hijab@cad.UUCP (Raif Hijab) (04/28/86)
In article <2545@decwrl.DEC.COM>, williams@kirk.DEC (John Williams 223-3402) writes: > > I would like to remind the West Germans that the US has the > most accurate news reporting in the world. It was through the free > press that the US was able to eliminate the Nixon threat. The reporting is accurate most of the time. However, this does not take into consideration the news items that do NOT get reported, or the items that get buried in page 37 with miniature headings, or the heavily slanted editorials and op-ed pages. In television and radio it is a lot worse, where Nielsens dictate two minute coverage of complex issues, and where pressure groups determine who gets their views heard. On many issues, in-depth analysis is nonexistent. Built-in bias often creates a stampede mentality that does not allow cool heads to express reasoned conclusions. Then there is the issue of censorship, suttle and indirect, sometimes self-imposed and at other times resulting from pressures from the administration or effective pressure groups. An example of this censorship was described by Alexander Cockburn in his Village Voice column, of when New York Times editors struck the word "indiscriminate" from foreign correspondent Thomas Friedman's August 3, 1982 report on the Israeli bombing of Beirut. Friedman sent a lengthy telex expressing his outrage, I am an extremely cautios reporter. I do not exagerate... You knew I was correct and that the word was backed up by what I had reported. But you did not have the courage -guts- to print it in the New York Times. You were afraid to tell our readers and those who might complain to you that the Israelis are capable of indiscriminately shelling an entire city. Alexander Cockburn's "pro-Arab" sympathies caused him to lose his Village Voice job. He currently writes for The Nation magazine.
jablow@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (Eric Robert Jablow) (04/28/86)
In article <228@cad.UUCP> hijab@cad.UUCP (Raif Hijab) writes: > > (miscellaneous material) > > >Alexander Cockburn's "pro-Arab" sympathies caused him to lose his >Village Voice job. He currently writes for The Nation magazine. Alexander Cockburn was not fired for his "sympathies". He was fired because he took money from an Arab academic/lobbying organization while he was writing pro-Arab articles for the Voice. This is unethical behavior because it leaves the impression that he will write anything in favor of a group if that group pays him for it. It violated well-known canons of journalism. Mr. Cockburn is an arrogant man. He feels that if the cause is just he is prohibited nothing. Now, Cockburn is quick to jump on other journalists when they perform similar unethical acts. For example, he crowed when the NY Daily News fired George Will after he wrote a speech for Reagan and then analyzed it on an ABC show, but he is not objective enough to look at his own actions critically. He also has some strange ideas and prejudices. For example, he panned Jonathan Schell's *The Fate of the Earth* because it appeared in *The New Yorker* and *The New Yorker* is a "snob magazine". After that every baseball fan on the VV staff went after Cockburn with a Louieville Slugger. Respectfully, Eric Robert Jablow MSRI ucbvax!brahms!jablow
brian@sequent.UUCP (Brian Godfrey) (05/01/86)
> Now, I am not going to say that the Reagan Administration does >not have problems. I am not entirely sure why we went into the Gulf >in the first place. Defending a twelve mile limit has no strategic >advantage to the US. Not true. Without the twelve mile limit many important waters become closed. Waters such as the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and the English Channel would cease to be freely navigable if surrounding countries decided to claim a wider coastal authority. >West Germans do not want another Hitler much the same way the US >does not want another Nixon. Probably in a worse way. --Brian
hijab@cad.UUCP (Raif Hijab) (05/06/86)
In article <1953@sequent.UUCP>, brian@sequent.UUCP (Brian Godfrey) writes: > > Now, I am not going to say that the Reagan Administration does > >not have problems. I am not entirely sure why we went into the Gulf > >in the first place. Defending a twelve mile limit has no strategic > >advantage to the US. > > Not true. Without the twelve mile limit many important waters become > closed. Waters such as the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and the English > Channel would cease to be freely navigable if surrounding countries > decided to claim a wider coastal authority. Wrong Mr. Godfrey. The straits of Hormuz (entrance to the Persian Gulf) and Bab el-Mandeb (entrance to the Red Sea) have widths of less than 24 nautical miles (including mid-channel islands) and are therefore entirely owned by the adjacent states: Iran and Oman control Hormuz; Yemen and Djibouti control Bab el-Mandeb. They allow commercial shipping, but could technically block them in case of war. The Suez Canal, which constitutes the other entrance to the Red Sea, is man-made and entirely owned by Egypt. Another example, the strait of Gibraltar, is barely twelve miles wide at its narrowest, and lies entirely in the jurisdiction of Morocco and Spain. Also, the strait of Dover in the English Channel is less than 24 miles at its narrowest, making it completely in the jurisdiction of France and the United Kingdom. Other examples: Most of the Gulf of Aqaba is in Egyptian and Saudi Arabian territorial waters. Greece claims the entire Agean Sea. Turkey owns the sea of Marmara, which seperates the Agean from the Black sea. Denmark and Sweden can block off the Baltic. I am sure others on the net can provide additional examples.
dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady) (05/08/86)
In article <278@cad.UUCP> hijab@cad.UUCP (Raif Hijab) writes: [quoting another posting] >> Not true. Without the twelve mile limit many important waters become >> closed. Waters such as the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and the English >> Channel would cease to be freely navigable if surrounding countries >> decided to claim a wider coastal authority. > >Wrong Mr. Godfrey. The straits of Hormuz (entrance to the Persian >Gulf) and Bab el-Mandeb (entrance to the Red Sea) have widths of >less than 24 nautical miles (including mid-channel islands) and >are therefore entirely owned by the adjacent states: Iran and Oman >control Hormuz; Yemen and Djibouti control Bab el-Mandeb. They >allow commercial shipping, but could technically block them in case >of war. Close, but not entirely correct. Straits are a special case in international law and nations are obligated to allow free peaceful navigation through them, of both warships and merchant vessels. This does not apply in wartime, but for that matter it is legal in war to deny an enemy's navigation rights on the high seas (the Atlantic Ocean, for instance, which to my knowledge no one has claimed -- yet :-). By the way, the US claims only a three-mile territorial limit for itself, but recognises a 12-mile limit for nations asserting one. It's hard to be more reasonable than that, but there's just no pleasing some people... -- D Gary Grady Duke U Comp Center, Durham, NC 27706 (919) 684-3695 USENET: {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary