> Dear Settlers : "Dear" in the most literal sense
31 August 2005, 15:03
This is how "news" is manufactured in the United States:
Mr Perle’s close friend and political ally at AEI is David Wurmser, head of
its Middle East studies department. Mr Perle helpfully wrote the
introduction to Mr Wurmser’s book, Tyranny’s Ally: America’s Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein.
Mr Wurmser’s wife, Meyrav, is co-founder, along with Colonel Yigal
Carmon, formerly of Israeli military intelligence - of the Middle East
Media Research Institute (Memri), which specialises in translating and
distributing articles that show Arabs in a bad light.
She also holds strong views on leftwing Israeli intellectuals, whom she
regards as a threat to Israel (see "Selective Memri", Guardian Unlimited, August 12, 2002).
Ms Wurmser currently runs the Middle East section at another thinktank -
the Hudson Institute, where Mr Perle recently joined the board of trustees.
In addition, Ms Wurmser belongs to an organisation called the Middle East Forum.
Michael Rubin, a specialist on Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan, who recently
arrived from yet another thinktank, the Washington Institute for Near
East Policy, assists Mr Perle and Mr Wurmser at AEI. Mr Rubin also
belongs to the Middle East Forum.
Another Middle East scholar at AEI is Laurie Mylroie, author of
Saddam Hussein’s Unfinished War Against America, which expounds
a rather daft theory that Iraq was behind the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing.
When the book was published by the AEI, Mr Perle hailed it as
"splendid and wholly convincing".
An earlier book on Iraq Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf
which Ms Mylroie co-authored with Judith Miller, a New York Times
journalist, became the New York Times’s No 1 bestseller.
Ms Mylroie and Ms Miller both have connections with the Middle
East Forum. Mr Perle, Mr Rubin, Ms Wurmser, Ms Mylroie and Ms
Miller are all clients of Eleana Benador, a Peruvian-born linguist who
acts as a sort of theatrical agent for experts on the Middle East and
terrorism, organising their TV appearances and speaking engagements.
Of the 28 clients on Ms Benador’s books, at least nine are connected
with the AEI, the Washington Institute and the Middle East Forum.
Although these three privately-funded organisations promote views
from only one end of the political spectrum, the amount of exposure
that they get with their books, articles and TV appearances is extraordinary.
The Washington Institute, for example, takes the credit for placing
up to 90 articles written by its members - mainly "op-ed" pieces -
in newspapers during the last year.
Fourteen of those appeared in the Los Angeles Times, nine in New
Republic, eight in the Wall Street Journal, eight in the Jerusalem Post,
seven in the National Review Online, six in the Daily Telegraph, six in
the Washington Post, four in the New York Times and four in the
Baltimore Sun. Of the total, 50 were written by Michael Rubin.
This is how "news" is manufactured in the United States:
Mr Perle’s close friend and political ally at AEI is David Wurmser, head of
its Middle East studies department. Mr Perle helpfully wrote the
introduction to Mr Wurmser’s book, Tyranny’s Ally: America’s Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein.
Mr Wurmser’s wife, Meyrav, is co-founder, along with Colonel Yigal
Carmon, formerly of Israeli military intelligence - of the Middle East
Media Research Institute (Memri), which specialises in translating and
distributing articles that show Arabs in a bad light.
She also holds strong views on leftwing Israeli intellectuals, whom she
regards as a threat to Israel (see "Selective Memri", Guardian Unlimited, August 12, 2002).
Ms Wurmser currently runs the Middle East section at another thinktank -
the Hudson Institute, where Mr Perle recently joined the board of trustees.
In addition, Ms Wurmser belongs to an organisation called the Middle East Forum.
Michael Rubin, a specialist on Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan, who recently
arrived from yet another thinktank, the Washington Institute for Near
East Policy, assists Mr Perle and Mr Wurmser at AEI. Mr Rubin also
belongs to the Middle East Forum.
Another Middle East scholar at AEI is Laurie Mylroie, author of
Saddam Hussein’s Unfinished War Against America, which expounds
a rather daft theory that Iraq was behind the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing.
When the book was published by the AEI, Mr Perle hailed it as
"splendid and wholly convincing".
An earlier book on Iraq Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf
which Ms Mylroie co-authored with Judith Miller, a New York Times
journalist, became the New York Times’s No 1 bestseller.
Ms Mylroie and Ms Miller both have connections with the Middle
East Forum. Mr Perle, Mr Rubin, Ms Wurmser, Ms Mylroie and Ms
Miller are all clients of Eleana Benador, a Peruvian-born linguist who
acts as a sort of theatrical agent for experts on the Middle East and
terrorism, organising their TV appearances and speaking engagements.
Of the 28 clients on Ms Benador’s books, at least nine are connected
with the AEI, the Washington Institute and the Middle East Forum.
Although these three privately-funded organisations promote views
from only one end of the political spectrum, the amount of exposure
that they get with their books, articles and TV appearances is extraordinary.
The Washington Institute, for example, takes the credit for placing
up to 90 articles written by its members - mainly "op-ed" pieces -
in newspapers during the last year.
Fourteen of those appeared in the Los Angeles Times, nine in New
Republic, eight in the Wall Street Journal, eight in the Jerusalem Post,
seven in the National Review Online, six in the Daily Telegraph, six in
the Washington Post, four in the New York Times and four in the
Baltimore Sun. Of the total, 50 were written by Michael Rubin.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,777100,00.html