>Rumsfeld Zeros in on the Internet
>
>By Mike Whitney
>02/24/06
>
>http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12060.htm
>
>Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was warmly greeted at the recent
>meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations. The CFR is the
>hand-picked assemblage of western elites from big-energy, corporate
>media, high-finance and the weapons industry. These are the 4,000 or
>so members of the American ruling class who determine the shape of
>policy and ensure that the management of the global economic system
>remains in the hands of U.S. bluebloods.
The CFR is far from a hostile crowd, but it wasn't as warm as this says. Here are some of the questions Rummy was asked <http://cfr.org/publication/9900/new_realities_in_the_media_age.html>:
>QUESTIONER: Esther Newberg, ICM. Mr. Secretary, Don Imus has been
>trying to raise $10 million this week to build a hospital in New
>Mexico to help kids coming back without arms and limbs from Iraq and
>Afghanistan. My question is, you've asked the government, I think,
>for $65 billion more dollars-the Congress. Isn't our first
>obligation, sir, to take care of these children that are fighting
>the war for all of us old people sitting in this room and all over
>America?
>QUESTIONER: Thank you. Toby Gati, Akin Gump. Mr. Secretary, you-
>RUMSFELD: I couldn't understand you. I'm sorry.
>QUESTIONER: Toby Gati, Akin Gump.
>RUMSFELD: Oh, Bob Strauss's outfit.
>QUESTIONER: Yes. Yes. In your closing comments, you said something
>very important, that free people exposed to information will make
>the right decision. And I know you were calling for foreigners to
>get more information, mainly from us. But in case after case, we are
>hearing from the administration the need to keep information from
>the American public, whether-and all of it in the name of national
>security, whether it's our right to know through expanded
>congressional hearings, or executive privilege, or the idea that an
>average citizen who hears classified information will be subject to
>U.S. laws from disseminating that-and I speak as being a former
>assistant secretary for Intelligence and Research, so I know what
>that means.
>And it just-I just wonder if-don't you think it would be nice if we
>weren't always talking about the need to make our debates less
>inclusive, get less information for our own people when we talk to
>foreigners, because if foreigners get their own television, they
>also hear what we're saying to our own people, and it seems that
>we're really not trusting our own people the way you're saying we
>should trust foreigners with the truth.
>QUESTIONER: Thank you. Mr. Secretary, Andrea Mitchell from NBC News.
>RUMSFELD: You're kidding. (Laughter.)
>QUESTIONER: Yes, sir. Last night, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said
>that he believes based partly on this latest report from a panel to
>the United Nations that the human rights abuses that were alleged at
>Guantanamo were severe enough that Guantanamo should be closed as
>soon as possible. And I'm wondering if you can respond to that.
>I know the administration has said that the people doing the report
>never got to Guantanamo, but it was, they claim, because they were
>told they could not do any interviews if they did go there. So I'm
>wondering, what do you see as the timetable, if any, for dealing
>with Guantanamo and for moving people into a state where they either
>prosecuted or released, as Mr. Annan suggested they should be?
>QUESTIONER: Raghida Dergham (ph) of Al-Hayat. My question is about
>Iran, but I want to follow up on Guantanamo. Those people did not
>get there, sir, because you did not allow them to have interviews
>with the detainees in Guantanamo. And we have our friends, such as
>Blair and others, telling us, close down that facility. So since
>this is a war of manipulation of the media and we've been in the
>media reduced in this speech to simply pawns in this war of
>manipulation, I'd like that follow-up.
>But on Iran, sir-
>RUMSFELD: What was the question?
>QUESTIONER: The question is that why didn't you allow them to
>interview the detainees? That was the condition. You said to them,
>no, you cannot interview them.
>QUESTIONER: I'm Carroll Bogert from Human Rights Watch. (Laughter.)
>You want to wrestle, Mr. Secretary? (Laughter.)
>RUMSFELD: I thought this was the Council on Foreign Relations! (Laughter.)
>QUESTIONER: It is.
>QUESTIONER: You bet it is.
>RUMSFELD: (Laughs.)
>QUESTIONER: There have been many panels and commissions that have
>looked into the question of abuse of detainees in U.S. custody.
>RUMSFELD: Right.
>QUESTIONER: But not one of them has really been independent of the
>Pentagon. All but one of them have been led by military officers who
>weren't authorized to go above their rank, and the Schlesinger Group
>drew significantly from a military advisory group that's associated
>with the Pentagon. And as you know, there is substantial
>dissatisfaction among U.S. servicemembers that responsibility for
>this abuse is being pinned, frankly, as you just did in your speech,
>on lower-ranking servicemembers.