Recall, back in May of 2004, a superficially contrite New York
Times editorial staff admitting it published “questionable”
information about claims of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction,
information that ultimately paved the way for the slaughter of
650,000 Iraqis.
In an rather unconvincing and apparently obligatory mea culpa,
the editors shifted blame for publishing this blatantly false
and obvious propaganda, more accurately described as neocon spawned
fairy tales, to convicted embezzler Ahmad Chalabi and “a
circle of Iraqi informants,” refusing to admit they were
used as a propaganda tool by the neocons, described merely as
“hard-liners within the Bush administration,” not
psychopathic warmongers. “We consider the story of Iraq’s
weapons, and of the pattern of misinformation, to be unfinished
business. And we fully intend to continue aggressive reporting
aimed at setting the record straight,” the newspaper concluded.
Of course, the New York Times didn’t really mean it, as
“unfinished business” would necessitate sweeping out
the rogues and neocon agents ensconced deeply within its editorial
offices. One such rogue is Michael R. Gordon, “the same
Times reporter who, on his own, or with Judith Miller, wrote some
of the key, and badly misleading or downright inaccurate, articles
about Iraqi WMDs in the run-up to the 2003 invasion,” notes
Greg Mitchell, writing for Editor and Publisher.
Recall Gordon’s absurd claim, following Colin Powell’s
theatrical dog and pony show held before the gathered at the United
Nations in the orchestrated lead-up mass murder in Iraq, “it
will be difficult for skeptics to argue that Washington’s
case against Iraq is based on groundless suspicions and not intelligence
information.” As we now know, and some of us knew at the
time, Powell’s evidence was little more than a donkey cart
of steaming dung, rolled out into the public arena, offered as
gospel truth, thus straining credulity, at least for those of
us who recognized the stench immediately.
Gordon is at it again. “The Bush administration is expected
to make public this weekend some of what intelligence agencies
regard as an increasing body of evidence pointing to an Iranian
link, including information gleaned from Iranians and Iraqis captured
in recent American raids on an Iranian office in Erbil and another
site in Baghdad,” the seasoned propagandist is allowed to
write.
As expected, the race is on to sell us another murderous pretext,
thus demonstrating we are indeed a nation of chumps, although
this designation would require we are fully awake, paying attention,
and give a whit about the prospect of World War Four and what
it means for our families, children, and neighbors. As it stands,
we are fast asleep, or half-awake, tuned in to the circus sideshow
that is the untimely death of Anna Nicole Smith.
“U.S. military commanders in Iraq have shown members of
Congress explosive devices that bear Iranian markings as evidence
Tehran is supplying Iraqi militants with bombs, a senior U.S.
government official said Saturday,” reports Forbes, the
business magazine founded by B.C. Forbes, a former scribe for
Hearst newspapers, the media empire infamous for publishing lies
that helped facilitate a handy pretense for the Spanish-American
War.
In normal, non-Bushzarro times, with a semi-cognizant public
in attendance, the fact this “evidence” is vetted
by Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, a congressional cheerleader for
Israeli and American war crimes nonpareil, would be highly suspect,
to say the least. “One of the lawmakers, independent Sen.
Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, said he has seen some of the evidence,
though he would not be specific. ‘I’m convinced from
what I’ve seen that the Iranians are supplying and are giving
assistance to the people in Iraq who are killing American soldiers,’
said Lieberman, who was attending an international security conference
in Munich,” a one-worlder confab “devoted to the 50th
anniversary of the European Union,” according to RIA Novosti.
Of course, as we are well into the Bushian era, or rather the
neocon era, few take note of this particularly egregious conflict
of interest, least of all the corporate media, inheritors of the
Hearst “yellow journalism” legacy.
So-called “national security officials” are about
ready to proffer “materials,” said to consist of in
part “slides and 2 inches of documents,” providing
“evidence” of “Iran’s role in supplying
Iraqi militants with highly sophisticated and lethal improvised
explosive devices and other weaponry,” never mind the nagging
question of why exactly Iran would collude with the Iraqi resistance,
composed in large part of former enemies.
“The assertions have been met with skepticism by some lawmakers
still fuming over intelligence reports used by the administration
to propel the country to war with Iraq in 2003. In fact, a report
this week by the Pentagon’s internal watchdog criticized
prewar assertions by the Defense Department about al-Qaida’s
connections to Iraq,” thus “there is some disagreement
about how much to make public to support the administration’s
case,” in other words, the neocons will need more time to
tweak their fairy tale and make it more palatable to “lawmakers
still fuming,” mostly over the fact they were hornswoggled.
Naturally, such considerations serve only as a minor irritant
for the neocons, who will, regardless of what Congress and the
American people think, push on with the Iran attack.
As the Guardian reports, the neocons are antsy to get moving
with their mass murder campaign, blaming Bush for apparent reluctance,
if such can be believed. For instance, Meyrav Wurmser, wife of
David Wurmser, the neocon accused of spying for AIPAC at the behest
of Israel, “is disappointed with the response of the Bush
administration so far to Iran and said that if the aim of US policy
after 9/11 was to make the Middle East safer for the US, it was
not working because the administration had stopped at Iraq.”
Of course, she really means making the Arab and Muslim Middle
East “safer” for Israel, as Ms. Wurmser is a Revisionist-Herut-Likud
“scholar” and co-founder and director of the Middle
East Media Research Institute, along with Colonel Yigal Carmon,
formerly of Israeli military intelligence. MEMRI specializes in
mistranslating Arabic and Farsi, most notably the speeches of
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, thus preparing the groundwork for an attack
designed to kill Iranian toddlers and grandmothers.
Another blood-thirsty neocon, Josh Muravchik, purportedly a “Middle
East specialist” at the American Enterprise Institute, the
criminal organization where Bush gets his “minds,”
is “among its most vocal supporters of such a strike”
against Iran, although of late he has voiced frustration with
the Bushites, as has Wurmser. “The Bush administration have
said they would not allow Iran nuclear weapons. That is either
bullshit or they mean it as a clear code: we will do it if we
have to. I would rather believe it is not hot air.” In lieu
of an attack, Muravchik and Wurmser advocate meddling in Iranian
domestic affairs, unleashing officially declared terrorist groups
against the Iranian people, including Mujahideen-e Khalq, the
wacky Marxist cult led by husband and wife team Massoud and Maryam
Rajavi. In the 1970s, MEK killed U.S. military personnel and civilians
working on defense projects in Tehran, not that Dr. Wurmser and
Josh Muravchik can be bothered by such niggling details, as their
primary focus is Israel, not America.
Finally, as if to demonstrate hysterical propaganda here in the
heartland knows no bounds, the Associated Press tells us Iran
school kids are being trained as suicide bombers. “Textbooks
used in Iran’s schools are instilling students with hatred
toward the West, especially the United States, and urging them
to become ‘martyrs’ in a global holy war against countries
perceived to be enemies of Islam, a new study says,” the
news agency reports. “The books emphasize the teachings
of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and repeatedly refer to
the United States as the ‘Great Satan’ and to Israel
as ‘the regime that occupies Jerusalem,’ said the
study by the Israel-based Center for Monitoring the Impact of
Peace,” described as “a shadowy pro-Israel group”
by the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
Normally, such obvious propaganda would be discarded out of hand,
but then, as the New York Times demonstrates, the point here is
not objectivity and unbiased reportage, but rather greasing the
skids for an attack leveled against Iran.
No doubt, after the attack, the New York Times may once again
admit it was used, although the neocons guilty will likely remain
on staff, as they did after the invasion of Iraq.
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