The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them

354 Pages·2004·5.15 MB·English

by  Amy Goodman

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Bill Clinton called her ‘hostile, combative,
and even disrespectful’. Newt Gingrich told
her it was because of ‘people like you’ that
he warned his mother not to speak to report-
ers. The Indonesian military banned her,
calling her a ‘threat to national security’.
AAmmyy GGooooddmmaann is an internationally acclaimed journalist. She has
won some ofthe most prestigious awards in journalism, including
the George Polk Award, and the Robert F. Kennedy Prize for
International Reporting. She is host of the influential show
Democracy Now!which is broadcast on over 200 radio and TV
stations in the US and around the world and is a leading voice in a
growing grassroots movement.
DDaavviidd GGooooddmmaann, Amy’s brother, is an award-winning independent
journalist whose articles have appeared in The Washington Post,
Mother Jonesand other publications. He is author of five books,
including Fault Lines: Journeys into the New South Africa.
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EXCEPTION
T H E TO THE
RULERS
Exposing
America’s War
Profiteers, the
Media that Love
Them and the
Crackdown on
Our Rights
Amy Goodman
David Goodman
with
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Ariel Dorfman, “Lessons of a Catastrophe,” The Nation, September 29, 2003.
Reprinted with permission of the author.
“Another Nameless Prostitute Says the Man Is Innocent” reprinted with permission of
Martin Espada.
Excerpt from “Patriot Raid” by Jason Halperin reprinted with permission of the author.
Reprint of the statement on East Timor, as read on Democracy Now!on September 20,
1999, by Allan Nairn, reprinted with permission of Allan Nairn.
Samuel Gardiner, “Truth from These Podia,” Self-published October 8, 2003. Website:
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/politics/whispers/documents/truth.pdf. Used with permis-
sion of the author.
First published in Australia and New Zealand in 2004
Copyright © Amy Goodman and David Goodman 2004
Originally published in North America by Hyperion
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any
information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the
publisher. The Australian Copyright Acy 1968(the Act) allows a maximum of one
chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any
educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational
institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright
Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.
Allen &Unwin
83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.allenandunwin.com
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Goodman, Amy, 1957–.
The exception to the rulers: exposing America’s war profiteers, the media that love
them and the crackdown on our rights.
ISBN 1 74114 530 9.
1. Goodman, Amy, 1957–. 2. Political corruption–United States.
3. Mass media–Political aspects–United States. 4. Journalism–Political
aspects–United States. 5. Journalists–United States–Biography.
6. Profiteering–United States. 7. Iraq War, 2003. 8. United States–
Politics and government–2001–. I. Goodman, David, 1959–. II. Title.
973.931
Printed by McPherson’s Printing Group, Maryborough, Victoria
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Contents
Introduction: The Silenced Majority 1
1. Blowback 13
2. OILYgarchy 41
3. Drilling and Killing:
Chevron and Nigeria’s Oil Dictatorship 70
4. Crackdown 82
5. Smackdown 103
6. Lockdown 126
7. Lies of Our Times 137
8. State Media, American Style 150
9. In Bed with the Military 169
10. Killing the Messenger 181
11. Sanitized 197
12. Going to Where the Silence Is 216
13. Not on Bended Knee 237
14. Psyops Comes Home 251
15. Things Get Messy with Sally Jessy 278
16. Hiroshima Cover-up: How the War Department’s
Timesman Won a Pulitzer 293
17. The People’s Airwaves 302
18. Conclusion: Free the Media 310
Notes 319
Index 337
Acknowledgments 343
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To our Parents,
George (1928–1998)
and
Dorothy Goodman
Who taught us to listen
To learn
To laugh
To love
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Introduction
The Silenced Majority
THE TROOPS MARCHED SLOWLY up the road, their U.S.-
made M-16s in the ready position. It was November 12, 1991, a
day that would forever be seared into my memory, and into history.
I was in Dili, the capital of East Timor, a small island nation 300
miles north ofAustralia. East Timor had been brutally occupied by
Indonesian troops for sixteen years, since they invaded in 1975.
The Indonesian military had sealed off East Timor from the out-
side world and turned it into their private killing field. A third of
the population—200,000 Timorese—had died. It was one of the
worst genocides ofthe late twentieth century.
I had just attended mass at the main church in Dili with Allan
Nairn, journalist and activist, then writing for The New Yorker
magazine. After the service, thousands marched toward the Santa
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2 THE EXCEPTION TO THE RULERS
Cruz cemetery to remember Sebastião Gomes, yet another young
man killed by Indonesian soldiers. The people came from all over:
workplaces, homes, villages, and farms. They traveled through a
geography of pain: In almost every other building, Timorese had
been held or tortured, disappeared or killed. Whether it was a
police station or a military barracks, a hotel or an officer’s house,
no place was beyond reach ofthe terror. Not even the church was
safe. It was about 8 a.m. when we reached the cemetery.
We had asked people along the way: “Why are you marching?
Why are you risking your lives to do this?”
“I’m doing it for my mother,” one replied. “I’m doing it for my
father,” said another. “I’m doing it for freedom.”
In the distance, we heard an eerie, synchronized beat. Sud-
denly we saw them. Many hundreds of Indonesian troops coming
up the road, twelve to fifteen abreast. People grew very quiet.
We knew the Indonesian military had committed many mas-
sacres in the past, but never in front of Western journalists. Allan
suggested we walk to the front ofthe crowd, hoping that our pres-
ence could head offwhat looked like an impending attack. I put on
my headphones, took out my tape recorder—I usually kept these
hidden so as not to endanger Timorese caught talking to us—and
held up my microphone like a flag. Allan put his camera above his
head, and we went and stood in the middle of the road, about fif-
teen yards in front ofthe crowd. By visibly showing the tools ofour
trade, we hoped to alert the troops that this time they were being
watched.
A hush fell over the Timorese. Those in the back could run,
but the thousands ofpeople in front were trapped by the cemetery
walls that lined both sides of the road. The main sound was the
rhythmic thump ofboots hitting the road as the troops marched in
unison toward the people. Children whispered behind us. Then,
without any warning or provocation, the soldiers rounded the
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THE SILENCED MAJORITY 3
corner, swept past us, raised their U.S.-made weapons, and opened
fire.
People were ripped apart. The troops just kept shooting, mov-
ing their guns from left to right, killing anyone still standing.
A group of soldiers surrounded me. They started to shake my
microphone in my face as if to say, This is what we don’t want.
Then they slammed me to the ground with their rifle buttsand
started to kick me with their boots. I gasped for breath. Allan
threw himselfon top ofme to protect me from further injury.
The soldiers wielded their M-16s like baseball bats. They
slammed them against Allan’s head until they fractured his skull. For
a moment, Allan lay in the road in spasm, covered in blood, unable to
move. Suddenly, about a dozen soldiers lined up like a firing squad.
They put the guns to our heads and screamed, “Politik! Politik!”
They were accusing us ofbeing involved in politics, a crime clearly
punishable by death. They also demanded, “Australia? Australia?”
We understood what was at stake with this question. In Octo-
ber 1975, Indonesian soldiers had executed five Australia-based
television journalists in an attempt to cover up a military incursion
leading up to the December 7, 1975, invasion of East Timor. On
December 8, Australian journalist Roger East, the only other
Western reporter left in East Timor, was dragged out ofa radio sta-
tion in Dili down to the harbor and shot.
Almost exactly sixteen years later, as Allan and I lay on the
ground surrounded by Indonesian soldiers, we shouted, “No, we’re
from America!” They had stripped us ofour possessions, but I still
had my passport. I threw it at them. When I regained my breath, I
said again, “We’re from America! America!”
Finally, the soldiers lowered their guns from our heads. We
think it was because we were from the same country their weapons
were from. They would have to pay a price for killing us that they
never had to pay for killing Timorese.