Iran: The Next Weapons Hunt

In recent days, I have been trying to make some sense out of all the headline news regarding the Bush Administration's claims of Iranian weapons responsible for large numbers of US deaths in Iraq. Michael Gordon's article in the New York Ttimes "Deadliest Bomb in Iraq Is Made by Iran, U.S. Says" has become a focus this week throughout the debate. Its unquestioning support and many unnamed sources seem to have become a lightning rod for the Administration's difficult to swallow claims. As many have already suggested, this style of reporting harkens back to the unquestioning support the New York Times offered in the lead up to the Iraq fiasco and the now thoroughly disproved case for WMDs in Iraq (the case was never very solid as we have come to see more and more).

Unlike the lead up to the war in Iraq, many mainstream media outlets are taking the Administration's strong arm push of unsupported (and politically motivated) claims against Iran with a little more caution. The New York Times is the obvious exception but this leaves me with no surprise.

As the media has reported on these claims coming from the Bush Administration, there has been a healthy amount of skepticism showing, among other things, that there have been some lessons learned since the Iraq war. More telling than this refreshing media reaction is the resulting Administration back pedaling and clarifications that have taken place after being met with such skepticism and disbelief. This drives home an important point that the peace movement has been pushing since the war began; media matters.

Without a doubt, an unengaged media, reporting politically motivated information directly from the executive branch, hurts the democratic process. Imagine where we would be, had the media stepped up in 2002 when the Bush Administration was building a case for invading Iraq based on the same style of lies and unfounded distortions that were being pushed then. Imagine if the media raised its brow and questioned the evidence (or lack of evidence) that made Iraq the greatest military danger to American security in the world.

I think about this every time I hear a politician using the phrase "If we knew then what we know now." This excuse attempts to clean congress of any wrong doing in late 2002 when having authorized a warmongering executive branch the use of force against Iraq. It is quite frankly a dishonest response considering the lack of inquiry into the evidence.

But this brings me back to the topic that has been of such great attention this week:


Posted at Saturday, February 17, 2007
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