AUT: ABC News Analyst Advocates Brutality

[Sean Fenley <satellitecrash@xxxxxxxxx>]

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Subject:      [FAIR-L] ACTION ALERT: ABC News Analyst Advocates Brutality
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                                 FAIR-L
                    Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting
               Media analysis, critiques and news reports





ACTION ALERT:
ABC News Analyst Advocates Brutality
Report condemned by Amnesty International

November 21, 2000

ABC News Middle East analyst and military expert Anthony Cordesman published
a report last month advocating the use of "excessive force" against
Palestinian civilians, including "interrogation methods that border on
psychological and/or physical torture." The report was released by the
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), an influential
Washington think tank where Cordesman holds a chair in international
security.

Amnesty International has condemned Cordesman's report as a "dangerously
irresponsible contribution to the escalating violence in Israel and the
Palestinian Authority" that risks "legitimizing torture." Cordesman's CSIS
report urged the Israeli government and the Palestinian National Authority
to use security methods that violate human rights in order to implement any
future U.S.-brokered peace agreement.

CSIS's Middle East task force, which Cordesman co-directs, includes
prominent American policymakers such as Sen. Joseph Lieberman and Sen. John
McCain. According to the London Independent (11/6/00), copies of the report
have been circulating among senior U.S., Israeli and Palestinian Authority
officials.

Cordesman has been a prominent military analyst for ABC News for over ten
years, frequently appearing on-air to provide analysis of military and
Middle East issues. During last year's NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, he was
often invited to comment on NATO's military strategy.

In a section of his report entitled "Peace and Security as the Natural
Enemies of Human Rights," Cordesman lays out his recommendations: "There
will be no future peace or stable peace process," he wrote, "if the
Palestinian security forces do not act ruthlessly and effectively."

Specifically, he notes that "effective counter-terrorism relies on
interrogation methods that border on psychological and/or physical torture,
arrests and detentions that are 'arbitrary' by the standards of civil law,
break-ins and intelligence operations that violate the normal rights of
privacy, levels of violence in making arrests that are unacceptable in civil
cases, and measures that involve the innocent (or at least not provably
directly guilty) in arrests and penalties."

As a model for the Palestinian Authority, Cordesman holds up the British
forces in Northern Ireland, who often "used excessive force, abused human
rights, and used extreme interrogation methods and torture" but who
nevertheless "did an excellent job of balancing the conflicting problems of
effective security and a concern for human rights."

Marty Rosenbluth, Israel/Occupied Territories coordinator for Amnesty
International USA, told FAIR: "I've been doing human rights work for almost
20 years and this is one of the most bizarre documents I've ever seen. It's
basically a blueprint for human rights violations that [the authors] want
the Palestinian Authority to follow."

ACTION: Please write to ABC and ask them whether they believe it is
appropriate to use someone who explicitly advocates the violation of human
rights as an ABC military analyst.

CONTACT:
ABC News
47 W. 66th Street
New York, NY 10023
Phone: 212-456-7777
Fax: 212-456-4297
mailto:netaudr@xxxxxxx

As always, please remember that your comments are taken more seriously if
you maintain a polite tone. Please cc fair@xxxxxxxx with your
correspondence.


Read Amnesty International's statement on Cordesman's report at
http://www.amnesty-usa.org/news/2000/israel11172000.html

Read Cordesman's report:
http://www.csis.org/stratassessment/reports/IsraelPalestine.pdf

                               ----------

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