Media Monitors Network - Mobile Edition

"Democracies mostly pay lip service to the idea of democracy, while they surreptitiously support dictatorships for their interests, as in the case of Burma. It is time that the citizens of democracies should expose such nefarious deals. The world super-powers have consistently worked to weaken the UN for their own purposes, as we have seen in the case of the Iraq invasion. It is time to strengthen the UN and other international organizations, so that an above-board united action can be taken against the governments that kill and torture their own citizens and invade and torture others."

"Even Burmese dissident groups criticized the timing of the administration’s rhetorical onslaught against the junta--declaring that it made getting rapid relief to the desperately needy that much more difficult."

"Divide in order to conquer policy that had been used to split Palestinians into Hamas and Fatah combatant rivals has also been used to split Lebanese into Western backed anti-Syrian pro-government loyalists led by the March 14th Alliance vs. government oppositional parties led mainly by Hezbollah, and to create Lebanon’s political crisis. The Western media tried to portray the crisis as Sunni vs. Shi’a religious conflict even though there are Sunni, Shi’a and Christians on both sides."

"What Pakistan is suffering today is the direct result of Musharraf’s policies. Perhaps never before in its history has Pakistan been so vulnerable."

"Turning to the United States, after seven years of doing precious little about the conflict and nearly five years of responsibility for a roadmap to nowhere, the Bush administration convened the Annapolis conference five months ago to re-launch that roadmap more energetically."

"Terror generally kills innocent people, something no decent-minded person can accept, but what is always forgotten in the press and government treatment of terror as something alien and unimaginably bad is that war in the contemporary world does precisely the same thing."

"The American international structure carefully built up after World War II is beginning to crumble, although it is not always obvious yet since good appearances are carefully maintained. A prime example is the crumbling of NATO. The grass is still kept well-trimmed at headquarters, but America’s insistence on making unnatural demands on this alliance, such as those it has made in Afghanistan, are surely destroying what was once a powerful international organization."

"If Israel had spent half the resources it has spent on war over the last fifty years instead on helping its neighbors and building up their economies, the region would be a far better place today. And if Israel had been willing to make reasonable concessions to the needs of others in the region, there might well be lasting peace today."

"For the United States, the broader goal is to strangle the axis of Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria and Iran, which the Bush administration believes is pooling resources to change the strategic playing field in the Middle East..."

"...1979, the year that international terrorism found a new incarnation through consolidation of converging interests and the “war on terror" was conceived. (Its conception was necessarily followed by a process of maturation: first applied to the Cold War and in rhetoric within limited theaters, such as the Palestine-Israel situation; second in the post-Cold War formulation of a “war on terror” plan during the 1990s; and third in its implementation after 9-11.)"

"The media pretense of being a fly on the wall has often been preposterous. In the real world of politics -- where power brokers and manipulators proceed with the cynical axiom that perception is reality -- the fly on the wall is the wall. The political press corps is not observing reality as much as redefining it while obstructing outlooks and constraining public perceptions."

"A bold idea comes to mind. Let's make a trade. Arab journalists can be brought to the United States to cover the White House, Congress and political campaigns. Here they can expand their freedom and perfect their craft. At the same time, we'll send the U.S. "pack" journalists to the Arab world, where they can learn to fight for the freedom they now enjoy but do not exercise."

"What is interesting here is that, while the continued negativity of this campaign will weaken the eventual Democratic nominee, the Republicans' presumptive nominee, John McCain, has had the field to himself. McCain had emerged from the Republican contest wounded by the internal divisions in that party. He has made a determined effort to win the support of party leaders, and in this he has been successful. His problems remain, however, on the fringes of the party, where libertarian and religious conservative elements are threatening either to boycott or to run independent candidates for the presidency in November."

"Support of a candidate does not -- or at least should not -- mean silence about disagreement. There shouldn’t be any abatement of advocacy for progressive positions, whether opposition to nuclear power plants, insistence on complete withdrawal of the U.S. military and mercenaries from Iraq, or activism for a universal single-payer healthcare system."

"The bottom line here is that this absurdity, born of the media's obsession and the Clinton campaign's desperation, is accomplishing little but delaying the inevitable while causing as much damage as possible."

"Democracies mostly pay lip service to the idea of democracy, while they surreptitiously support dictatorships for their interests, as in the case of Burma. It is time that the citizens of democracies should expose such nefarious deals. The world super-powers have consistently worked to weaken the UN for their own purposes, as we have seen in the case of the Iraq invasion. It is time to strengthen the UN and other international organizations, so that an above-board united action can be taken against the governments that kill and torture their own citizens and invade and torture others."

"Even Burmese dissident groups criticized the timing of the administration’s rhetorical onslaught against the junta--declaring that it made getting rapid relief to the desperately needy that much more difficult."

"Divide in order to conquer policy that had been used to split Palestinians into Hamas and Fatah combatant rivals has also been used to split Lebanese into Western backed anti-Syrian pro-government loyalists led by the March 14th Alliance vs. government oppositional parties led mainly by Hezbollah, and to create Lebanon’s political crisis. The Western media tried to portray the crisis as Sunni vs. Shi’a religious conflict even though there are Sunni, Shi’a and Christians on both sides."

"What Pakistan is suffering today is the direct result of Musharraf’s policies. Perhaps never before in its history has Pakistan been so vulnerable."

"Turning to the United States, after seven years of doing precious little about the conflict and nearly five years of responsibility for a roadmap to nowhere, the Bush administration convened the Annapolis conference five months ago to re-launch that roadmap more energetically."

"History before Islam was a jumble of conjectures, myths and rumors."

"The bottom line is that terrorism is always wrong. There can be no provocation to justify attacks on innocent civilians. Retaliation, revenge, or pre-emption are not legitimate excuses. Who carried out the first act is not important. Most often the religious affiliation of the perpetrator is not important except in their own warped minds."

"Logic seeks truth and opinions cherish propaganda. If the CBC was serious to represent the truth, it could have arranged a meeting with Momin at the Detention Center rather than crossing over the North Atlantic channel to ask people who had no knowledge of Momin, nor of the issues raised in the officially mandated inquiry, probably paid out of the budgeted 10 billion sanctioned to the National Safety and Security Services."

"His clamor for “change” in Islamic societies is equally over simplified and emotionally charged. In fact by displaying his frustration over the slow pace of “changes”, Mills sounds no different from the likes of notorious Orientalist Scholars bent on “modernizing” Islam."

"Contrary to allegations in the Newsweek piece, women in Islam are not inferior to men."