enhanced_deficit
02-09-2014, 01:42 PM
Big Media Pumps Again for Mideast Wars
Sunday, 09 February 2014 11:38 By Robert Parry (http://www.truth-out.org/author/itemlist/user/45130), Consortium News (http://consortiumnews.com/2014/02/04/big-media-again-pumps-for-mideast-wars/) | Op-Ed
Official Washington’s neocons still influence U.S. foreign policy despite their Iraq War disaster. Forever pushing what they view as Israel’s strategic needs, the neocons now are stoking fires of war against Iran and Syria by piling on old and new arguments, reports Robert Parry.
Journalistically, there’s a problem with this passage (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/03/world/middleeast/kerry-and-iran-minister-confer-on-nuclear-issue.html) from the New York Times: “Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon of Israel … castigated Iran as being dedicated to a nuclear weapon and acting to deceive, and he repeated Israel’s warning that it would not allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon.” Can you tell what the flaw is?
If the New York Times were acting in a professional and objective manner, the next line would have read something like: “Of course, Israel itself developed a nuclear bomb in secret decades ago and now has possibly the most sophisticated undeclared nuclear arsenal on earth.” But the Times chose not to remind its readers of Israel’s stunning hypocrisy as a rogue nuclear-armed state condemning Iran for supposedly harboring a desire for a nuke, a weapon that Iran doesn’t have and says it doesn’t want.
That sort of double standard is common in the mainstream U.S. news media when reporting on Israel and its Muslim adversaries. But to let an Israeli official get away with castigating Iran for contemplating something that Israel has already done – without mentioning the hypocrisy – is a clear violation of journalistic standards. Indeed, it is evidence of bias.
Meanwhile, the neocon editors of the Washington Post are continuing their new campaign to pressure President Barack Obama into issuing more military ultimatums to Syria, another Israeli “enemy.” The logic seems to be that if Obama keeps issuing ultimatums eventually Syria won’t comply or won’t be able to comply, thus creating a casus belli, much as when President George W. Bush demanded that Iraq surrender WMD that it didn’t have.
In a double-barreled blast on Tuesday, the Post published a lead editorial (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-us-must-reconsider-its-failed-syrian-policy/2014/02/03/cbe673ca-8cfc-11e3-95dd-36ff657a4dae_story.html) and then a separate op-ed (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fred-hiatt-senators-say-john-kerry-admitted-us-failure-in-syria/2014/02/03/bfc203c0-8c75-11e3-95dd-36ff657a4dae_story.html) by its editorial-page editor Fred Hiatt making essentially the same argument – that Obama’s diplomacy over Syria has failed and that it’s time for more military threats or even a military intervention in Syria’s civil war. That “theme” was quickly picked up by other U.S. news outlets, including “liberal” MSNBC.
Yet, the real problem with Obama’s Syria strategy is that it is still based on his blustering pronouncements during Campaign 2012 when he was trying to sound tough in order to fend off the more hawkish, neocon rhetoric of Republican Mitt Romney.
During that period, Obama was drawing “red lines” regarding Syria and declaring that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad “must go.” Obama insisted that the purpose of any peace talks must be to dissolve Assad’s government and replace it with one organized by Assad’s opponents, in other words, Assad’s negotiated surrender.
But that was never realistic, however unsavory Assad and his regime might be. He still represents major segments of Syrian society, including blocs of Alawites (an offshoot of Shiite Islam) and Christians. Plus, the strongest part of the rebel movement, seeking Assad’s ouster, is the contingent of radical jihadists representing extreme Sunni groups, including some affiliated with al-Qaeda and some even more extreme who are vowing to exterminate the Alawites and other “heretics.”
Baiting Obama
In the midst of this complex and dangerous mix, the Post’s neocon editors are baiting Obama to stop being so weak, so “inert,” as Hiatt wrote.
On Sunday, the Post’s editors demanded that Obama issue a new military ultimatum (http://consortiumnews.com/2014/02/02/neocons-seek-new-ultimatum-on-syria/) regarding delays in Assad’s delivery of chemical weapons to a UN agency for destruction. On Tuesday, the argument was that Obama must intervene militarily to prevent Syria from becoming a base for al-Qaeda militants to plot attacks against the American “homeland.”
“Once again, terrorists linked to al-Qaeda may be using territory they control to plot attacks against the United States, even as [Secretary of State John] Kerry pursues his long-shot diplomacy and Mr. Obama offers excuses for inaction,” the Post’s editorial read.
“With or without U.N. action, it is time for the Obama administration to reconsider how it can check the regime’s crimes and the growing threat of al-Qaeda. As Mr. Kerry reportedly conceded, for now it has no answers.”
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/21747-big-media-again-pumps-for-mideast-wars
Related
Nuggets from the Media Propaganda Machine (http://therealnews.com/t2/component/content/article/124-more-blog-posts-from-edward-herman/1950-nuggets-from-the-media-propaganda-machine)
The Real News Network (blog)-Feb 3, 2014
The top NYT editor during the Iraq war, Executive Editor Bill Keller, was an open war proponent, who supported reporter Judith Miller and kept ...
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Sunday, 09 February 2014 11:38 By Robert Parry (http://www.truth-out.org/author/itemlist/user/45130), Consortium News (http://consortiumnews.com/2014/02/04/big-media-again-pumps-for-mideast-wars/) | Op-Ed
Official Washington’s neocons still influence U.S. foreign policy despite their Iraq War disaster. Forever pushing what they view as Israel’s strategic needs, the neocons now are stoking fires of war against Iran and Syria by piling on old and new arguments, reports Robert Parry.
Journalistically, there’s a problem with this passage (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/03/world/middleeast/kerry-and-iran-minister-confer-on-nuclear-issue.html) from the New York Times: “Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon of Israel … castigated Iran as being dedicated to a nuclear weapon and acting to deceive, and he repeated Israel’s warning that it would not allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon.” Can you tell what the flaw is?
If the New York Times were acting in a professional and objective manner, the next line would have read something like: “Of course, Israel itself developed a nuclear bomb in secret decades ago and now has possibly the most sophisticated undeclared nuclear arsenal on earth.” But the Times chose not to remind its readers of Israel’s stunning hypocrisy as a rogue nuclear-armed state condemning Iran for supposedly harboring a desire for a nuke, a weapon that Iran doesn’t have and says it doesn’t want.
That sort of double standard is common in the mainstream U.S. news media when reporting on Israel and its Muslim adversaries. But to let an Israeli official get away with castigating Iran for contemplating something that Israel has already done – without mentioning the hypocrisy – is a clear violation of journalistic standards. Indeed, it is evidence of bias.
Meanwhile, the neocon editors of the Washington Post are continuing their new campaign to pressure President Barack Obama into issuing more military ultimatums to Syria, another Israeli “enemy.” The logic seems to be that if Obama keeps issuing ultimatums eventually Syria won’t comply or won’t be able to comply, thus creating a casus belli, much as when President George W. Bush demanded that Iraq surrender WMD that it didn’t have.
In a double-barreled blast on Tuesday, the Post published a lead editorial (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-us-must-reconsider-its-failed-syrian-policy/2014/02/03/cbe673ca-8cfc-11e3-95dd-36ff657a4dae_story.html) and then a separate op-ed (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fred-hiatt-senators-say-john-kerry-admitted-us-failure-in-syria/2014/02/03/bfc203c0-8c75-11e3-95dd-36ff657a4dae_story.html) by its editorial-page editor Fred Hiatt making essentially the same argument – that Obama’s diplomacy over Syria has failed and that it’s time for more military threats or even a military intervention in Syria’s civil war. That “theme” was quickly picked up by other U.S. news outlets, including “liberal” MSNBC.
Yet, the real problem with Obama’s Syria strategy is that it is still based on his blustering pronouncements during Campaign 2012 when he was trying to sound tough in order to fend off the more hawkish, neocon rhetoric of Republican Mitt Romney.
During that period, Obama was drawing “red lines” regarding Syria and declaring that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad “must go.” Obama insisted that the purpose of any peace talks must be to dissolve Assad’s government and replace it with one organized by Assad’s opponents, in other words, Assad’s negotiated surrender.
But that was never realistic, however unsavory Assad and his regime might be. He still represents major segments of Syrian society, including blocs of Alawites (an offshoot of Shiite Islam) and Christians. Plus, the strongest part of the rebel movement, seeking Assad’s ouster, is the contingent of radical jihadists representing extreme Sunni groups, including some affiliated with al-Qaeda and some even more extreme who are vowing to exterminate the Alawites and other “heretics.”
Baiting Obama
In the midst of this complex and dangerous mix, the Post’s neocon editors are baiting Obama to stop being so weak, so “inert,” as Hiatt wrote.
On Sunday, the Post’s editors demanded that Obama issue a new military ultimatum (http://consortiumnews.com/2014/02/02/neocons-seek-new-ultimatum-on-syria/) regarding delays in Assad’s delivery of chemical weapons to a UN agency for destruction. On Tuesday, the argument was that Obama must intervene militarily to prevent Syria from becoming a base for al-Qaeda militants to plot attacks against the American “homeland.”
“Once again, terrorists linked to al-Qaeda may be using territory they control to plot attacks against the United States, even as [Secretary of State John] Kerry pursues his long-shot diplomacy and Mr. Obama offers excuses for inaction,” the Post’s editorial read.
“With or without U.N. action, it is time for the Obama administration to reconsider how it can check the regime’s crimes and the growing threat of al-Qaeda. As Mr. Kerry reportedly conceded, for now it has no answers.”
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/21747-big-media-again-pumps-for-mideast-wars
Related
Nuggets from the Media Propaganda Machine (http://therealnews.com/t2/component/content/article/124-more-blog-posts-from-edward-herman/1950-nuggets-from-the-media-propaganda-machine)
The Real News Network (blog)-Feb 3, 2014
The top NYT editor during the Iraq war, Executive Editor Bill Keller, was an open war proponent, who supported reporter Judith Miller and kept ...
https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTDj_7NtYmWLa54oaR4SrzrxePtZjJSA PP8-O0hWFNmJyjN1gLr (http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=SBhXnfQi8nIY1M&tbnid=hEnGishU_qV1MM:&ved=0CAUQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fradaris.com%2Fp%2FJudith%2FMiller %2F&ei=1N73UvmrEcO2kQfy6oCgDA&bvm=bv.60983673,d.eW0&psig=AFQjCNGPUNi7hB0DKVqNp-kHOsM2hbBIOQ&ust=1392062461433004)http://cosmicconvergence.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/miller.jpg (http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=db5NPLGSKjWiJM&tbnid=5Adzm_wOF3h96M:&ved=&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcosmicconvergence.org%2F%3Fp%3D22 31&ei=fN73UpbyMtLLkQfa9YCwBQ&bvm=bv.60983673,d.eW0&psig=AFQjCNGPUNi7hB0DKVqNp-kHOsM2hbBIOQ&ust=1392062461433004)