While the sixth season of the fashion reality show “Project Runway” is fast-approaching its climax, it’s become a running joke in my house that the show’s host, German supermodel Heidi Klum, would have made a good Nazi.

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It’s an unfair comparison, to be sure, but the choice of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed German as host of this particular show was, for my sensibilities, an unfortunate one. It might not be so bad if Klum didn’t deliver these life-changing decisions with so much glee. Granted, no Nazi ever kissed a Jew on both cheeks after sending him or her to certain death, but most of the time Klum administers those kisses with as much feeling as a robot, and enunciates the words “you’re out” in tones that could send a frisson down the spine of even the most detached observer.

Aryan supermodel Heidi Klum with her husband

That’s from the Forward, one of the less berserk purveyors of reliably pro-Israel commentary in America. The author, Rebecca Honig Friedman, concludes the piece with a dash of ha ha, this mannequin’s probably not going to commit genocide, but I was stunned to find such weird prejudice and paranoia in a relatively vanilla venue. If the Forward’s contributors and readers are this terrified of the “entertainment” industry, then what are we to make of their views on Iran, the Palestinians, and – brace yourselves for the frisson – Mearsheimer and Walt?

The take-home passage:

James Childs, a master electrician hired by the Army to review electrical work in Iraq during 2008, testified that KBR’s work in Iraq was the “most hazardous, worst quality work” he’d ever seen. He said his investigation found improper wiring in “every” building KBR wired in Iraq (of which there are thousands) and that KBR’s rewiring work in buildings that were previously safely wired resulted in the electrical system becoming unsafe. Childs said that KBR did not do any work “according to code.” He also testified that the same risks exist in Afghanistan, which he recently visited. “While doing inspections in Afghanistan, I found the exact same code violations,” Childs said.

For its part, KBR denies any culpability for the electrocution deaths.

Scahill quotes a former military official once in charge of such contracts, saying the bonuses were paid out of fear KBR would cease work, that they became  “too big to fail.” That’s a big reason why hearings like these — as informative and cathartic they are — never result in any real action. Behemoths like KBR  have too many friends in Washington, and  have become utterly indispensable to Long War operations in the two-front theater.

The corporate war industry — first conceived by Republicans, long acquiesced to by Democrats — now full in its glory. These lawmakers, now twisted in frustration over electrocuted soldiers, have no one to blame but themselves.

But when it comes to serious stuff — preemptive war, torture, spying on Americans without warrant, the upending of the U.S constitution — these mainstream mavens (who are ever-so-fond of waxing nostalgic about their weaning during the Woodward & Bernstein glory years of the 70’s)  quickly “close ranks” and reframe the context of these stories to ensure the teeniest impact possible on the status quo. This typically means protecting their establishment friends in government, not rattling the corporate sponsors, and skittering off  to perceivably more ratings-grabbing news, like what really happened to Anna Nicole Smith, and what are the ladies on The View dishing about today? This is all done of course, in that gratingly condescending way (think and picture Chris Matthews)  that has all the subtle effect of nails filing down on a chalkboard.

The worst is when they completely ignore stories that put their “profession” in the most garish of lights, those little slivers of truth that peek out from time to time thanks to real reporters in the business. David Barstow won a Pulitzer Prize this week for his expose on the media using generals planted by the Pentagon to sell the war , but I bet most Americans haven’t heard of “message force multipliers” and wouldn’t know why they should care, since the story never made it to the nightly news.

As for the current torture scandal, of which we have hardly heard the full extent, Glenn Greenwald has an excellent analysis on his site today regarding the corporate media’s complicity in playing down the story throughout the Bush years and its ongoing attempts to frame it in the most self-serving way possible. A taste:

For years, media stars ignored the fact that our Government was chronically breaking the law and systematically torturing detainees (look at this extremely detailed exposé by The Washington Post’s Dana Priest and Barton Gellman from December, 2002 to get a sense for how much we’ve known about all of this and for how long we’ve known it).  Now that the sheer criminality of this conduct, really for the first time, has exploded into mainstream political debates as a result of the OLC memos, media stars are forced to address it.  Exactly as one would expect, they are closing ranks, demanding (as always) that their big powerful political-official-friends and their elite institutions not be subject to the dirty instruments that are meant only for the masses — things like the rule of law, investigations, prosecutions, and accountability when they abuse their power.

Read more here.

Somehow it is difficult to see how Web 2.0 will alleviate a problem being caused by non-digital occupiers. Perhaps Google and Twitter engineers should be sent to Gaza next? Then Iran, North Korea and Somalia.

Eureka! I think the State Department has finally solved the Gulf of Aden piracy conundrum, send in MeetUp and WordPress pronto.

Alas, you can’t fool KMOV St. Louis, Channel 4. They know an enemy of the state when they see one; one of the bumper stickers they prominently featured marking an American citizen as some sort of potential terrorist was from….Antiwar.com. Yes, no one is as dangerous to the state as an advocate for peace.

See also: 2008-2009 Israel-Gaza Conflict
Media Eyeless in Gaza at Key Moment

“HuffPo” runs all kinds of commentary from all over the political spectrum (or at least its leftish side), but only those who dare speak against the sainted Israelis seem to require an editorial explanation that resembles an apology.

Shame on Huffington Post for its disgusting lack of integrity.

You can read the entire Dark Alliance series for the San Jose Mercury News here.

And get the book here.

A donor left this message in my Facebook Account,

Here’s an idea. We ask all our friends to switch their Facebook and Myspace profile images to the Anti-War.com logo on some upcoming anti-war day. Let’s say Thanksgiving day, so we can be thankful there aren’t even more wars.

At the same time, on the same day, we ask everyone to switch their profile status to just “Stop the wars.”

And, of course, if anyone asks, “which wars” the answer is “all of them.”

Instead of your head shot, please consider changing your avatar on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter on Thanksgiving Day to an Antiwar.com logo.

I know I’m thankful for all you champions of peace. Please email me at akeaton@antiwar.com for images and logos.

Peace,

Angela

Hat tip to Antiwar.com reader George Donnelly.

While my story is based on the reports already out there publicly, CNN sites all sorts of “sources”. Both articles say much the same thing, but what strikes me is the dramatically different tone.

On 9/11/07, General Petraeus predicted the troop level would be down to 130,000 by this summer. In April of this year, the AP said the pause would leave over 100,000 troops in Iraq by the time President Bush leaves office. The reality is that 146,000 troops are still there, and the Pentagon is urging the President to keep them there until he is out of office. Then, and only then, they suggest that 7,500 troops could be pulled out of Iraq, and most of them would end up in Afghanistan. These are the facts as I presented then this morning. Here is what CNN said:

The top U.S. general in Iraq is recommending nearly 8,000 troop cuts in Iraq because of the improving situation there, a source close to the process has told CNN.

Nowhere is it mentioned that what they’re actually proposing is a several-month-long further delay of already planned troop cuts. And what is the deal with “because of the improving situation there” featuring so prominently in the opening paragraph? What sense does that make? The situation has improved so much that a year later we still can’t reduce troops to the pre-surge level the General in charge predicted a year ago when he said the surge had accomplished all its goals? Can someone explain that to me?

For instance, one of the recent headlines that continues to run across the network tickers is Barack Obama’s visit to Europe and the Middle East — to boost his foreign policy credentials.

Exactly how does visiting heads-of-state, for mere hours, boost ones credentials?  Remember, these are the same officials that never drive themselves, use their own Blackberry’s or ride the very public transportation that they champion at election time — let alone breath the same air as hoi polloi.

In fact, I have spent the last year living and working in Korea and Taiwan yet I wouldn’t consider myself an expert on anything but the ability to find the nearest washroom (and McDonalds).

Thus, what about the foreign policy credentials of backpackers, retirees, businessmen and other expats who at least lived with and regularly dialogued with the local taxpayers?   If Obama or McCain visited a nuclear power plant for an hour, do they receive a engineering bump and are now capable of  designing reactor cores?  Dare one relish the day when the politicos visit a brain surgeon or OBGYN?

See also: The Rise of the Imperial Class