That Which Is Less Discussed

I was listening to David Sirota on Thom Hartmann for a little bit today, and Sirota made a great point, that what the media chooses NOT to report is often as much proof of subjectivity as what they choose to put on the front page. It's the sin of omission, and it's amazing how regular that sin is employed to protect the rich and confuse their motives.

For example, take the case of George Tenet. He's out there pushing a book which claims that there was no substantive debate leading up to the war in Iraq, that the architects of the war were ready to go in within days of 9-11, and that it was wrong to scapegoat the intelligence for what essentially was a political failure of unnecessarily hyping WMDs. To the extent that Tenet's motives for writing the book are discussed, and his willingness to come forward now instead of during the run-up to war when it would have counted, we hear about collecting a fat payday from his publisher, or his weak kowtowing to power, or maybe that setting the record straight is valuable. What we don't hear too much about is the fact that the war itself was financially profitable for him.

While the swirl of publicity around his book has focused on his long debated role in allowing flawed intelligence to launch the war in Iraq, nobody is talking about his lucrative connection to that conflict ever since he resigned from the CIA in June 2004. In fact, Tenet has been earning substantial income by working for corporations that provide the U.S. government with technology, equipment and personnel used for the war in Iraq as well as the broader war on terror.

Tenet sits on the board of directors of L-1 Identity Solutions, a major supplier of biometric identification software used by the U.S. to monitor terrorists and insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. The company recently acquired two of the CIA's hottest contractors for its growing intelligence outsourcing business. At the Analysis Corp. (TAC), a government contractor run by one of Tenet's closest former advisors at the CIA, Tenet is a member of an advisory board that is helping TAC expand its thriving business designing the problematic terrorist watch lists used by the National Counterterrorism Center and the State Department.

Tenet is also a director of Guidance Software, which makes forensic software used by U.S. law enforcement and intelligence to search computer hard drives and laptops for evidence used in the prosecution and tracking of suspected terrorists. And Tenet is the only American director on the board of QinetiQ, the British defense research firm that was privatized in 2003 and was, until recently, controlled by the Carlyle Group, the powerful Washington-based private equity fund. Fueled with Carlyle money, QinetiQ acquired four U.S. companies in recent years, including an intelligence contractor, Analex Inc.

This never gets discussed on any of the talk shows on which Tenet has appeared. But surely he knew that he could board the defense/intelligence merry go-round after he left the CIA and reap untold fortunes.

Here's another example. A couple years back we heard a whole lot of chatter about this "UN oil-for-food" scandal, where Saddam Hussein was gaming the international community by bribing people and doing business outside the system to enrich his government's coffers. It was obvious then that the biggest malefactors in that scandal were corporations who ignored the UN guidelines and did business with the dictator while allowing him to get kickbacks worth up to $1.8 billion dollars. That was less remarked upon, even to this day:

Chevron, the second-largest American oil company, is preparing to acknowledge that it should have known kickbacks were being paid to Saddam Hussein on oil it bought from Iraq as part of a defunct United Nations program, according to investigators.

The admission is part of a settlement being negotiated with United States prosecutors and includes fines totaling $25 million to $30 million, according to the investigators, who declined to be identified because the settlement was not yet public.

The penalty, which is still being negotiated, would be the largest so far in the United States in connection with investigations of companies involved in the oil-for-food scandal.

At the time, who sat on the board of directors for Chevron? The same person that has a Chevron oil tanker named after her.

According to the Volcker report, surcharges on Iraqi oil exports were introduced in August 2000 by the Iraqi state oil company, the State Oil Marketing Organization. At the time, Condoleezza Rice, now secretary of state, was a member of Chevron’s board and led its public policy committee, which oversaw areas of potential political concerns for the company.

Ms. Rice resigned from Chevron’s board on Jan. 16, 2001, after being named national security advisor by President Bush.

These are the types of things that don't make the headlines. They would inform the public about decisions that are made affecting their lives and the lives of their families. But they're never at the top of the page. You hear about Fred Thompson but not that he's a career lobbyist. You hear about Condi Rice but not that she was on the board that allowed Saddam Hussein to enrich himself. You hear about George Tenet but not that he's making a mint off the Iraq war. You hear about the surge but not about the covert action that the US and the Saudis are sponsoring inside Iran, a cooperative effort against Shiite power maintained by the same strain of Wahhabist Sunnis that attacked us on 9-11.

These sins of omissions are debilitating to the public interest of making decisions about our future. Fortunately there's the Internet, so these sins are harder to hide these days. But as long as conglomerates run the traditional news, this is going to happen. And it's also a powerful argument for ensuring a free and open Internet that cannot be restricted for content of ability to pay off wealthy telecom companies.