When will the media ask important questions?
By Saul Landau
I find it disturbing that the press corps doesn’t ask obvious questions of high U.S. officials; rather, journalists plead for small details after they accept absurd administration assumptions.
Remember before the Iraq war when Saddam Hussein invited UN weapons inspectors to Iraq and look for weapons of mass destruction, and interview Iraqi scientists and engineers? If Saddam possessed WMDs, why, the media should have asked President Bush, would Saddam invite the top forensic team with their sophisticated equipment to gain access to Iraqi territory? If he had hidden WMDs, the inspectors would surely have found them. Or are they still hidden as Dick Cheney suggested.
Didn’t need Sherlock Holmes, or even a junior detective, to acquire some minimal level of skepticism? Why, they should have inquired, was Bush invading a country that logically had no such provocative weapons? A freshman journalism student would have thought to question the war-enthusiasts’ evidence. But the media didn’t ask. They bought Bushy bullshit, printed and televised it as if the word had come from reliable sources. And thousands of Americans died alongside scores of thousands of Iraqis. Iraq suffered immeasurable destruction for no good reason. Suppose one major mainstream journalist would have asked tough questions before the invasion occurred?
Those skeptics, who charged the war was about oil, must also feel slightly humbled as Chinese investors grabbed a lion’s share of Iraq’s fuel base. And, for other warmongers, how do they explain that Iraq’s new government has become Iran’s closest friend in the region – with Syria in shambles? Shia regimes stick together?
In spite of the unfortunate consequences of the Iraqi excursion, and the lies the Bush officials used to justify it, the press corps has bought a new set of nonsensical war rationales on Iran, this time from the Obama crowd.
Iran “might” be seeking to make a nuclear weapon. Therefore, the U.S. government should make war on that nation to stop a possible addition to the world’s most lethal supply. We have ignored or even encouraged Israel’s nuke buildup, done nothing to North Korea, India and Pakistan while amassing the world’s largest supply of the monsters for ourselves. So what has Iran done to us that justifies the threat of war?
In 1953, the CIA overthrew Iran’s democratically elected government and replaced it with an authoritarian regime we liked, which also gave concessions to U.S. oil companies. The Shah and his repressive forces remained loyal to Washington while he tortured and murdered his own opponents until the Iranians rose up in 1979 and threw him out. But Iran has not tried to oust our government, nor has it threatened us. Its leaders have made anti-Israeli remarks, but Israel has 200 nukes available to deter any Iranian aggression. So why should President Obama threaten Iran with war if it continues to do what other nations have done: seek respect via having a nuclear weapon – which it may not actually be making?
OK, we’re the empire and they’re disobedient. Not exactly a code for war making inscribed in international law, but everyone knows it! Israel has a powerful lobby that pushes for U.S. military moves against Iran for its own reasons, and the U.S. press, predictably, has not raised significant questions or objections to Obama’s bellicose messages. Some Members of Congress call for war as if they had not learned the bitter lessons from our adventures in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Coincidentally, some of these Members also take money from AIPAC, the Israeli lobby. What will it take to teach U.S. leaders that war against nations that fight back will not have a positive conclusion for us? Remember Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan?
Our Afghan excursion now exceeds eleven years, and if any progress has been made to securing that country, no reliable source has found it. Iraq suffers daily bombings after our forces destroyed the integrity of that nation. Both wars have led to massive refugee problems and have cost U.S. taxpayers more than $1 trillion.
The press’ job is to protect us against foolish government decisions, to raise questions and force debate before stupid policies get enacted, or costly wars undertaken. Instead, critical stories get spiked, or underplayed. Critics of the Iraq war took to the streets by the millions as TV news covered these rallies by finding the wierdos among the demonstrators to make their news shows more interesting, from a fashion and cosmetic angle anyway.
The anti-war crowd had it right about Iraq. Bush and Cheney will find their places in history as lying and foolish leaders who discarded good intelligence – Saddam had no WMDs – for cooked data, which they then sold to the U.S. and world publics.
The media should not allow the Obama Administration to get away with similar nonsense. Iran has not given Washington casus belli. We overthrew their government. We helped push Saddam Hussein into war with Iran in the 1980s. But what threat has Iran posed to U.S. security?
Until Obama can answer this question convincingly, U.S. media should push him and other war advocates to the wall with skeptical questions. We are still licking wounds from old wars. Vietnam vets still make up significant sectors of America’s homeless. Should we forget the damage our post WWII wars have done to the wounded, the families that lost children, the trillions of wasted dollars? A war with Iran will cost us, not only in money, but in national health and world prestige. It’s the media’s job to pose the facts and reason into the realm of policy, and to introduce skepticism into the fact and reason-free position of the warmongers.
Where is the courageous journalist who will risk raising a challenging question at the next White House press conference?
Landau’s FIDEL and WILL THE REAL TERRORST PLEASE STAND UP are on dvd through cinemalibre studio.com
