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US Press Corps Fails Again on Iran
US Press Corps Fails Again on Iran
By Robert Parry | Consortium News
The U.S. press corps appears to have learned little or nothing from the Iraq debacle as a new crisis looms with Iran.
Yet, the most dangerous parallel between the misreporting on Iraq and the current hysteria about Iran may be that major U.S. news outlets, especially the New York Times and the Washington Post, continue to paint the disputes in black and white and leave shades of gray out of the frame.
In doing so, these news organizations again are casting aside their own rules about objectivity and balance. Just like in the run-up to the Iraq War, they obsess about a villain (with Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad replacing Iraq’s Saddam Hussein) – and have thrown down the memory hole inconvenient facts and important context.
For instance, prior to the June 12 election in Iran, it was well known and widely reported that President George W. Bush had signed a covert action finding targeting Iran’s Islamic government with a major program of propaganda and political destabilization.
In the July 7, 2008, New Yorker magazine, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh wrote that late the previous year, Congress had agreed to Bush’s request for a major escalation in covert operations against Iran to the tune of up to $400 million.
“The Finding was focused on undermining Iran’s nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change,” one person familiar with its contents told Hersh. The operation involved “working with opposition groups and passing money,” the person said. Read more.
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"The U.S. press corps appears to have learned little or nothing from the Iraq debacle as a new crisis looms with Iran."
And because of this appearance, their real mission should be increasingly obvious to anyone paying even a minimum of attention. They're not trying to keep America accurately and fully informed. They're trying to keep us distracted, scared and confused. And they're doing a hell of a job.
At the end of his piece, Parry writes (emphasis mine):
"The U.S. press corps struts about in outrage over Ahmadinejad – just as they did with Saddam Hussein. The journalists know intuitively what points to highlight and what context to leave out.
In doing so, the journalists may feel they are protecting their flanks from criticism about their patriotism or their toughness. But the risk for the nation is that such unprofessional journalism is contributing to a new hysteria, creating a political dynamic that may block President Obama from taking actions for peace that might well be in the best interests of the country."
A good journalist may know intuitively what to highlight and leave out, but so does a good propagandist. And given the amazing similarity of today's media coverage to what we were subjected to in the run-up to "Shock and Awe," it should be quite clear that today we're dealing with a media overflowing with the latter.
They're not blocking Obama from doing anything. They're doing his bidding, just as he is doing the bidding of those who control him. He just happens to occupy a higher spot in the elitist food chain.
If we truly want to do what's best for our country, we need to drop the partisan crap and come together to get the job done. It's a pretty old saying, but it's as relevant today as it was when the words were first spoken:
United we stand, divided we fall.
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