the problems of America and the world.

Thank you's must be given to the reporters who broke this story and to those 
who leaked the news. They have saved America from its president, one who sought 
to use the military for political purposes.

jmi
ivler@mdcbbs.com
Newsgroups: alt.activism.d,alt.news-media,alt.rush-limbaugh