"From: William O. Beeman

Sent: Wed 8/8/2007 3:22 PM

To: letters@nytimes.com

Subject: U.S. Says Bomb Suppled by Iran Kills Troops in Iraq

To the Editor:

Re: "U.S. Says Bomb Suppled by Iran Kills Troops in Iraq" by Michael R. Gordon, August 8, 2007

It is increasingly suspicious that every time the United States has begun a diplomatic initiative with Iran--the latest on August 6, some United States military official in Iraq comes forward to accuse Iran of supplying weapons to attack U.S. troops. Perhaps it is coincidence, but the reporter rendering these accusations for the public seems always to be Michael R. Gordon. These military reports and the Times reportage seem timed to undermine these diplomatic talks. Following the historic May 28 talks between Iran and the United States in Baghdad, the Iranian government called for a second round of talks. As negotiations for this second round were underway General Kevin Bergner provided a briefing on precisely the issue of the IED's covered in the August 8 article by Mr. Gordon. Mr. Gordon's last reportage of General Kevin J. Bergner's account of these Iranian attacks ("U.S. Ties Iran to Deadly Iraq Attack" July 2, 2007) was a textbook case in hype. Mr. Gordon significantly enhanced General Bergner's already specious and exaggerated statements to make the Iranian government appear even more culpable than the evidence in the press conference would warrant. Although Mr. Gordon's August 8 reporting on Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno's account of essentially the same phenomenon does acknowledge that critics of the Bush administration assert that there is no proof of Iranian state involvement in supplying the IED devices, the article is riddled with innuendo accusatory of Iran, such as identifying "Iranian-backed cells" as if they existed as verified definable entities, and they had been proved to have ties to Iran. Mr. Gordon's piece appears on page 1 of the Times above the fold (as did his July 2 piece) thus increasing the hype factor. The Times should save its partisanship for the editorial pages, and not conscience it in its reporting.

Sincerely,

William O. Beeman Professor and Chair Department of Anthropology University of Minnesota Minneapolis, MN 55455

President, Middle East Section, American Anthropological Association"

(emphasis added)

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Perhaps it's time for more people to start publically taking Gordon and his employer to task for this type of shoddy and partisan "journalism".

The address (above) is letters@nytimes.com.

I'm sure they'll appreciate the attention.

of radically new perspectives and voices on both foreign and domestic policy, but the Samantha Powers memo was not that, it just seemed to be a defense from one of his employees.

And of course the strongest allegiance of much of Serious Guy establishment is to support for Israeli right wingers. Good article on this by Chris Hedges over at Truthdig: see "Declaration of Independence from Israel." -- sorry we can't do links here. This is very detrimental to having a real, US-based understanding of our country's place in the world.

"The problem with total war, any conflict really, is that even though there are some mutually agreed upon rules or guidelines for legal conduct there are no referees to enforce them. They are self-imposed or enforced after the fact by the victor which is an incentive for actors to not follow the rules to begin with."

It would appear that this administration believes the same rules apply to its conduct.

Are they at war with us, the people of the United States?

“The things they (soldiers) carry within can kill or make one stronger. RMP, and other who identify with a vicarious and pure desire to understand are warriors or heroes, in my legal lay-person, opinion.”

You have the true insight that only a warrior who has experienced the real horrors of war can possess. As you know, I fortunately have not had to undergo that drenching of my soul.

I’ve always thought that the only true warriors are those who treasure life not those who trash it and glory in the power of burying others. I heard an interview with the sergeant who released the photos of the Abu Ghraib travesties. When he was en-route home to help his loved ones who were being harassed and threatened because this brave young man understood what it meant to be a true warrior and attack those who were despoiling our uniforms and country, he was approached by an Air Force three-star general. The general told him that he had met many famous people and high-ranking officers, but that this real war hero was the one that he had wanted to greet the most.

In the dishonor that our nation’s present leaders have done to our integrity and honor, we should never forget that there are mostly honorable men and women who serve our military. In fact, that sergeant said that 95% of his comrades shook his hand and congratulated him on his decision to show the deplorable lack of integrity and respect for humanity that embodied most of our civilian and some military leaders.

I think both of us in our way want all who enter our world to know the sanctity and wonder of life and we refuse to let those who don’t have the personal strength to admit that, besmirch our honor.

Let us also take note of the bizarre fact that the Rules of Seriousness seem to allow someone to run around talking about attacking, invading, and bombing everyone except for the people who actually attacked us on 9/11

The various places where I've seen criticism of Obama's staements they've always suggested that to speak publicly about such things is harmful to Musharraf in his effort to not offend the militant Muslims who occupy his country.

The last time I checked the word for that was called appeasement! Instead of an epithet, it has now become a badge of honor among all the serious types.

One might also note, Glenn, that these "scholars in residence" at the various thinktanks, policy institutes, research centers and all the other infrastructure of the rapidly expanding technocratic pseudo-scholarly community which produces what passes for "serious thought" in Washington DC these days rarely extend the same consideration that they demand for themselves as "scholars" to actual scholars working and writing in the larger academic community.

In fact, they often heap scorn upon the professoriate for being out of touch, beholden to their subjects or subject area, prone to insidious forms of criticism and theory that keeps them from being Very Serious (which basically in short means short-circuiting critical thought and accepting the CW of the elite), anti-American, obtuse, idealistic, and so and so forth. Just look at the beating that Juan Cole - a (non-ironic) serious scholar of the Middle East - has taken over the years despite the fact that he was right about nearly everything, and his critics were almost universally wrong. The way in which Cole and other scholars of Islam, the Middle East, the military (i.e. Andrew Bacevich), and colonialism and imperialism were dismissed was precisely in the language that they were "mere" scholars who could not hope to understand larger issues of policy and so on.

I find this doubly ironic because the much-vaunted think tankers are not subject to the same intellectual checks and balances as academics in the larger world. I won't pretend that the tenure system is some utopian system that perfectly regulates the academic world. Any number of frauds and pseudo-scholars have been able to rise to positions of prominence though connections and groupthink. But the tenure system - and other modes of academic governance - are far more rigid than those that prevail in the world of thinktankery.

The denizens of think tanks etc. are rarely subject to serious peer review. Often their writings are simply peer-reviewed by other members of their own think tank, who if not necessarily friends, can be expected to hold similar ideas. I would love to see a think tanker attempt to publish their work in one of the peer reviewed specialist journals.

They are not expected to have any command of languages, or to know the language used by those they study. So few speak or read Arabic, or Chinese, or Persian, or even Spanish.

They are not expected to have the deep contextual knowledge that frames their arguments. Their knowledge is frequently narrow and ideologically filtered.

They are also not expected to reflect on the problems of scholarship, epistemology, evidence, discipline and other forms of self-reflective criticism necessary to situate one's own work in the longer history of one's discipline.

Much of think tank writing references works which are often, themselves, already secondary works. They almost never have to do actual archival research or fieldwork. Most of what they write is third-generation meta commentary on the works of more gifted scholars, or a glorified fisking of others' works to support their already-formulated policy prescriptions (in this it is much like Roy Edroso and Brad Reed's take on conservative "art criticism.")

Finally, they do not need to go through tenure review which, despite right-wing canards to the contrary, is a fairly rigid procedure that has a better track record of weeding out frauds and phonies than the rules that seem to govern the think tank world.

In short, think tank "scholars" demand the kind of deference that they very rarely extend to actual scholars working in mainline academic settings.

But I suppose pointing out the hypocrisy of the Very Serious is hardly an original observation. After all, Glenn, day in and day out you do the unglorious work of exposing our Wise Men for the fools they really are.

Just thought I, a resident of the world of academics, would toss on this additional observation on the "thinking" of the "think" tanks.