story.news.yahoo.com Wed Feb 19,10:08 PM ET Add Op/Ed - Ted Rall to My Yahoo! By Ted Rall

TAIPEI--One of the most striking aspects of life in Third World countries is information starvation. Because they've learned not to trust their state-controlled media, people in authoritarian backwaters carefully debrief newcomers. What's going on abroad? What's going on here? Did you get any foreign newspapers or magazines through customs?

News is a component of infrastructure every bit as important as roads and telephones. Businesspeople need to know if a border with a neighboring country is open so they can decide whether or not to send out a truck. Citizens need to know their government's international standing--are those falling bombs their leader's fault? Hunger for news hurts a country almost as much as hunger for food.

The First Amendment enshrines freedom of the press in the U.S. Constitution, but a variety of forces conspire to prevent totally free access to information. Residents of most cities rely on one large daily newspaper, usually part of a media conglomerate that itself owns the biggest local radio and television stations. Directors of that corporation and the editors who work for them are frequently loathe to offend influential government officials and business tycoons, for if they get cut off--excluded from access to press releases, interviews, leaks, etc.--their ability to collect news is impeded. One might argue that such "news" is little more than worthless propaganda, but fear of causing offense often inhibits the media's natural role as a watchdog of democracy.

Our government very rarely censors the media. It doesn't have to.

A new, subtle form of self-censorship has recently become commonplace. A news story is covered in full, minus a crucial fact that changes the entire tenor of the piece. That missing bit of information is invariably something that would make someone important look bad.

The American media has, for example, devoted extensive coverage to political unrest in Venezuela, where mobs loyal to President Hugo Chávez have clashed with striking employees of the state oil company. The crisis sparked an attempted coup d'état in April 2002. To busy Americans, this looks like a simple story of a right-wing Latin American dictator crushing poor workers. That's because three key facts are regularly omitted from the story. First, the oil company strike was called by its wealthy managers, not its workers. Second, Chávez was democratically-elected. Third, the coup plotters were backed by the Bush Administration. "We were sending informal, subtle signals that we don't like this guy," said a U.S. Defense Department official quoted in The Guardian, an English paper that has become an important post-9/11 resource for Americans in search of objective reporting. The bully, it turns out, is us--not Chávez, who is standing up for his nation's poor.

Similarly, the North Korean crisis looks like a simple case of crafty commies welching on their agreement not to develop nukes in exchange for economic aid. Repeatedly left out of the thousands of words spilled daily on this topic are the contents of the 1994 North Korea (news - web sites)-U.S. Agreed Framework, in which President Clinton (news - web sites) promised to develop full diplomatic relations with Kim Jung Il's regime, and North Korean warnings dating to 1999 that they would resume nuclear research unless the U.S. kept up its end of the bargain.

North Korea is violating the agreement. But the U.S. broke it years earlier.

The closest thing to a "smoking gun" found by U.N. arms inspectors in Iraq is 12 warheads found at an ammo dump south of Baghdad. Americans know that the White House considers this discovery a "material breach" that justifies war. Few are aware that, as reported Jan. 17 in the U.K. Telegraph, the canisters were empty, and are probably American-made shells sold to Iraq by the Reagan administration. Not much of a "smoking gun."

Scratch the surface and you find this sort of thing all over the "news." Democratic complaints that the Bush tax cuts only benefit the "richest one percent" of Americans are duly reported, but leave out a definition of the term. Did you know that you have to earn more than $330,000 a year to be in the top one percent? Nineteen percent of Americans don't. They told Time that they think they're in that top one percent.

Perhaps you've read that American soldiers are fighting off guerrillas loyal to warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in eastern Afghanistan (news - web sites). Hekmatyar, the Associated Press says, is "believed by Afghan and U.S. authorities to be allied with Taliban and Al Qaeda remnants." That may be true. But Hekmatyar was always a sworn enemy of the Taliban--until the CIA (news - web sites) tried to kill him last May, with a Hellfire missile fired by a Predator drone plane.

One missing detail. Changes the story a little, doesn't it?

(Ted Rall is the author of "Gas War: The Truth Behind the American Occupation of Afghanistan," an analysis of the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline and the motivations behind the war on terrorism. Ordering information is available at amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com.)

www.slovakspectator.sk From press reports of TASR and SITA

SLOVAKIA'S former ambassador to the UN in New York, Peter Tomka, was sworn in as a new judge at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague.

Tomka, 46, is no stranger to the court. He represented Slovakia in the Hague in a dispute with Hungary over the Gabãíkovo-Nagymaros hydroelectric dam project more than five years ago.

He is the first citizen from former Czechoslovakia to become a judge of this high-profile institution, although eight Czechoslovak candidates have sought to join the bench in its 80-year history.

"I am certainly pleased to have been chosen for this position. I consider it a recognition for Slovak jurisprudence as well as that of former Czechoslovakia, since my law studies and early career are linked to Prague," Tomka told the TASR news agency prior to the ceremony.

Tomka's colleagues hail from China, Madagascar, France, Sierra Leone, Russia, Britain, Venezuela, the Netherlands, Brazil, Jordan, the US, Egypt, Japan, and Germany.

[2/24/2003]

www.washingtonpost.com By Al Kamen Monday, February 24, 2003; Page A19

The war in Iraq, likely in the next few weeks, is not expected to last long, given the overwhelming U.S. firepower to be arrayed against the Iraqis. But the trickier job may be in the aftermath, when Washington plans to install an administrator, or viceroy, who would direct postwar reconstruction of the place.

Given the fractious nature of the country and its warring groups, the job will require extraordinary skill, smarts, toughness and finesse. The supreme civil authority, administration officials say, is to be an American "of stature," perhaps a former state governor or ambassador.

But whom should it be?

Yes, this calls for the In the Loop Pick the Potentate Contest. Loop Fans can help find the perfect regent to preside over the planned "consultative council," to restore democracy for the first time ever in beleaguered Iraq. A former governor? A former ambassador? Maybe a business leader or someone who excels in law, science, education, the arts or even sports?

Send in your nomination -- only one -- along with a very brief rationale to: In the Loop, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071, or via e-mail to loop@washpost.com. Please include your name, occupation and work and home telephone numbers. Hill and administration folks may of course enter on background. The deadline for entries is March 5. Winners will receive one of our lovely blue In the Loop mugs -- a new supply just came in for the last contest.

War Is Hell, for The Donald

The looming war has already altered some things. We lament that the biannual Department of Defense procurement conference, where everyone who's anyone in the defense procurement community gathers, and which had been scheduled for the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City in May, has been put off.

A recent e-mail from the Pentagon planners said they "regret to announce that we are taking the drastic step of postponing the conference until late spring 2004. We are doing this because of the imminence of the commitment of US troops to armed conflict and the heightened state of terrorism alert we are currently experiencing."

Even at the blackjack tables? Operation Urgent Flurry

Speaking of invasions . . . the nasty winter weather of late probably has people kicking themselves for not having signed up for Saturday's Caribbean cruise to commemorate the 20th anniversary of "Operation Urgent Fury." That, as everyone knows, was the name for the invasion of Grenada to restore order, kick out the commie Cubans and protect several hundred American medical students.

Former Reagan National Security Council aide Oliver L. North, now a talk show host, leads the fun-filled weeklong "unique commemorative event," sponsored by North's nonprofit Freedom Alliance. It leaves from San Juan, Puerto Rico, and includes stops in Aruba, Venezuela, Dominica and St. Thomas.

It looks to be nonstop partying with such celebrity passengers as former attorney general Edwin Meese III, National Rifle Association executive vice president Wayne LaPierre and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.). Top cabins, running $5,759 for a single, not including airfare to San Juan, were reportedly gobbled up.

North, a former Marine who modestly claims but a "small role" in the invasion, is leading a private tour of Grenada.

Meanwhile, just to show that the Grenadans appreciated our help, they reestablished relations with Cuba in the 1990s: Fidel Castro visited in 1998 and the countries exchanged ambassadors last year for the first time in 20 years.

During the invasion, Cubans were helping to build the airport. A few years back, Cuban engineers were back in Grenada helping to design a national stadium.

She Must Get a Good Deal on Multiple Prints

Folks at the National Transportation Safety Board should be eagerly awaiting the arrival of Ellen G. Engleman, now administrator of the Department of Transportation's Research and Special Program Administration, who's been nominated to chair the NTSB.

One of the fine innovations at RSPA this last year was a newsletter called "RSPA Results" It's naturally a wonderfully upbeat 12-page quarterly bulletin that the NTSB would do well to emulate.

The first issue had five pictures of Engleman doing important things. The second had five photos of her -- including a twofer of her giving a speech before an image of herself on a large screen. The third issue only had three, but the most recent Winter 2002-2003 edition, probably her last, had a whopping 12 photos of the administrator.

Well, they won't forget what she looked like. The FBI Won't Be Looking for Him

Might be best to keep the calendar clear for March 31. A Texas man has filed a civil rights lawsuit against a prominent Washingtonian, according to the legal notices section last week in The Washington Post.

"You are hereby commanded to appear" or file a response by 10 a.m. on the 31st "before the Honorable Robert J. Vargas, at the courthouse in Corpus Christi," the notice says.

And the defendant? A certain John Edgar Hoover. If he shows, let's hope Vargas takes a picture. If he doesn't show, "a default judgment may be taken against you," the notice warns.

Hmmm . . . The least of his problems.