Even After Mea Culpas For Horrible Iraq War Coverage, American Media Does the Same Thing With Iran
The American people are being bombarded with messages that Iran will launch an attack unless it is bombed.
For example, this is a top AP headline from today:
[11]
The headline is being parroted by virtually every media outlet:
[12]
Only upon a closer reading [13] of the AP article can we see what Iran actually said:
[14]In other words, Iran is saying if you attack us first, we’ll fight back.
That’s a little bit different from the misleading headline … isn’t it? As I noted [15] in August, this is the old bully’s trick of pretending he is the victim:
Police have recently stated on the record that:
- Resisting police desires may be labeled “violence” … even if the police desires are unlawful [16]
- Curling up in a ball to avoid police violence may be considered “active resistance” … justifying the use of more force, including baton strikes [17]
Indeed, in modern America, even being worried that the government is acting in a bullying manner can literally get one arrested [18], committed to a psychiatric ward or labeled as a terrorist [19].
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In other words, the government is using the age-old bully’s trick: pretending that the victim is the attacker, and the bully is merely defending himself.
The same is true in terms of our foreign policy. For example, when we accidentally kill foreigners, we pretend that they were armed [20] or pretend that they were “militants” [21].
The government invaded Iraq because it claimed Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and that he had a hand in 9/11 … but everyone knew that both claims were false [22].
In fact, the American media is always pro-war [23], and happily trumpets disinformation [24] about supposed enemies to drum up support for new wars. Indeed, some think that war is fun [25].
The people pushing for war against Iran are the same people who pushed for war against Iraq [26] … and said it would be a “cakewalk”.
But even after all of the mea culpas for their horrible Iraq coverage – by the New York Times [27], Washington Post [28], MSNBC [29] and others – the media are doing the exact same thing with Iran.