‘Devastating’ Moyers Probe of Press and Iraq
The most powerful indictment of the news media for falling down in its duties in the run-up to the war in Iraq will appear next Wednesday, a 90-minute PBS broadcast called “Buying the War,” which marks the return of “Bill Moyers Journal.” E&P was sent a preview DVD and a draft transcript for the program this week.
While much of the evidence of the media’s role as cheerleaders for the war presented here is not new, it is skillfully assembled, with many fresh quotes from interviews (with the likes of Tim Russert and Walter Pincus) along with numerous embarrassing examples of past statements by journalists and pundits that proved grossly misleading or wrong. Several prominent media figures, prodded by Moyers, admit the media failed miserably, though few take personal responsibility.
The war continues today, now in its fifth year, with the death toll for Americans and Iraqis rising again — yet Moyers points out, “the press has yet to come to terms with its role in enabling the Bush Administration to go to war on false pretenses.”
Among the few heroes of this devastating film are reporters with the Knight Ridder/McClatchy bureau in D.C. Tragically late, Walter Isaacson, who headed CNN, observes, “The people at Knight Ridder were calling the colonels and the lieutenants and the people in the CIA and finding out, you know, that the intelligence is not very good. We should’ve all been doing that.”
At the close, Moyers mentions some of the chief proponents of the war who refused to speak to him for this program, including Thomas Friedman, Bill Kristol, Roger Ailes, Charles Krauthammer, Judith Miller, and William Safire.
But Dan Rather, the former CBS anchor, admits, “I don’t think there is any excuse for, you know, my performance and the performance of the press in general in the roll up to the warWe didn’t dig enough. And we shouldn’t have been fooled in this way.” Bob Simon, who had strong doubts about evidence for war, was asked by Moyers if he pushed any of the top brass at CBS to “dig deeper,” and he replies, “No, in all honesty, with a thousand mea culpas, nope, I don’t think we followed up on this.”
Instead he covered the marketing of the war in a “softer” way, explaining to Moyers: “I think we all felt from the beginning that to deal with a subject as explosive as this, we should keep it, in a way, almost light if that doesn’t seem ridiculous.”
Moyers replies: “Going to war, almost light.”
Walter Isaacson is pushed hard by Moyers and finally admits, “We didn’t question our sources enough.” But why? Isaacson notes there was “almost a patriotism police” after 9/11 and when the network showed civilian casualties it would get phone calls from advertisers and the administration and “big people in corporations were calling up and saying, ‘You’re being anti-American here.’”
Moyers then mentions that Isaacson had sent a memo to staff, leaked to the Washington Post, in which he declared, “It seems perverse to focus too much on the casualties or hardship in Afghanistan” and ordered them to balance any such images with reminders of 9/11. Moyers also asserts that editors at the Panama City (Fla.) News-Herald received an order from above, “Do not use photos on Page 1A showing civilian casualties. Our sister paper has done so and received hundreds and hundreds of threatening emails.”
Walter Pincus of the Washington Post explains that even at his paper reporters “do worry about sort of getting out ahead of something.” But Moyers gives credit to Charles J. Hanley of The Associated Press for trying, in vain, to draw more attention to United Nations inspectors failing to find WMD in early 2003.
The disgraceful press reaction to Colin Powell’s presentation at the United Nations seems like something out of Monty Python, with one key British report cited by Powell being nothing more than a student’s thesis, downloaded from the Web — with the student later threatening to charge U.S. officials with “plagiarism.”
Phil Donahue recalls that he was told he could not feature war dissenters alone on his MSNBC talk show and always had to have “two conservatives for every liberal.” Moyers resurrects a leaked NBC memo about Donahue’s firing that claimed he “presents a difficult public face for NBC in a time of war. At the same time our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity.”
Moyers also throws some stats around: In the year before the invasion William Safire (who predicted a “quick war” with Iraqis cheering their liberators) wrote “a total of 27 opinion pieces fanning the sparks of war.” The Washington Post carried at least 140 front-page stories in that same period making the administration’s case for attack. In the six months leading to the invasion the Post would “editorialize in favor of the war at least 27 times.”
Of the 414 Iraq stories broadcast on NBC, ABC and CBS nightly news in the six months before the war, almost all could be traced back to sources solely in the White House, Pentagon or State Dept., Moyers tells Russert, who offers no coherent reply.
The program closes on a sad note, with Moyers pointing out that “so many of the advocates and apologists for the war are still flourishing in the media.” He then runs a pre-war clip of President Bush declaring, “We cannot wait for the final proof: the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.” Then he explains: “The man who came up with it was Michael Gerson, President Bush’s top speechwriter.
“He has left the White House and has been hired by the Washington Post as a columnist.”
© 2007 Editor & Publisher
I would think that the last 2 paragraphs say it all. The media is now a propaganda machine for big business . . . period . . . ’nuff said. Money is now doing the talking . . .
Who ARE all those people who sent ‘threatening e-mails’? It seems there’s so many Bushie Republican ’soldiers’ throughout our country who would terrorize their fellow Americans this way. I simply don’t understand what is in it for THEM? A tax cut? WHAT? Or do they just love war and killing so much, that they’re blind to what they are doing to their OWN country? Bush has created a near civil war right here at home.
I wonder if there is a perverse connection between the cheerleader tendency of the corporate media for this war, and the profits in oil,security and military suppliers found in the stock portfolios of the executives that run this corporate media ?
Moyers once again has shown how he is a national treasure-a voice that speaks so strongly and eloquently against the propaganda of power.
I only wish that the media would adopt his model of integrity and truth seeking to develop a non-corporate independent, alternative ,participatory, source base for news and cultural information, that reaches the masses.
Some context is important. The pundits and journalists in the lead up to the Iraq War did what US pundits and journalists usually do before US war: they mostly present the information the news sources receive from the Administration and are quite gingerly in probing it. They rarely present a range of views, let alone views of the country about to be attacked. Was it any different in their treatment of the Gulf of Tonkin incident in the lead up to the US escalation in Vietnam? In the lead up to the US invasion of Panama, which Bush Sr. alleged was for the sake of defending women?
AZgirl8 wondered where the Republican brownshirts come from. E. J. Dionne has made the point that the importance of the so-called “social issues” in US politics, which apparently are not part of the political discussion in most democracies, really lowers the level of dialogue and diverts attention away from the most critical issues. He did not feel free to say it, but obviously social issues are used by the Republicans to manipulate the unsophisticated to vote and act against their own interests. The social issues are like seeds planted in the fertile ground of ignorant minds in order to grow brownshirts to enforce the will of the corporate masters. Nader recognizes this and refuses, for the most part, to include social issues in his campaigns. I wish more on the left would follow his lead.
Manufacturing Consent - The Political Economy of the Mass Media, (1988) by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky.
The most amazing thing about all of this is that some of us were aware all along that the run-up to the invasion was bogus. If I, living in rural West Virginia, could tell there was something wrong with the rationale, how could Washington and news “insiders” not know also?
I believe it was more than just ignorance and lack of research. The big corporations, in bed with the neo-cons in the government were bound to profit from the war. Power in this country is concentrated in a very, very few hands, and everyone else suffers from the attempts to maintain this status quo - or even more, to increase the concentration of money and control.
Fortunately, it’s pretty hard to keep the entire country ignorant. “You can fool some of the people all of the time, you can fool all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” After awhile, truth, like sweet cream, rises to the top.
Bottom feeders eventually return to the depths where they belong. It’s time, and long past time, for this to happen to the radicals and extremists (I refuse to call them “conservatives”) who have promoted the Iraq fiasco with lies, evasions, name-calling, and jingoistic propaganda.
LeeAnn, you are so right on. In the run up to the war when Bush, etal were going on and on about bringing “democracy” to Iraq, several of us here in California pointed out that the majority of Iraq were Shiite Muslims. That the Shiites wanted a “representative” government, based on Sharia which would have much closer ties to Iran than to the US. That being said, we all wondered how the war in Iraq would benefit the US? Four years later, I ask how is it that the administration missed it? Everything the US has done concerning Iraq has failed, the war is lost and Bush has now become what most people regard as the worst president ever.
My question is why did over 3,300 UAS soldiers and 655,000+ Iraqis have to die so that the president could “one up” his old man in Iraq by taking down Saddam Hussein?
LeeAnnG, you took the words right out of my mouth.
I am glad that Moyers is examining the media’s culpability in the fraud that was perpetrated, but it sounds like he stops a little short in my opinion.
During the build up to the war, I thought I was the only sane, critically thinking person left in the country (I was not aware of sites like this at the time); my husband even thought I had gone off the deep end, “why would the president lie about this?”. And I felt that if lil ol’ me could see through the sham, what the heck was wrong with everyone else, and where in the world were the investigative journalists??!!! Say what you will about Michael Moore, but I do believe he broke the silence first, and what he did took courage at the time.
I think saying that the president “lied us into war” is understating the crime committed. The President of the United States perpetrated a fraud on the citizens of the US and enlisted men and women. The media and members of congress (who supported the war) were complicit (through negligence). I am glad that Moyers is shining the light on the media for it’s part in the fraud, but it needs to be a very bright light, that settles for nothing less than the truth and full understanding of exactly why and how the media failed.
Sorry for the rant.
Cowardly lice at the head of government — cowardly lice in the Press, they simply swarm together.
The facts never supported going to war in Iraq at any time after 9/11. All one had to do was look past the media-induced prejudice and hysteria to the people who had first hand experience and were being interviewed on TV, radio and in newspapers, to see the facts…it did not require a doctorate in political science to see the facts…they were very apparent.
The answer to soma’s question is: Because you and I and LeeAnn and millions of other U.S. taxpayers (some who are not yet born), and millions of Iraqis are paying the bill and will be paying bill for many years to come. Iraq is the largest of dozens of neocon programs intended to transfer money, resources, etc. from the hands of many to the hands of a few. The only outcomes neocons care about are the amount of money successfully transferred to those few. Based on that criteria, they have already won the Iraq War and every extra day that they can coerce congress to “fund the troops” is another day that the war profiteers keep raking taxpayers money in.
Hopefully this program will be the first in a series that examines neocon programs that the media enabled, one by one. The patriot acts, tax cuts, election fraud, and energy policy are a few of the many examples of neocon programs that were implemented with the media’s help and using devious tactics that have successfully transferred wealth to the few. Neocon programs that have not yet succeeded in transferring wealth, such as privatizing social security should also be examined.
Once we reinstated a judicial system that is based on finding the truth and not committing crimes in itself through partisan cover up we will have set the stage for countless indictments against all members of the bush administration as well as all members of the Military Industrial Complex, the corporate media, the energy industry and anybody else that profiteered from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As of now a draft bill needs to be introduced in Congress that allows the confiscation of all assets of aforementioned supporters, enablers and perpetrators for the perpetuated war in Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia. We the people will take back what was stolen from us, our freedom, our dignity and our money.
Nothing short of a revolution will bring the desired results and it will be necessary to take out all elements of above mentioned criminals.
If smoking pot can get you into prison and getting pleased in the oral office will have you impeached, there should be absolutely no doubt about the verdict for the people that have the blood of millions of innocent people on their hands and the pockets full of our money.
It wasn’t the press, it was the people. A hundred million greedy little cowards knew that hillbilly hired guns and Arabs would do all the fighting and dying. 655,000 and 3300 are just numbers, but my SUV is the real world. Nobody was fooled by the press who didn’t want to be fooled.
Populist mouthpieces like Common Dreams and Bill Moyers constantly point out the ridiculous implausibility of the pro-war propaganda. Do you think 70% of the people really believed it? Do you really think 70% of the people are so stupid they can’t even tie their own shoes?
Populist “heros” who pretend to speak truth to power should try it with their own constituency. Tell it to the people.
The people pissed their pants and panicked over one attack that was as NOTHING compared to the daily toll of disease and violence and hunger in the Third World.
The people sold the truth for stinking gadgets, for cheap oil and for all the little creature comforts of “the American way of life.”
EyesWideOpen, “how the media failed”. AND CONTINUES TO FAIL!!!!
ItsJustKarma: How about the rubber stamping co-conspirators; the previous republican congress?
The United States ‘free’ press failed to report the straight goods on a war that was protested on the streets around the entire planet by millions and millions of people before it was even started. Some failure! I think collusion describes the relation between the ‘free’ press and the warmongers. Now that the ante has been upped and the lowlifes are more properly labled war criminals, will what ever remains of civil society step up to the plate and prosecute them? The whole world is watching, and wondering…
Jacob Freeze
Which country of the Third World are you from? You seem to be confused about America. Perhaps you should come over and criss cross America before passing such harsh judgement.
You must be a person of extraordinary experience, a veteran of many years of fighting, a person that has suffered hunger, poverty and fear to be so sure of everything.
The rest of us are trying to figure it out…have patience.
It does get tiresome that many tar and feather ALL so-called MSM with the same brush.
I recall that Peter Jennings of ABC News was quite clear in his reporting leading up to Bush’s aggressive War of Choice on Iraq. In fact, he was so clear that Brent Bozell’s right-wing media “watch-dog” organization tarred and feathered Peter at every imaginable opportunity.
If Americans hadn’t been so easily rolled by the fear-mongering fomented by the White House echo chamber, we wouldn’t be in this mess we’re in. Yes, the press deserves a portion of the blame, but We, the People are the ones who let it happen though our short attention spans, lack of involvement, selfishness, absence of critical thinking, and willingness to let the likes of Bush scare us.
My gawd! This country acted like a bunch of scaredy-cats after 9/11.
If you had watched Peter Jennings for your TV news, you would have gotten a clearer picture.
I lived in Germany during the run up to the war. The media there talked mainly of the UN attempts to find WMD in Iraq. Every night Hans Blix would come on and say they had made progress and that if the US knew where the WMD were they should let them know so they couldbe found. I remember discussing with my wife how it seemed improbable that the US would go to war because there was no evidence. It seemed so obvious that this was being played up in the US.
Excuse me for repeating myself but as ALL American citizens, legal resident aliens and illegal immigrants are subject to wire tapping, monitoring of internet use and opening and archiving of private postal mail, does it not make You wonder how those criminals called Republicans and Administration are able to tell You ‘they lost a few million e-mails’? Let me reassure You, the information of Who initiated, Who supported, Who Enabled and Who perpetrated the biggest war crimes in the history of human mankind against the dissent of SIX BILLION humans on this planet. I say ‘biggest war crimes’ because our country still proclaims to be the ‘liberator’, the bringer of ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ to the world. And because America is still not like Nazi Germany of which You wouldn’t expect anything else but tyranny. If You listen to the stinky propaganda cheney, bush et al are soliciting America with You know that we are getting closer to exactly that kind of tyranny.
But I do have high hopes for America. If it takes another civil war to bring justice back into the court rooms, so be it. America is no longer great, it will have to earn its high standing in the world again.
Sorry, reads:
Let me reassure You, the information of Who initiated, Who supported, Who Enabled and Who perpetrated the biggest war crimes in the history of human mankind against the dissent of SIX BILLION humans on this planet is available.
Folks if you don’t buy the DVD that will be on sale of this program, then please get your VCR warmed up and make a copy of it to pass down as a family heirloom. The documentation of what was commonly known in some permanent form is the only way that the people’s history will survive. Remember what Winston Churchill said to Tory colleagues after the British voters wisely turned him out of office before the end of WWII–”history shall be kind to us for I intend write it”.
Propaganda serves the same role in a democracy as violence does in a dictatorship. Corporate media does not disseminate news. It provides an audience for big business and government so they can manipulate public opinion without the direct use of force.
Bertram Gross, called it “Friendly Fascism.” He was writing about the Reagan administration; however, it applies to Dubya as well. It seems that Americans are slow to catch-on. This situation has been around for a long time.
Jacob Freeze. As to your question about whether 70% of the people believed what the Bush administration was telling them, well, the answer is yes. In fact, even to this day, some 25 to 30 percent of the people still think Iraq and Al Queda were connected and behind the World Trade Center disaster.
Since the beginning of the war in Iraq, support for the war was around 70%. This number has slowly dropped as time went by. As of today a plurality of people want the US out of Iraq. 70% of the military fighting there want out.
So you are incorrect to imagine that the propaganda behind the attack was ineffective. It was very effective. Before the war began, I couldn’t believe that some of my close friends actually were fooled by this whole affair. But the sad fact is that yes, the media and the government carried out a very effective campaign of propaganda. Paul Wolfowitz even admitted it when he said that we “all agreed to use the nuclear threat” as a selling point for the war. Meanwhile, Bush and Cheney were using Al Queda/Saddam Hussien/9-11 over and over again. Why do you think they got so angry with Joe Wilson for revealing the lie about Iraq buying yellow cake uranium from Nigeria?
You can blame the people if you want but to then extend that anger to the few people who are truly tying to get the truth out is simply unfair. The likes of O’Rielly, Limbaugh, etc… get all the air time they want while people like Phil Donahue are forced to bring in two opposing voices to every one voice of the other opinion. Finally, he was pushed off the TV completely, as was Bill Moyers. And how do you explain the threats to newspapers about reporting only the bad news on Iraq? This is another attempt to impede the free flow of information.
I don’t understand how you can say the idea of propaganda influencing the people is implausible. And I didn’t “piss my pants” the day of the attack just as I’m sure most others didn’t. Shock, yes. And speak for yourself. Please don’t include the entire country in your theory that everyone was more interested in “stinking gadgets” and cheap oil or creature comforts. Maybe in your mind everyone lives that way but if you have traveled around the USA a bit, your opinion would change. Millions are living day to day with the very real possibility of homelessness hanging over their heads.
I do live in a Third (Fouth?) World country. I live in a poor village in South Vietnam and I teach children and adults. I see the disease and extreme poverty. I also see people helping each other and families sticking together. I also hear a lot of laughter and see many smiling faces. What I don’t see is a divided community and people being labeled as populists. People who do good for those in need are looked up to. What’s so terrible about being popular?
I’m sorry Thomas Moore, but I tend to agree with Jacob Freeze, although he puts it a bit more harshly than I would. Even I knew the terrorist threat from Iraq was a crock, and I am not a foreign policy expert. Bush had his gun sights trained on Iraq since day one of the Bush Reich, and 9/11 gave him the perfect opportunity. I remember thinking, it doesn’t matter what the UNSCOM inspectors find or don’t find, this bastard is going to war. There was never any connection between Saddam and Al Quaeda, and every time I hear Bush or cheney use the expression “Al Quaeda in Iraq,” it makes me crazy.
I believe that most people understood, subliminally at least, that this war was about oil, and that if there is a terrorist threat against us that emanates from the Middle East, then our oil supply is threatened too. That was always the bottom line.
Progressives could start by divesting themselves of MSM and other irresponsible corporate stocks. Invest in socially responsible funds like Working Assets which have a better than average record. Money talks and they will listen.
It seems obvious to many that the Iraq war was premeditated, but Moyers is not addressing that 911 was premeditated as well. It is illogical to forget the fact that there is no conclusive proof that Osama had anything to do with 911 and that 6 of the named hijackers are still alive, and still listed by the FBI as 911 hijackers.
It is also illogical to say that Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan are a threat to the US anymore that Vietnam was a threat to the US. After we left Vietnam with our tail between our legs, how many Vietnamese followed us to terrorize America? None!!!!!!!!!!!!!
JP
I’m sorry Thomas Moore, but I tend to agree with Jacob Freeze, although he puts it a bit more harshly than I would.
“I remember thinking, it doesn’t matter what the UNSCOM inspectors find or don’t find, this bastard is going to war.”
I felt exactly the same way and thought the same thing, but I think we had been paying more attention than most were.
A lot of people don’t give a lot of thought to politics or events till something happens. Then they start out trusting their leaders and the media. Especially older folks that came from a time before the media mostly sold out.
I didn’t,I suspect you didn’t and frankly I don’t know anyone that “pissed their pants” that day.
Lastly I don’t think those boys and girls that have been doing the dying over there are “hill billy hired guns”That was frankly offensive and I felt uncalled for.
So I just felt it was a bit too harsh. But I understand what you are saying JP.
He said… yeah, but…
She said… yeah, but…
They said… yeah, but…
He didn’t… yeah, but…
She didn’t… yeah, but…
They didn’t… yeah, but…
He lied… yeah, but…
She lied… yeah, but…
They lied… yeah but…
Oh yeah? Sez who?… Oh yeah? Sez you!
yeah but… yeah but… yeah but… yeah but… yeah but… yeah but… yeah but… yeah but… yeah but… yeah but…
We were all lied to. Some were bamboozled by the lies more than others. Some literally and figuratively bought into the lies.
I hit the submit button too soon.
And I lost my train of thought… but, damn, it was good [laugh].
Bravo to Bill Moyers for exposing these media lapdogs for what they are. Once we get past the useless hand wringing, maybe these people will take some action to set things right.
Maybe. I’m not holding my breath.
I remember telling my family and friends in 2000 that if the Supreme Court could get away with stopping a legal recount of the votes in Florida to install someone like GWB, then this country is f*cked.
I also remember saying to my wife when we saw the planes hit WTC, “Well, here we go. They’ve got their excuse for a war now.” I didn’t piss my pants, and neither did she. We were just very sad and quite angry at the gov’t and the media. We knew that it was too convenient to have been simply a “terrorist attack”.
Everything that has happened since those two incidents is gilding the lily.
Just as many of you have said, I knew from 2000 on that we were in BIG trouble. Not because I was crazy for Al Gore, but because the whole thing just wreaked. 911, same thing. Now they’ll get there wars in the middle east so that they can take the price of oil through the ceiling. But America is a far more complex society than many of us realise. There are millions of us who have not the education to be more than consumers of both goods and lies. Then there are those who benefit from the ignorance of others and they are a cynical lot, to be sure. And then there are a very few who do understand what is going on, but the power of the few is so entrenched that it will take a good deal more than just educating the ignorant to move beyond the status quo because most of them are wage-slaves who don’t dare step out of line. But bless Bill Moyers for trying anyway because it is heartening to know that there are a few brave souls willing to speak out.
It’s a free country. Look at Amsterdam. Prostitution is free there, but they have to pay taxes. I wonder if White House presstitues also have to pay taxes when they sell themselves to big business for illegal wars.
I am one of those people who knew the reasons for going to war were bogus from the very beginning! The facts did not support Bush’s claims. He was to ‘hot to trot’ to start a war too! But, there was no telling some people that Iraq was not a threat to us. Bush had told them on national television that the threat was real…they believed every word of it! On the day of the invasion a girl I work with ask me if I wasn’t afraid of Weapons of Mass Destruction? I told her “No! I am more afraid of George Bush!” And that holds true today! He is a terrifying man! He doesn’t have a clue what the Constitution is for! He has no respect for the American people or our way of life! He shouldn’t even be in office! Some still do believe the lies told to start the war! There is no telling them any different! Over the last 7 years the media has let Bush get away with murder! It is disgraceful the way the way they have prostituted every ideal they have to accomodate him! Most of us don’t bother listening to the news on the major networks anymore. It’s so laced with right-wing propaganda. We get our news from other sources.
Good article.
Looking forward to see that documentary “Buying into war”.
When the literalness of that “buying” reaches the forefront of media-attention, i.e. how war-profiteering by a huge collusion (as different from “conspiracy”) of profit-oriented firms large and small supplied the pushing-force for the war, then the counter-acting of the US war-machine (accounting for 50 % of the world’s total annual military spending) can start for real. Not before.
This huge, tacit collusion is driven by a small, clever conspiracy – the neocon-cabal. Not the other way around, as too many despondently think and believe. What’s happening is not a great conspiracy aided by a little collusion. When people understand this, it will revealed how relatively easy the small conspiracy can be countered.
The Military-Industrial-Media complex is much weaker and vulnerable to criticism than it ever admits. So when it’s about to break, we’ll never hear about it in its media. We have to read the signs ourselves.
In these times everyone needs to be a good semiotician for oneself, a reader and interpreter of signs. Particularly of the signs seen in the media, as different from the interpretations seen in the media.
I fear for those telling the truth, like Bill Moyers, someone I really respect and admire. I fear for Cindy Sheehan, and the rest of Code Pink. I urge all of them to avoid small planes, so they don’t end up like the brave and fearless Sen. Paul Wellstone, whose plane crash was NO ACCIDENT.
AZgirl8 wonders about who “ARE all those people who sent ‘threatening e-mails’?” trying to prevent that a balanced view of the war be presented. Here’s a hint: a few years ago there was an internet vote to choose the most moving picture of the year. Overwhelmingly the voters chose the picture of the young kid in Palestine who was shot to death by the Israeli Defense Forces as he was hiding behind his father. Almost immediately the usual lobby got its act together and thousands of “interested voters” flooded the web with their votes. The end result was that the most moving picture that year was that of a dog or a cat if I recall! So what is the point here? Well I find it very bizarre that nobody has brought it up. What do the following chief proponents of the Iraq war share in common: Friedman, Kristol, Krauthammer, Miller, Safire, Wolfowitz, Perle, Rubin, and most editorialists of NYT and WP? Zionists from head to toe. I have never doubted for a second that this war was waged for the security of Israel. What troubles me is that hardly anyone brings this up. If you’re still not convinced then pay close attention to who is now mounting the US against Iraq and Syria.
Well, it Thursday morning. a few comments…
I think Moyers did a fairly good job. I was annoyed that he gave very short attention to the millions who never believed the NYTimes and the Washington Post, and made their views known in the streets. He also could have given more attention to the critical experts like Scott Ritter or Juan Cole.
His reply would probably be that the focus of his program was on the journalists behavior. My own view is that Moyers spends too much time in the inside-beltway professional journalism bubble himself. In Amy Goodmans interview yesterday morning, his showed a glaring ignorance of the corporate control PBS and NPR in calling for an end of all government support of public TV and radio.
His program had one glaring error. Moyer’s looked at the phenomemenon of how a falsehood can become true if repeated enough by a clean-cut “official” looking person, but then fell for one such lie himself when he repeated the Clinton-perpetrated falsehood that Saddam “kicked out” the UN inspectors in 1998. In reality, the inspectors were removed at the insistence of the US, to protect them from Clintons December 1998 bombing of Iraq.
Very good and informative. But is is reporting the obvious to a large percentage of Americans that saw through the propaganda. When the war was lanched 40% of us didn’t want the war period. We knew it was a lie. 65% of us according to polls and the day the invasion offialy started didn’t want us to invade unless the United Nations voted to go along. That left 35% of us that the propaganda worked on. This would be the same 30% that still approve of bush. Idealoges and Christians? Our goverment went to war against the wishes of the morjority of the people of the USA. Bush or whom ever is running this country knew after they started they would be able to control the news and stifle dessent.
I’m just an electrician but I was able to see through the Bull of Powell’s UN address. I watched it live on TV. After seeing it on the telly I want to work. A fellow worker asked me what I thought of the speach My reply was Powell and this gang are treating the American public like they are stupid. There were phony photos, aluminum tubes, ( I knew they were for missles at that time, I watched Scott Ridder on Donahue) poison gases that have very little shelf life and were not there. It was a jurnior high school performance by Powell.
I hit a wrong key and it went up before I could proof read it. Sorry
One sour cord Moyer hit with me was the 35000 Iraqis dead in one year. That is a figure Bush uses. I wish he would have used the figures from the study that puts deaths at between 400000 and 995000.
Again I apologize for the spelling and gramer in the previous post.
In my previous comment, criticizing the people along with the press, a more Christian approach would have been appropriate, as in Matthew 23:33.
“Vipers and children of vipers! Do you think you’ll escape the fires of Hell?”
I think this excerpt from Senator Byrd of WV from February 1st of this year says it all..{hope it isn’t too long, but couldn’t bring myself to cut out any of it!!} :
Unfortunately, this administration seems to have no intention of heeding that call. Last week, the Vice President talked about the
enormous successes that have been accomplished in Iraq. Enormous successes. The Vice President s definition of enormous success is apparently different than mine. The Vice President said that talk of failures and blunders in Iraq was just hogwash. And he asserted that, whatever Congress votes on in relation to Iraq, it won’t stop us. That is a slap in the face to the American people. Our constituents voted for change in the last election. They asked their elected representatives — us — to chart a new course in Iraq. This administration continues to disregard the will of the American people, the good of the nation, and the authority of the Constitution. They believe they can continue to ignore the message that is coming from the American people loud and clear:
bring our sons and daughters home! That is why the bipartisan resolutions that we will be debating are so important. We have a duty, as the elected representatives of the people of the United States, to be their voices and to speak the truth. The truth is that sending more American troops into Iraq would be a continuation of the mistakes that brought us there in the first place. The truth is that many of us, in both parties, deeply disagree with the
President’s decision to increase our commitment in Iraq, rather than decrease it. The truth is that the American people are fed up with having our soldiers caught in the crossfire of a civil war. It is important to send that message from the people to the President. But it is not enough. The American people are asking us to send a message, but they are also asking us for answers: What is our strategy in Iraq? Why are we there? When
can our sons and daughters come home? This President has had almost four years to articulate answers to those quest ions, and he has unfortunately failed at every opportunity. And so it falls to us to find a way forward out of the mess he has created. That is why I will be introducing within the coming days a resolution that is a new approach to the war: a resolution that is fully supportive of our troops, while laying out clear benchmarks for concluding U.S. military engagement in Iraq. This administration has claimed that debating the President’s plan will undermine the troops. I say that’s hogwash.
ME TOO SENATOR!! ME TOO.. HOGWASH
The executive branch is supposed to carry out, EXECUTE, what the legislative branch has debated and legislated..
–gene