By Patricia H. Kushlis
Why is it that America’s airwaves are consumed with the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, Hugh Hewitt, Michael Savage, Mark Davis and others spouting the tired right wing Israeli government/AIPAC ultra-hard line on Iran while the US military is trying to figure out how to eliminate or at least reduce the influence of their Taliban talk show opposite numbers in places like Pakistan’s SWAT valley?
Yes, this question is important and the two issues are related because if civil strife in Afghanistan and Pakistan is to be quelled, the Iranians can be far more helpful than the Israelis ever could, and Iran is certainly not going to do so if either the US or the Israelis rain bombs down on their country or impose - or threaten to impose - a stepped up short-fused sanctions regime.
National security not appeasement issue
This is not an issue of appeasement – it is foremost an issue of US national security including the security of Americans – those in military uniform and those in Bermuda shorts – both at home and abroad. Countries must negotiate with their adversaries to settle differences; they less often need to do so with their friends. In this instance, the Israelis and their AIPAC enablers would do us all a favor by sitting down and keeping quiet for a change.
This is also just one reason the “attack Iran short-fuse policy” goes against the policies of the Obama administration. In truth, “attack Iran soon” also turned out not to be the policy of the previous administration despite the Iran-baiting ravings of its supporters in America’s ultra-right wing which – throughout W’s tenure - the US military kept at bay.
Rewriting military information operations
As the military rewrites its information operations manual for the first time since 2003 re-evaluating and restructuring the template of how it conducts its communications activities overseas particularly in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the issue of how best to counter the “hundreds of radio programs, distribution of audio cassettes and deliverance of night letters” by the Taliban to cow the local population is of major concern.
Where does Freedom of Speech end and National Security begin?
Yes, I understand and support the US Constitution’s First Amendment and I believe in the importance of free speech. But I have to wonder whether the American right wing’s anti-Iranian, anti-Islamic rants on talk radio and television don’t somehow stoke the flames of the vituperative nightly “un-Islamic activities” radio broadcasts by Taliban radio talk show hosts like Pakistan’s “Radio Mullah” aka Maulana Qazi Fazlullah.
The US government including the military and the Obama administration, therefore, should perhaps be as concerned about the near monopoly of the AM band by this country’s extreme right as about the release of the controversial secret prison photos showing GIs abusing Iraqi and Afghani prisoners prior to 2004. Both have far reaching national security implications that extend far beyond our borders and the partisan slug fest currently aided and abetted by none other than former Vice President Dick Cheney.
What alternative radio?
There are still no talk radio alternatives on the lonely roads and in the smaller towns in the rural areas of this country and not everyone has immediate access to the Internet. California’s Sierra Nevadas Red Belt, for instance, is a case in point. The only radio alternative, I understand, is NPR on the FM dial and not all cars and trucks receive FM.
Unfortunately NPR, if I remember correctly, has been shrinking for budgetary reasons – when the opposite should be the case. How right wing talk radio continues to rant and rave and keep its ranters and ravers living the life of Riley while major sponsor Clear Channel Communications is in deep financial trouble is another issue for another time.
OK. Such right wing anti-Iranian and anti-Islamic rants may be Constitutionally-protected, but shouting “fire” in a crowded theater is not. It seems to me that the talk show right wing may sometimes come as dangerously close to crossing that fine line in terms of this country’s national security as release of the controversial photos which the President has just blocked. For now. This case which surely will be decided by the Supreme Court.
At a bare minimum, rural America needs to have ready access to a far wider range of views than what’s currently available – none the least those that explain the basic reasons for the government’s policies which, in the case of Iran, are grounded in rock solid facts.
A little political diversity of views might do wonders in this nation's Red Belt – if those who live there could and would listen.