Iran Attack: Once Again, the New York Times Serves as Propaganda Tool
Iran Attack: Once Again, the New York Times Serves as Propaganda Tool
Kurt Nimmo
Sunday, February 11, 2007 [align=left]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. [/align]
Iran Attack: Once Again, the New York Times Serves as Propaganda Tool
Iran Dossier: More Brothers Grimm Nonsense
Kurt Nimmo
Sunday, February 11, 2007 [align=left]??The Bush administration is haunted by the history of intelligence blunders about Saddam Hussein??s supposed weapons of mass destruction as the United States tries to document that Iran is providing lethal help to Iraqi fighters,? reports Yahoo News, or maybe that should be news for yahoos.
In fact, the Bush administration is not ??haunted by the history of intelligence blunders,? as there was no blundering, or for that matter intelligence, but simply a series of calculated lies and fabrications, designed to pave the way for the invasion of Iraq. As should be obvious, the ??Bush administration,? or rather the unelected neocons, are plotting a repeat in Iran.
??After weeks of preparation and revisions, U.S. officials are preparing to detail evidence supporting administration??s claims of Iran??s meddlesome and deadly activities. A briefing was scheduled Sunday in Baghdad.?
Translation: the neocons jumped the gun, they need more time to tweak their fairy tale about Iran providing assistance to their enemies, the Sunni resistance, comprised in large part of former Ba??athists, who invaded Iran and fought a bloody war (over a million people killed)??admittedly a large pill to swallow, but then the American people, and even most members of Congress, are accustomed to swallowing large pills. Soon enough, we will see this latest neocon scam in all its putrid glory, plastered all over newspapers, the internet, and on Fox News. Millions will mindlessly parrot the official line and demand Iran be reduced to a glass parking lot.
??The Iran dossier, some 200 pages thick in its classified form, was revised heavily after officials decided it was not ready for release as planned last month. What is made public probably would be short, and shorter on details than the administration recently had suggested.?
Shorter on details because the less details provided, the less chance the neocons will be tripped up by their lies, not that such has stopped them in the past. As the shameless lies about Saddam??s nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, and Osama and Saddam colluding together demonstrate, never mind the inconsistencies bordering on absurdity, the neocon fairy tales cannot stand the light of day, they dry up in short order and blow away.
??No one who has seen the files has suggested the evidence is thin. But senior officials??gun-shy after the drubbing the administration took for the faulty intelligence leading to the 2003 Iraq invasion??were underwhelmed by the packaging.?
No clue precisely who has seen this classified ??evidence? and declared it to be not ??thin.? It remains a mystery. As usual, we are offered mere silhouettes under the predictable cover of ??senior officials,? question marks masking their identities. In fact, no ??drubbing? occurred after the 2003 invasion, no congressional investigations worth the name were conducted, no official charges ensued.
??Officials from several intelligence agencies scrutinized the presentation to make sure it was clear and that ??we don??t in any way jeopardize our sources and methods in making the presentation,?? State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Friday.?
Sources? Recall ??Curveball,? the star witness said to be a chemical engineer with information about Saddam??s alleged weapons of mass destruction. As it turns out, this Curveball was a con artist who drove a taxi in Iraq and was a mentally unstable alcoholic. Another so-called defector, going by the colorful moniker ??Red River,? failed a polygraph examination and was such an embarrassment he was deleted from the Senate Intelligence Committee??s report on Iraq. It is said he was removed as ??the result of objections raised by American intelligence agencies in the interest of protecting sources and methods, sometimes in deference to a foreign intelligence service, according to American government officials who have read the classified version of the Senate committee??s report,? the New York Times reported back in July of 2004.
As we now know, Ahmad Chalabi, the common criminal convicted of bank embezzlement in Jordan, provided all kinds of Brothers Grimm fairy tales to the neocons and their propaganda operatives, mostly notably the opprobrious Judith Miller, who in normal, non-Bushzarro times would be doing the perp walk in an orange jumpsuit. If anything good can be said about Miller??s ??reporting,? based on Chalabi??s fabrications, it is that the lies were so transparent even corporate media scribes, usually complaisant, were moved to complain. For instance, Michael Massing, writing for the New York Review of Books, ??held up Miller as evidence of the press??s ??submissiveness?? in covering the war,? New York Magazine reported.
All of this, of course, is water under the bridge as a new round of lies and fabrications emerge, accusing Iran of killing our boys in Iraq. ??National security adviser Stephen Hadley recently said some Iran material was overstated. Privately, officials say they want to avoid the kind of gaffe akin to former Secretary of State Colin Powell??s case for war before the United Nations in 2003.? In other words, Hadley, the neocon known for advocating the use of ??mini-nukes,? thus demonstrating his mental instability, is attempting to forestall any argument on the shabbiness of the neocon ??evidence? against Iran, or at least minimize its effect. Naturally, this is of small consideration, as headlines alone and blabbering talking heads on Fox News set the tone.
??Government officials familiar with the dossier??s documents and slides, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the materials still were classified, said they make a compelling case about Iranian actions in Iraq.? The above sentence would be more accurate if one replaces the words ??government officials? with ??neocons,? who naturally consider any ??evidence,? that is to say conjured up nonsense, ??compelling? in the prelude of a shock and awe attack against Iran, designed to slaughter large numbers of toddlers and grandmothers.
So stupid are the Iranians, we are expected to believe, they are openly and brazenly ??arming and training Iraqi militants,? never mind said ??militants? (actually Iraqi patriots) are largely former Ba??athists, Sunni, and sworn enemies of the Iranian Shi??a. News for Yahoos would have us believe among ??the evidence the administration planned to present are weapons that were seized over time in U.S.-led raids on caches around Iraq, said one military official. Other evidence includes documents captured when U.S.-led forces raided an Iranian office Jan. 11 in Irbil, a city in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq about 220 miles north of Baghdad, this official said?. In that raid, the U.S. captured five Iranians. They included the operations chief and other members of Iran??s elite Quds Force, which is accused of arming and training Iraqi militants. Tehran said it was a government liaison office and called for the release of the five, along with compensation for damages.?
Interesting News for Yahoos would use the word ??capture? here. More accurately, the Iranians, members of a consulate, were abducted at gunpoint. As it turns out, the ??raid? on the Iranian consulate in Irbil, an act that displeased the Kurds, was designed to humiliate Iran, as the ??interrogators? (read: torture specialists) belong to Mujahedin-e Khalq, the wacky and blood-thirsty cult that blends Marxism with Islam and is responsible for killing some 70 high-ranking Iranian officials, including chief Justice Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, President Mohammad-Ali Rajaei, and Premier Mohammad-Javad Bahonar. It appears the nefarious consulate was used to process Kurds wanting to visit Iran, a crime punishable by ??interrogation? at the hands of MEK knuckle-draggers.
??How Iranian activities in Irbil could possibly pose a threat to American troops is completely mysterious. Why Washington would order arrests of persons designated as guests by Iraqi government officials is also obscure,? writes Juan Cole for Salon. ??The Bush administration may ? be casting about for some issue that will galvanize the American public and give it a pretext to expand its presence in Iraq despite how badly the war has gone. Any leaders of a failing war effort are always tempted by a strategy of escalation. Announcing open hunting season on all Iranian visitors to Iraq is like playing Frisbee with nitroglycerin. Bush has gone looking for trouble and is likely to find it.? As well, of course, Bush, that is the neocons huddled behind Bush??s cardboard cut-out, are fishing for a reason to shock and awe Iran.
Finally, speaking of Mujahedin-e Khalq, it appears the neocons have not learned their lesson about using less than credible sources for their ??evidence,? not that it matters with the American public more interested in meaningless sideshow diversions, for instance the four fathers of Anna Nicole Smith??s baby. ??Analysts at the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Office of the National Intelligence Director and elsewhere have been double- and triple-checking the information to ensure it is well supported,? concludes News for Yahoos. ??Officials said that is particularly the case when the material comes from sources with agendas. For instance, groups such as the Mujahedeen Khalq, which advocates for the overthrow of Iran??s rulers, have provided some useful information to the United States in the past, but officials said material from them and other similar sources must be handled carefully?. After mistakes on Iraq??s weapons of mass destruction, U.S. officials recognize there is skepticism about U.S. intelligence claims.?
Indeed, there is skepticism, not that it particularly matters. Not only does MEK advocate ??the overthrow of Iran??s rulers,? but the cult ??harasses anybody in the Iranian opposition who differs with them,? according to Sam Ghandchi, editor and publisher of Iranscope. ??As long as the people in the leadership of MEK, who have been involved in the human rights violations, are running that organization, it is wrong for any state or organization to cooperate with MEK, without seriously taking these issues of human rights violations into consideration,? not that this bothers neocons, who are indifferent, some would say obsessed with torture and human rights violations. In fact, it would seem no shortage of government types support the MEK cult, including one-worlders George Shultz, Newt Gingrich, and James Baker. [/align]
