KPFA Management pushing and selling Neo-liberal point of view to raise funds! What next?

I was shocked to hear this on our air and now it is going to be run again??? All it does is complain about not handling the occupation properly!! It doesn't deal with the real issue, that we should never have invaded!!! And its focus clearly implies that if we had done it right it would have been OK!!!
Below is a review of this film. There were many others from a neo-liberal point of view congratulating the film maker for exposing all the problems. I remember one part I heard Tuesday morning where they talked about how the State Department had done so much work in developing an understanding of how to occupy and win the locals over and the Defense Department ignored it all. The message is "if we had only done it right"

If you can accept the analogy of our invasion having "raped" Iraq then this movie is the equivalent of some social scientists discussing how you could rape a person and not do too much harm to their wrists and ankles where you put the restraints and how to properly enter so as not to do much internal damage. IF SOMEONE PUT OUT SUCH A FILM WOULD WE AIR IT, PRAISE IT AND SELL IT?? REPEATEDLY??? Rape is WRONG no matter how it is done, the same as an INVASION and OCCUPATION is wrong no matter how done!!!!

SECTION 3. PRINCIPLES (from our Bylaws, or as our IGM calls them, your Bylaws)

"The Foundation is committed to peace and social justice, and seeks to involve in its governance and operations individuals committed to these principles."

It seems to me that this movie has nothing to do with peace or social justice, it is just a film about one group of imperialists trashing another group as incompetent. What does that have to do with our Mission when the movie doesn't support the view that we should never have invaded and occupied. That is what peace and social justice activists are saying, not that we did it wrong. WE WERE WRONG TO DO IT!!! End of story!!
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No End in Sight
Filed under: Film, Iraq — louisproyect @ 3:28 pm

Last Monday night I made the mistake of attending a press screening for “No End in Sight,” a documentary about the war in Iraq. Expecting a hard-hitting denunciation of U.S. foreign policy, I was instead treated to 102 minutes of people like Richard Armitage, Samantha Power and George Packer explaining why things turned sour. All in all, I felt like I was watching the PBS News Hour but without even the token appearance of a leftist like Juan Cole.



Director Charles Ferguson, upset over blunders in Iraq

The movie is just another example of the “what went wrong” mentality that occurs when an imperialist invasion fails to achieve its stated goals. After Vietnam proved to be unwinnable, “peace politicians” began to speechify about the “tragedy.” If LBJ had been able to accomplish his goals, as he had in the Dominican Republic, there never would have been a peep out of them.

“No End in Sight” hardly goes into the criminality of the invasion, as do many inside-the-beltway studies like Thomas Ricks’s “Fiasco.” There is no hand-wringing over nonexistent WMD’s or alleged ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda. This is not to speak of the film’s utter refusal to even question American material interests in the region, including the desire to control oil. This obviously flows from the world view of director Charles Ferguson, who has a PhD in political science from MIT and who went on to consult for the White House and the Department of Defense. He is now a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. This is not exactly the sort of person who will even entertain the idea that the U.S. does not have a right to impose its will on other peoples. His main interest is in figuring out why such a project did not work so as to help the ruling class figure out how to do it better next time.

Drawing upon the dubious insights of General Jay Garner, the head of Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), who was eventually replaced by the infamous Paul Bremer, the film argues that there were three fundamental mistakes:

1. The U.S. failed to pull together a puppet (my word obviously) government in a timely fashion.

2. It decided to purge the bureaucracy of all Baath party members.

3. It dissolved the Iraqi army...."

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WHAT ARE WE DOING WITH OUR PRECIOUS AIR TIME????? WHO DECIDED TO AIR THIS PIECE OF GARBAGE DESIGNED TO DISTRACT FOLKS FROM THE REAL CRIME, INVADING A COUNTRY THAT HAD NOT ATTACKED US AND WAS NOT GOING TO ATTACK US AND WHO DIDN'T HAVE ANY WMD'S TO ATTACK US WITH AND WHO WAS NOT INVOLVED WITH BIN LADEN?? OH, EXCUSE ME, THEY HAVE ONE OF THE WORLDS LARGEST OIL RESERVES, I FORGOT, MY BAD. SO ITS OK? NO, NEVER!!!

Is this another example of our current management putting fund raising above our Mission???

Does our current management ever think about what are Mission means in terms of what should be on our air?? Don't you think that plenty of folks with the "No end in sight" mind set are getting corporate media air time, relative to the "We were wrong to invade and occupy." point of view. Isn't the "no end in sight" message what most candidates running for President are saying over and over again as the Dems did in 2004 "I will be able to do it better" How many are saying we were wrong to invade???

So why does this point of view need to be aired on KPFA/Pacifica air time, and more than once is adding insult to injury?????? Much less pushed as if it was deserving and our people should buy it????

Also, if our News didn't sound so much like this we would have many more paying listeners, IMHO.

What will they come up with next to raise money?? I wish they would try consistent progressive programming with the top programs on in prime time. What a novel idea. I guess we can't do that since that might mean some of management's allies might have to move their time or lose their time. And we all know the new Pacifica mentality is that a small group's power is more important than the Mission, democratic principles, transparency and accountability. The realization of this is making me sick, again.

Richard Phelps

P.S. Their usual practice is to come back with anonymous personal atttacks. They never seem to debate the issues?