ABC-Sponsored teaching materials falsely suggest Iraq had WMD, link War in Iraq to 9/11
Using Scholastic, ABC Peddles False Information to School Kids Based on Flawed, Partisan "9-11 Docu-drama"
September 6, 2006 (Washington, DC) - Media Matters for America has found ABC is "generously sponsor[ing]" high school teaching materials in connection with its "docu-drama" the Path to 9/11 that leave out key information, resulting in a distorted account of pre-Iraq War WMD claims, and falsely link the war in Iraq to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
"By pushing material with misleading information to students of all ages, ABC and Scholastic are engaging in the worst kind of political propagandizing and misinformation campaign," said Media Matters President and CEO David Brock. "It appears they are actively seeking to misinform our children on recent historical events that have shaped our world. Such behavior from a major network like ABC is not only unprecedented; it is highly inappropriate and deeply troubling."
Scholastic Inc., which describes itself as "the global children's publishing, education and media company," is reaching out to more than 100,000 high school teachers around the country in an effort to publicize the ABC miniseries "The Path to 9-11." Scholastic is not only urging teachers to discuss and debate the events leading up to the terrorist attacks on September 11, but is also providing them with multiple "resource sheets" which contain misleading information about the Iraq war.
A Scholastic/ABC document titled "Student Resource Sheet 1" says of Iraq, "The dictatorial government of Saddam Hussein was overthrown in 2003, following an invasion led by the United States. The U.S. government believed that Hussein had been developing weapons of mass destruction that he planned to use against American and other targets."
The "Student Resource Sheet" omits any mention of two crucial facts: We now know Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction, and there is a voluminous and growing body of evidence that indicates that the Bush administration knew its claims about weapons of mass destruction were unsupported, as Media Matters has documented here, here, and here.
The "Student Resource Sheet" also seems to link the war in Iraq to the 9/11 terrorist attacks: "Following the terrorist attacks on September 11, the United States began a global "War on Terror" to stop terrorist groups and state-sponsored terrorism. President Bush has led the United States into Afghanistan and Iraq and reorganized the national government in an attempt to combat terrorist activity."
The controversial ABC miniseries "The Path to 9/11," is also under heavy criticism for pushing false, misleading and overtly political misinformation about the factors leading to the 9/11 attacks from officials closely tied with the 9/11 Commission Report and current and previous administrations.
Links to the Scholastic Resources:
Student Resource Sheet 1 (PDF)
Student Resource Sheet 2 (PDF)
The Path to 9/11, Part 1: Classroom Discussion & Debate (PDF)
The Path to 9/11, Part 2: Classroom Discussion & Debate (PDF)
This is probably the most disturbing post I've seen on MMFA. Advancing political disinformation in a classroom is just abhorrent. I have no problem with a teacher presenting facts, and even opinions within a classroom. This is flat out distortion, untruths, and half truths masquerading as fact in an attempt to influence future generations of voters??
zOMGs...
I can't believe I just heard a liberal complaining about misinformation being taught in a classroom. I don't think right-wing stuff should be taught either, but this is about as neutral a two sentence summary can be. It does say "believed" as in past tense. It would hardly be neutral if it said, "Oh, and Bush is a liar, don't ever trust the him." Or for good measure, it could have thrown in that 9/11 was an inside job, or that the Jews did it. Would that have been a bit better?
Is a Republican talking point. This is not a war, and it's not global. It's a regional police action against TERRORISTS. The only real war is the Civil War that Puddinhead George has created in Iraq.
So now it's just a regional scuffle that the local sheriff of the state police can solve? Wow. I didn't know that LAX, NYC, Madrid, London, Bali, Israel, and a host of other Western targets were "regional". And what police force has jurisdiction over this "region"?
The only thing worse than ginning up and fear mongering is minimzing and dismissing a threat. For far more lives are at risk with your evaluation.
Just trying to cut through the administration's overblown rhetoric. This is not a global war...WWII was a global war. Is it a global problem? Yes, but so is crime, disease, poverty and malnutrition. Is our military engaged all over the globe? No. Is the fighting regional? Yes, unless I missed the battles in Poland, Switzerland, Greenland, Norway, Australia, Canada....(Yes, I know terrorists can strike in those places, but we don't have troops engaged in combat there)
How were the plotters in England caught? POLICE WORK and INTELLIGENCE.
This conflict has more in common with the War on Drugs than it does WWII. We are fighting a network of people who want to kill other people, but they do not represent a state; they do not have a standing army; they will not engage in a standup fight against our tanks and fighter jets. They must be hunted down individually and in small groups, because that's how they operate. They must be ferreted out like criminals, because, like criminals, they hide amongst civilians. Brute force will be of limited use against these people.
The circle jerk in Iraq is a separate event. Our invasion has drawn some terrorists to the area...they can use it as a training ground. However, the civil war in Iraq contributes NOTHING to solving the global problem of terrorism... it has probably made it worse.
Only 9/11 and Bali were acts of Al-Qaeda. London and Madrid were the work of homegrown radicalized Muslims. Israel's skirmish with Hezbollah had to do with prisoners and israeli aggression in Gaza. hezbollah has made overtures for peace to israel, most recently in 2000. yet you decide to just lump these disparate elements into one big group called "terrorists", which shows just how little you know about them.
Israel and Bali are not western targets...
>>I can't believe I just heard a liberal complaining about misinformation being taught in a classroom.
And the rest of your post makes no sense, though you do produce a few good straw man arguments. Why don't you address the MMFA post?
Con man: "[T]his is about as neutral a two sentence summary can be.
Con man is 100 percent correct. MMFA is trying to make an issue out of nothing.
Has anybody looked at the rest of the material?
1. One sheet actually asks if stopping Millennium bomber-wannabe Ahmed Ressam at the Canadian border in 1999 was a case of racial profiling. Geesh. A very liberal-slanted question, if you ask me.
2. Another sheet lists the United States under "Key countries and Terms" like any other country - like Iraq and Iran. Nothing is said about Iran's brutal human-rights violations of ordinary citizens. Nothing is said of Saddam exterminating his own citizens.
There's nothing to MMFA's beef.
My 2 cents. Thank you.
MMFA's summary at the start of their post says "false information". What have they identified as flat-out false?
MMFA then quotes their own David Brock using the words "misleading information." Which is it? "False" or "misleading"? There's a big difference!
"Misleading" is often subjective (which I think this issue is). "False" is something different, and it's entirely objective.
Poor word choice by MMFA in using the word "false," but ...
That's my 2 cents. Thanks.
-The article doesn't mention that the allegations against Iraq were fraudulent and that Bush administration killed 100,000 Muslims and 2,600 Americans for reasons unbeknownst to anyone except neo-cons.
-The article doesn't mention anything about the Project for a New American Century: the blueprint for world domination brought to you by neo-cons who hold key positions in the Bush administration.
"1. One sheet actually asks if stopping Millennium bomber-wannabe Ahmed Ressam at the Canadian border in 1999 was a case of racial profiling. Geesh. A very liberal-slanted question, if you ask me."
I would call this a very conservative slanted question.Asking for an opinion on racial profiling based on the capture of a suspected terrorist using racial profiling- in other words, "Racial profiling was effective in capturing a criminal and saving lives.Maybe your mother's. How do you feel about racial profiling?"
See? They threw in a righty hot-button phrase,got you all riled up, and you saw liberal bias.
A "liberal-slanted" question would have been about an innocent middle-eastern person detained and baeten to death by police. Mega dittos!
---"There's nothing to MMFA's beef."---
Shoes89 is a troll who has been banned from this web site at least twice before. He signs up under new names even after being banned. He also runs the debunked conservative web site called "Franken Lies". Judge his credibility & honesty for yourself.
When kids are being taught lies and "wrong" history some action needs to be done. What is the basis for ABC to promote, help and advance lies about 9/11 and WMD?
Would you prefer they show "farenheit 9/11"?? That movie is certainly not tilted to any particular political leanings, huh? Did you liberal loonies complain about the lies and false information that came from THAT movie on the 9/11 attacks??
so much I'd think about Canada. But I got to stay and combat evil crap like this. What did Jefferson say about "eternal vigilance?" This is scary and indoctrinating kids. "conservative point of view" is Bushspeak for skewed and narrow world view. What the hell is going on here?
Get them young...brainwash them. Pump them full of government propaganda. We'll call them....The Bush Youth.
The "Student Resource Sheet" also seems to link the war in Iraq to the 9/11 terrorist attacks
sesms to?????
whatever makes your boat float. Sounded reasonable to me. But I guess if break down EVERY SINGLE WORD FOR WORD, you can just about interoperate anything you want to. Kind of like, the backwards recording on Stairway To Heaven
LOLOLOL
It seems to me that "seems to" is used to give Scholastic all due benefits of doubt. Would you have prefered that they used more definitive language? The passage quoted is fairly explicit in its attempt to connect 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq:
"Following the terrorist attacks on September 11, the United States began a global "War on Terror" to stop terrorist groups and state-sponsored terrorism. President Bush has led the United States into Afghanistan and Iraq and reorganized the national government in an attempt to combat terrorist activity."
and then turns around and says later i didn't say that. same thing here. this passage doesn't say what it says.
It is completely beyond my comprehension, why the Congressional minority doesn't stand up and fight for the American People, when it comes to the administration's (and the "media" that supports them) twisting of the events of 9-11, and for that matter Iraq, for their own political gain.
Just what is keeping that Congressional minority from calling for the declassification of the Joint Congressional Inquiry's Report on the attacks of September 11, 2001.
For those of you who may not know, let me state briefly: The ridiculous "9-11 Commission", which so worthlessly focused on things AFTER those attacks (such as response), was a "presidentially appointed Commission"...
On the other hand, the only investigation yet to be conducted by Congress (not the danged president!), is the aforementioned Joint Congressional Inquiry.
Formed by both the Senate's and the House's Intel Committees, that investigation took as it's scope much more than the "response" to those attacks, it took the hijackers themselves, and an investigation of them, as a part of it's scope.
What could be more important to knowing how and why 9-11 happened, than to investigate the very hijackers who murdered so many Americans that day, entering this country legally, with saudi passports and "express visas" from saudi arabia?
And so to my point: The JCI's Rport on those attacks reaches the conclusion that those hijackers were in fact both funded and directed by a foreign government...
Again, the attacks of September 11, 2001, according to Congress' own investigation, were funded and directed by a foreign government
...and that government wasn't Iraq!
And the president has suppressed the conclusions and findings of that Congressional Joint Inquiry, all twenty-eight pages of them...
And he keeps that all-important knowledge (of what foreign government was behind the attacks of 9-11) from the American People for more than three years now...
WHY CAN'T THE CONGRESSIONAL MINORITY, DEMOCRATS, CALL FOR THE DECLASSIFICATION OF THEIR OWN INVESTIGATION INTO 9-11?
LORD, so now we have ABC as the "authority" on "the path to 9-11", and all the while the findings of the JCI are kept from the American People, by the president...
...and for his "good friends" and business partners, the saudi "royals"...
Who murdered 3,000 Americans that day, and have not only not had to answer for it, but have instead assured their "good friend" and business partner, the president, two terms based on "terror" and "war", in addition to all the power he can usurp and the all the billions of dollars he can draw from the U.S. treasury, in the name of Iraq.
" And so to my point: The JCI's Rport on those attacks reaches the conclusion that those hijackers were in fact both funded and directed by a foreign government... Again, the attacks of September 11, 2001, according to Congress' own investigation, were funded and directed by a foreign government ...and that government wasn't Iraq! "
You should be part of MMFA's next headline! Talk about missinformation, you certainly claim to have great knowledge of what the investigation's conclusion is...so give the rest of us that don't have access to that classified information a clue on the "real" reason for 9/11. YOU claim in wasn't Iraq that funded the attacks, but YOU fail to tell us WHO DID do it. Why?? Tell us, oh great liberal mind, what country funded 9/11?? Tell us, oh great liberal mind, what is the conclusion of the investigation you are so privy to?
You know, the reason that democrats don't want the investigation declassified MAY be because it paints Clinton in a negative picture. After all, it WAS Clinton that allowed OBL to escape capture/death by his inaction when the bullseye was squarly on OBL. It only seems natural that the democratic faithful would NOT want this report made public until AFTER the next election. I mean what positive could come out of having the democrats suddenly become the "bad guy" when it is discovered that the democratic leadership is soley responsible for the attacks that happened on 9/11?
How is this any different from Kevin Barrett using every whacked-out, kooky, incredible, and downright ridiculous conspiracy theory BS to support his contention that we attacked ourselves? Liberal supporters of Barrett scream "freedom of speech!" -- so, why should this not be treated in the same manner?
I don't think Barrett is teaching his theories at high schools, is he?
they are slipping plenty of stuff that does not belong in our school books. It is unfortunate.
Like Evolution?
I live in 'cali' (which as someone who lives here is a dead give away that that poster is lying about that) and the 'unfortunate stuff' he means was the (failed) effort to include positive gay people and such 'evil' as that.
"they are slipping plenty of stuff that does not belong in our school books. It is unfortunate."
And as typical, no specifics. It's just a nice, vague accusation.
What difference is that?
Bottom line...there isn't and difference.
UoW approved Barrett's BS...I suppose high school boards would do the same of other "controversial" content...happens all the time.
I'm about as lib as it gets and I've never heard of him.
Wow...you are out of touch, it seems...
Just Google him...but here are some samples...
[link to en.wikipedia.org]
[link to www.unknownnews.org]
raises itself again, and we know how scarey it is to freedon-haters like you tommy-alt :)
In a later comment/response, you accuse Deeznuts (who was unfamiliar with the controversy surrounding Mr. Barret) of being out of touch. Well, perhaps he/she is – not remarkable considering that Barrett was a bugaboo of the right-wingers and O’Reilly crowd. But you’re just plain wrong when you compare the open dialogue promoted by Mr. Barrett in his one-semester college course to the inaccuracies, misinformation and distortions masquerading as a historical and factual docudrama that ABC is trying to foist on high school students across the country.
No one objected to Barrett’s course because he was promoting inaccuracies, distortions and misinformation as historical fact (as “The Path to 9/11" does). The complaint about his lesson plan concerned the inclusion of Barrett’s controversial viewpoint on why and how 9/11 came about. But the plan based student discussions about 9/11 on a number of readings from authors with varying viewpoints, not just Barrett’s. Further, while Barrett intended to present his “theory” explaining the events of 9/11, he also planned to actively encourage his students to challenge that theory. In other words, Barrett set the stage for college-age students fully capable of critical thinking to engage in an informed dialogue based on established facts, not lies and partisan propaganda. (See [link to www.news.wisc.edu]
---"How is this any different from Kevin Barrett?"---
... Maybe it's that Barrett was one teacher in one school, and that this so-called "documentary" is a multi-million dollar network television program broadcast nationally to tens of millions of viewers, for free, with accompanying materials distributed to thousands of school children. You think?
Molding that young clay to believe in things that simply aren't true...except in Cheney's or Rove's minds.
fyi:
There's a typo in the second 'graf [Brock's quote]. It reads:
Part of my e-mail to Scholastic today:
Roger Cressey: Then they got the big stuff wrong, this fantasy about how we had a CIA officer and the Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Massoud looking at Bin Laden and they breathlessly call the White House to say we need to take him out and the White House said no.
Via Think Progress: The actual history is quite different. According to the 9/11 Commission Report (pg. 199), then-CIA Director George Tenet had the authority from President Clinton to kill Bin Laden. Roger Cressy, former NSC director for counterterrorism, has written, “Mr. Clinton approved every request made of him by the CIA and the U.S. military involving using force against bin Laden and al-Qaeda.”
Thomas H. Kean: "I pointed out the fact that the scene involving Afghanistan and the attempt to get bin Laden is a composite," Mr. Kean said, adding that the miniseries format required some conflation of events. But, he said, "The basic fact is that on a number of occasions, they thought they might have been able to get bin Laden, and on those occasions, the plug was pulled for various reasons."
Mr. Kean conceded that some points might have been more drama than documentary. "Some of the people shown there probably weren’t there," he said.
"Critical Thinking Question" from Scholastic's 9/11 Discussion Guide: Why didn’t the United States provide assistance to General Massoud of the Northern Alliance to fight the Taliban? Why did U.S. officials ignore General Massoud’s warnings that bin Laden might strike?
--- There is no way that teachers with little time or students with little experience will be able to determine what is "drama," especially when Scholastic is not billing this as fiction or providing the necessary tools.
There are other carefully slanted distortions in those "teaching materials".
In the first student resource sheet, we find this rosy picture of post-9/11 Afghanistan:
"While coalition soldiers remain in Afghanistan, fighting pro-Taliban forces, the country continues to grow more independent and stable under the transitional democratic leadership."
In the first "classroom discussion and debate," we have this topic for discussion:
"...two U.S. embassies (Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania) are bombed in Africa...The Clinton administration responds with airstrikes against suspected bin Laden camps in Afghanistan and Sudan. ..
Did the US airstrikes help or hinder the war on terror? How does Osama bin Laden appear to the world after these bombings?"
Ah, yes, so again, we must debate whether Clinton's response to the embassy bombings caused 9/11! There aren't any comparable topics for debate about any of Bush's actions, such as, say, the invasion, under false pretenses, of a nation which had nothing to do with 9/11.
What has been used as "teaching material" over the years in classrooms be it History Textbooks OR encyclopedias has TOO often "glossed over" events OR omitted details altogether.
Go find a History textbook, or grab an encyclopedia [if you have either available] and [for example] read what they "teach" about the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The GLARING omission often is that Kennedy agreed to remove our missiles in Turkey once the Soviet Union dismantled those in Cuba.
You won't FIND that info [even after all these years] in MOST textbooks or reference books used as teaching material.
My point? Whether it's an omission or false "rosy" picture, we have to depend on Teachers to fill in the blanks or set the record straight. Hopefully MOST do.
It would be great IF that wasn't the case, BUT the reality unfortunately dictates that it is.
ABC has provided material that offers a very vanilla/simplified version of events with some discrepancies and omissions. Overall it is NOT completely useless as a guide or reference...it does however REQUIRE some further explanations and clarifications by the Teachers that plan to use it.
Are you actually arguing that we shouldn't bother to set the record straight, just because others before us haven't?
Why should we make teachers' job harder by giving them obviously biased course materials? There is a difference between condensing the details to make a story easier to tell, and deliberately omitting facts to paint a distorted picture of events. Would it really hurt Scholastic so much to add just one sentence pointing out the fact that after three years and despite all our efforts, no WMD were found? Or that, in the words of the president himself,
Ken Herman: What did Iraq have to do with 9/11? President Bush: Nothing.
We now know that we went to war on a lie. An ugly word, but it's the only word for it. And there is no reason students should not know.
Thanks to all the pressure applied by the netroots, and particularly Media Matters for picking up the story, it appears that Scholastic Books (generally, a "blue" organization) has pulled their main page for Path to 9/11.
More details at http://allspinzone.com/blog/index.php?itemid=3311
...by the victors."~ variously attributed
It pays to teach the next generation that their predecessors weren't a bunch of bloodthirsty crusaders. After all, the next generation takes care of the last in their dotage. ;)
Is anyone really surprised at this? For nearly two centuries American history books have been decidedly slanted in our favor, as were the Soviet history books slanted in their favor. Each country more or less writes its own history, or paints it in the best possible light. Doesn't make it right, but it happens.
Remember who is seeing this....kids nearing enlistment age. With the new Pentagon program that signs up kids as young as 14 and advances them combat pay BEFORE they even hit 18 and get sent to Basic Training....I think I see the motive here.