October 26, 2003

Iraq Redux Redux

Posted by shonk at 02:06 AM in War | TrackBack

Paul Wolfowitz may be dodging bombs in Iraq, but that won't stop me from referring you to a couple of posts made by Mike Tennant over at the Strike the Root blog. In Iraq Redux, Tennant sends a message to Iran:

Memo to Iran: Stop trying to make nice with the neocons. It won't work. They don't operate under normal rules of logic, as in: (a) Please let the U. N. inspect your facilities; (b) You let the U. N. inspect your facilities; therefore, (c) We will leave you alone. Their logic is: (a) Please let the U. N. inspect your facilities; (b) You let the U. N. inspect your facilities; therefore, (c) We're going to "liberate" your country, too, for failure to comply with our wishes.

The best thing the Iranians can do is follow the example of the North Koreans: Get nukes, and get 'em now. When you can do real harm, the neocons will make nice with you. It's only when you're no threat that they'll threaten you.



At this point, North Korea is considering dropping its program in return for a US promise not to attack. You'll note that North Korea actually has nukes, as opposed to merely being suspected of having them, yet Bush and the state department are, basically, proposing a "written security guarantee" for North Korea while they threaten Iran. The moral of the story for all the countries out there is "if you don't have nukes, build them as fast as you can if you want to be treated like a sovereign state". Not that I'm big on national sovereignty or anything, but, then again, I'm not in charge of any countries, either.

In Iraq Redux, Cont'd, Tennant points out the duplicitousness of this CNN article, which says in the bolded first paragraph that Iran is turning over information on its nuclear weapons program, waiting until paragraph three to admit that Iran has consistently denied having a nucler weapons program. By using tactics straight out of the DoD's press conference strategy, CNN is blatantly manipulating readers to reach conclusions favorable to the official position. As Tennant points out:

The casual reader immediately gets the impression that the Iranians are trying to develop nuclear weapons. If he bothers to read further, he discovers that the Iranians claim to have no such intentions. Still, first impressions are the most powerful, so how many people will read this and come away believing that Iran has a nuke program?


Buried even further in the article is the revelation that the information that changed hands comprises an inch and a half of binder paper, which one can be sure the reporter and editors hadn't read before determining that it described a weapons program.

The lesson, as always: don't trust the media. Just as the myth of Supreme Court infallibility that Curt warned us against is dangerous, so too is the myth of journalistic impartiality.

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