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American media playing dirty
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Dr Farrukh Saleem
On October 2, 2002, President Bush said, “The Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency. There’s a grave threat in Iraq. There just is.” On March 16, 2003, President Bush said, “The dictator of Iraq and his weapons of mass destruction are a threat to the security of free nations.” According to Vice President Dick Cheney, “Iraq is a serious threat to our country, to our friends and to our allies.” On March 25, 2003, Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld said, “The threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction will be removed.”
Intriguingly, just days before the Iraq invasion, Cheney began suggesting that Iraq was the “geographic base of the terrorists who had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11.” According to the Centre for Public Integrity, a non-profit journalism organisation, Bush and his administration officials “stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction… Bush led with 259 false statements, 231 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 28 about Iraq’s links to Al Qaeda. That was second only to Powell’s 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq and Al Qaeda.”
The White House created the ‘Office of Global Communications’ and hired The Rendon Group to prepare public opinion in favour of the war. The White House was bent upon demonising Iraq.
Interestingly, the American media, by and large, was duped into accepting government propaganda as genuine news. USA Today accepted government propaganda as genuine news and so did The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and The Washington Post. FOX accepted government propaganda as genuine news and so did ABC, CBS and NBC. The media then went on to ‘manufacturing consent’ of the American public; consent to go to war.
On October 11, 2002, the Untied States Congress passed the ‘Joint Resolution to Authorise the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq’ to “defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq.”
On March 20, 2003, at 5:34 am Baghdad time, coalition forces led by US Army General Tommy Franks launched ‘Operation Iraqi Liberation’. On September 30, 2004, the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), a 1,400-member international fact-finding team, released the Duelfer Report. The Report states: “Saddam ended his nuclear programme in 1991. ISG found no evidence of concerted efforts to restart the programme, and Iraq’s ability to reconstitute a nuclear weapons programme progressively decayed after 1991.”
A million human beings have been killed and Operation Iraqi Liberation is yet to end.
On March 22, 2009, The Washington Post had “A conversation with David Kilcullen” (who served as General Petraeus’ senior counterinsurgency adviser). The Post reported Kilcullen saying, “We’re now reaching the point where within one to six months we could see the collapse of the Pakistani state.”
On April 23, United Press International (UPI), the 102-year-old American news agency, quoting Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, reported “nuclear-armed Pakistan is becoming a mortal threat to the world.” The following day, The Washington Post reported Clinton saying, “The Taliban and extremist advances posed an existential threat to Pakistan.” Can anyone name a country — ever in human history — that was taken over by suicide bombers?
On April 30, FOX News reported General Petraeus saying, “Next two weeks are critical to Pakistan’s survival.” On May 30, The Wall Street Journal published an article written by Bruce Riedel, Obama’s point-man on Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy review, headlined “The security of (Pakistan’s) nuclear arsenal is shaky.”
Is Pakistan a ‘mortal threat’ to the world? According to Carnegie, Pakistan has produced 585-822 kg of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) enough for 30-55 weapons. According to the Natural Resources Defence Council, “Pakistan has built 24-48 HEU-based nuclear warheads.” Israel is estimated to have 80 nuclear warheads, France 300, Russia 12,000 and the US 9,000. All that Pakistan has is Hatfs, Shaheens and Ghauris with a range of 60 km, 300 km and 1,000 km, respectively (our world has a total area of 510 million sq km).
Do a few thousand Kalashnikov-wearing, pickup-riding extremists pose an ‘existential threat’ to the 7th largest army on the face of the planet? Is the American media being duped into accepting government propaganda as genuine news — yet once again?
The writer is the executive director of the Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS). Email: farrukh15@hotmail.com
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