Is China A Target of Global Sponsered Terrorism?

The recent news about what to do with the Uighurs held at Guantanamo for the past 7 years has been less than honest. The Uighurs are portrayed as not being "combatants" and not being terrorists. However, what is not said is that it has been determined that they did not target the US, but were training in camps near Tora Bora for the purpose of "fighting" China.



{{{But Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism expert in Singapore, believes that Uighur separatists pose more of a threat than U.S. authorities realize."It is true that they came to Afghanistan primarily to fight China, but they have been radicalized by their exposure to international terror groups," Gunaratna said. "The global jihadists very much have China in their sights."They feel that they've defeated the Soviet Union, they are defeating the United States, and next they will go after the dragon: China."}}}
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-uighurs-gitmo18-2009feb18,0,7460936.story

Another problem with the news about this issue is these 17 detainees are referred to as Uighurs and not as members of the ETIM. Since the attacks on the World Trade center on 9/11, both China and the US have listed ETIM as a terrorist organization. They have taken credit for violent acts in China, including the burning of the bus in Shanghai, as well as numerous bombings. The US put this group on the list because some of its "members" did target American interests in other countries in Central Asia.
http://www.cfr.org/publication/9179/

One wonders why anyone would claim that there are no Uighurs with Al Qeada.
{{{During the reign of the Taliban in Afghanistan prior to the US invasion in 2001, the 055 Brigade served as "the shock troops of the Taliban and functioned as an integral part of the latter's military apparatus," al Qaeda expert Rohan Gunaratna wrote in Inside al Qaeda. At its peak in 2001, the 055 Brigade had an estimated 2,000 soldiers and officers in the ranks. The brigade was comprised of Arabs, Central Asians, and South Asians, as well as Chechens, Bosnians, and Uighurs from Western China.

The 055 Brigade has "completely reformed and is surpassing pre-2001 standards," an official said. The other brigades are also considered well trained.}}}
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/02/al_qaedas_paramilita.php


Another question is why the US refuses to return these 17 to China.
Some advocates claim that China would torture them. Huh? Unlike the US? But, the fact is, China has developed a political solution to the Al qeada exported violence that poses a threat in China.

{{{After an initial period of repression, China has used political means to keep the insurgency in Xinjiang to a remarkably low level. Beyond simply killing or capturing suspected insurgents, China has created a path for young Uighurs - one achieved through participation in the system rather than fighting it. China's proactive approach, reshaping society from the bottom up, has been so successful that much of the current debate centers on whether China really confronts a serious threat of terrorism in Xinjiang. }}}
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/IB27Ad01.html

Perhaps the US should take a lesson from China and apply it to their actiona in Afghanistan and Pakistan?

Mainstream Media Biased Propaganda Machine

Well, it looks like China does not have a monopoly on complaints of Mainstream Media, MSM, biased reports spreading propaganda. This past week there is a host of stories about that problem. Today John Hanna writing for AP followed up on their video with a news report "AP CEO urges better press access to military ops" stating...

{The Bush administration turned the U.S. military into a global propaganda machine while imposing tough restrictions on journalists seeking to give the public truthful reports about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Associated Press chief executive Tom Curley said Friday.

Curley, speaking to journalists at the University of Kansas, said the news industry must immediately negotiate a new set of rules for covering war because "we are the only force out there to keep the government in check and to hold it accountable."

Much like in Vietnam, "civilian policymakers and soldiers alike have cracked down on independent reporting from the battlefield" when the news has been unflattering, Curley said. "Top commanders have told me that if I stood and the AP stood by its journalistic principles, the AP and I would be ruined."}

Those are strong words. But it is not just AP and China that is raising concerns. Ordinary citizens are now taking issue with the US version of MSM, and in this letter Natalie Parke points out what the real problem is when we do not know what is writen is "propaganda."

From today's Wall Street Journal Asia.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123369519812844679.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Xinhua Is Influenced by Politics, But So Are Other News Outlets

{Nicholas Bequelin's warning of the pending international expansion of China's state-run news agency, ("China's New Propaganda Machine," op-ed, Jan. 30) might've had a more startling impact if he hadn't made the overstated contrast between Chinese state-run media and other, "free, unbiased media that informs rather than misleads." This naïvely mischaracterizes other media as being uninfluenced by political -- and, more significantly, commercial -- factors.

Interestingly, I find that agencies like Xinhua have some of the most reliable, timely information about poorly covered regions like Sub-Saharan Africa, even while I concur that their presented image of China is skewed. In his critique of state-owned media's depiction of China, Mr. Bequelin fails to acknowledge their contribution as an alternative source of international news.

As we saw recently with the BBC's controversial stance on coverage of Gaza, even media content that isn't state-controlled is subject to the views of its readers and patrons. Perhaps the greatest difference between Chinese state-owned media and other media is that the former openly acknowledge their bias while the latter claim to be "fair and balanced."}

Natalie Parke

And the Center For Media and Democracy , PR Watch.org posted this on Monday,

Debating the Ban on Domestic Propaganda

{In the United States, public diplomacy's legislative history also involves propaganda. The Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, which provided a legal framework for public diplomacy activities, forbids the government from disseminating within the United States information intended for foreign audiences. Other legislation, such as appropriation bills, theoretically reinforces the ban on using taxpayer money for "publicity or propaganda purposes." (The ban on domestic propaganda can't be considered more than theoretical, unfortunately, because there's no mechanism to enforce it, as Sheldon Rampton and I noted previously.)}

For most people, though, what they read in the newspapers, or hear on "CNN" they believe. This becomes a problem when those who have been properly informed, and have done their homework, are subjected to name calling. In fact, that is why I started this blog, because I am sick and tired of being called a "pinky commie fink," or being accused of being braineashed by "The Chinese Government." So, bullying, threats, as noted in the AP article, and censure, all become part of the "cover-up." But why do we need a cover-up? If no one was killed in Tiananmen, what harm is their to US security to say so? If Israel is violating UN orders, what harm is there in reporting that> If Georgia struck first, and not Russia, don't I, as a US Citizen, have a right to know that? After all, who runs this country, anyway?

So, it's not just the Bush bashers who complain, here is a view from the right....

Mainstream Media Becomes Pure Propaganda, Is Bias, Dishonest

http://thebulletin.us/articles/2009/02/02/herb_denenberg/doc4986ed2b953b4687757554.txt

{The news is no longer news. It’s propaganda. It’s cheerleading for the new administration. It’s bull-roar. It’s false, fraudulent and biased. I’m talking about the major purveyors of news, the so-called mainstream media. I’m talking about The New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Washington Post, ABC, CBS, MSNC, NBC, CNN, NPR, PBS, Time, Newsweek and all the rest.

The mainstream media has descended to the level of Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler’s propaganda minister and Pravda, best known as the propaganda organ of the Communist Party. But this development in the mainstream media has critically important implications not only for the mainstream media, but also for the nation and its citizens.

The mainstream media has not only defrauded and cheated its customers by its biased, dishonest and unprincipled advocacy journalism designed to elect Barack Obama and promote his administration but also have severely undermined our Constitution and our country. That’s one of the key conclusions of Bernard Goldberg’s new book A Slobbering Love Affair: The True (and Pathetic) Story of the Torrid Romance Between Barack Obama and the Mainstream Media.}

Then we have this from the U of Wisconsin-Oshkosh...

Israeli propaganda, media lobbies and the problem of fair reporting

http://www.advancetitan.com/?se=Opinion&s=7412

{Seven public relations strategies have been described by the documentary, “Peace Propaganda and the Promised Land” on how the media is influenced by Israeli lobbyists and public relations firms. The seven strategies briefly stated are: hidden occupation; invisible colonization; violence as a vacuum; defining who is newsworthy; myth of U.S. neutrality; myth of the generous offer; marginalized voices.

The strategies in the documentary describe how the U.S. media gets influenced to omit, skew, and overlook reporting on the Palestinian side of the ongoing Israel-Palestinian conflicts. As a journalist, I wondered how much this sort of lobbying might affect me as an editor, especially as the three-week war unfolded over our winter break.)

What we are seeing here is a pattern. It is not just the lies the media made up about Tiananmen, and the violent riots in Lahsa, it is not just the skewed info about the nature of the Israli/Palestinian conflict, it is not just the US Pentagon turning our "free press" into a lurid propaganda machine, it is our willingness to turn a blind eye, and a deaf ear to the true facts. We just seem to swallow it whole, without chewing it over. No consideration, no questioning, just lapping it up as though it were not mind poison.

Now, I have said it before, and I will say it again, I am all for a "free press," but what about the "People's Right to Know?"

Rumours of my isolation have been greatly exagerated

One China! We love China! We love Wen Jiabao!

While most folk's attention is rivited on the three tax cheats Obama "nominated" for positions in his new government of Change, wispers and rumours against have risin up again. Perhaps this was inevitable, or perhaps Geitner's silly comments about the Yuan fuled anti Chinese sentiment, after Obama's unfortunate remarks about communism and "transparancy" in his inaugaration speech.

Let's take a look at these recurring "rumors."

First, the rumour that China persecutes Christians and that the Chinese cannot buy a Bibla in China. Please see what this blogger has to say about that...

http://thechinabeat.blogspot.com/2009/01/bible-for-beijing.html

A Bible For Beijing

By Pierre Fuller

A few weeks ago my mother learned at her Greenwich, Conn., church that, beyond church grounds, Bibles cannot be purchased in the People’s Republic. Her informant was a man from the Bible Society of Singapore who gave an evening talk on the state of Christianity in China at my parents’ mainstream Protestant parish. My mother soon asked her son in Beijing, me, about this fact over the phone and I couldn’t say either way: a Chinese-language Bible was not something I’d been actively looking for yet I could have sworn I’d spotted one in a shop a while back when living in China’s Northwest. Then again, that was a long decade ago. I am clearly no expert on the subject.

Then on a recent morning in a basement bookstore in the National Library in Beijing a volume with a black binding and gold lettering caught my eye. I pulled it off the shelf. In no shape to identify the Chinese word for “Genesis” or for “Psalms”, I checked the volume’s opening passage: “Shen shuo: ‘Yao you guang’, jiu you le guang,” it read. God said: “Let there be light,” and there was light.

I was holding a Bible.

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We’d just been in the surrounding countryside filming quaint rural scenes but also the homes of residents, some very poor. That meant there were videotapes all over the house. But the authorities didn’t even ask about that possibility. Some six hours at the precinct followed, many cigarettes passed around. The end decision was that we were to return with the offending tape (yes, we were allowed to take it home with us) the following business day. We did so, and sitting in a room with a plainclothes officer we ran through the content on a TV: the church service wasn’t deemed objectionable; the humble interior of a “peasant” abode? That had to go.

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As for my new Chinese Bible, it’d be a challenge for me to get through it, so maybe I’ll pass it on to a curious friend. Which brings me back to the Bible Society and its talk-China tour: It’s easy to get sloppy when you’re preaching to the choir. But if tracking Bibles is your business, at least get the facts straight.

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I was a college student back in 1990s. By some chance I got interested in Christianism and Bible. And also by some chance which I cannot remember now, I got the telephone number of a Christian organization in Beijing called "Hai Dian Tang". I called them and told them that I was interested in knowing Bible and asked if I could buy a bible from them. They immediately responded that they could offer TWO Bibles to me,and,, for FREE! That's a strange but good experience. A few days latter I got them nice and perfect by mail. I still don't know if I could buy Bible easily in bookstores since I never tried. But I am sure if you 'want' to have one, it's defenitely not as difficult as portrayed by someone whom I also encountered here in Europe.

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I've bought a bible in China and seen them often. In both Xinhua Bookstores and private stores.
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Then there is the rumour that the (evil pinky commie Chinese Government) censors the news, because they do not want the Chinese people to rise up and kill off the CCP. Gosh, darn. China censors the news? Like the jewish dominated White Stream Media (MSM) in the US doies not? Please. But, just to make a point, there have been, since March 10, 2008, repeted claims of Chinese censoring the news that have been disproven!

Now, today, the headlines scream that Chine has sensored the news about the shoe. But, wait, is it really true? In fact, China, like many other governments, like to assess a situation first, and then have a "press release." Here we have an AP story, reluctantly reporting, and with unusual candor, (pun certainly intended) that yes, China is reporting the news to the Chinese people.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iC0lWaABkp1FcBZSBb-sJNsWvMOQD9648AQO2

With unusual candor, China reports shoe throwing

Still, incidents that could be seen as unflattering or insulting to the Chinese leadership have long been treated with the greatest sensitivity. The first Chinese reports on the protest during Wen's visit to Britain's Cambridge University left out key details, including that a shoe had been thrown.

But the China Central Television broadcast had it all. The evening news showed the footage among the first stories of its half-hour broadcast, leading into it with a report on Wen's speech itself and his return to Beijing.

Then the shoe-throwing footage was shown, with no commentary from the anchors, just a simple news setup.

The camera was fixed on Wen, but later cut to the whistle-blowing protester being removed from the hall, while the audience shouted "Get out."

"How can this university prostitute itself with this dictator here? How can you listen ... to him unchallenged?" the man — who has yet to be identified — could be heard shouting.

The sound of the shoe hitting the stage, away from Wen, could be heard as well.

Wen paused for about one minute and then continued his speech.

"Teachers and students, this kind of dirty trick cannot stop the friendship between the Chinese and the British people," Wen said, followed by applause.

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In an apparent move to show national dignity had been maintained, reports by CCTV and the official Xinhua News Agency included prominent references to Britain apologizing.

The BBC reported the 27-year-old protester would appear before magistrates on Feb. 10 in Cambridge on charges of committing a public order offense.

China's online activity — with 298 million Web users — makes it increasingly tough for censors to keep sensitive news, like the shoe throwing, offline. Media watchers say that may be prompting official media to report on other news it would have suppressed before, such as riots and protests.

But the expanded coverage may also reflect a recognition by propaganda authorities that showing such events can work to the government's advantage.

Two incidents last year were given wide state media coverage: Attacks on the Olympic torch overseas before its journey to Beijing, and the devastating earthquake in Sichuan province.

The torch attacks sparked an outpouring of angry nationalism among Chinese at home and abroad. The second brought a wave of compassion and assistance for the quake victims.

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I would like to note, that unlike the beating the Iraqi show thrower recieved, in public in front of president Bush, no such public beating took place in front of Premier Wen Jiabao.

Soon, China should engage a super PR firm to deal with these rumour mongers, and the western MSM spin masters.