When a Great Power Goes Mad By Robert Parry

[Demeter]

consortiumnews.com
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/032808.html

March 28, 2008


During the post-World War II trials at Nuremberg, the United States led the world in decrying aggressive war as “the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”...Yet, Frontline and other mainstream U.S. news outlets shy away from this central fact of the Iraq War: by invading Iraq without the approval of the U.N. Security Council and under false pretenses, the Bush administration released upon the Iraqi people “the accumulated evil of the whole” – and committed the “supreme” war crime.
An obvious reason why the mainstream U.S. press can’t handle this truth is that to do so would mean that President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, a host of other U.S. officials and even some prominent journalists could be regarded as war criminals...To accept that reality would, in turn, create a moral imperative to take action. And that would require a great disruption in the existing U.S. power structure, which hasn’t changed much since Bush won authorization from Congress in October 2002 to use force and then invaded Iraq in March 2003.

Not only are Bush and Cheney still in office – and two of the three remaining presidential candidates, John McCain and Hillary Clinton, voted for the war – but the roster of top Washington journalists remains remarkably intact from five years ago...Iraq War hawk Fred Hiatt still runs the Washington Post’s editorial pages where you can still read the likes of Charles Krauthammer, David Ignatius, Richard Cohen and a bunch of other columnists who pushed for the war. The same is true for the New York Times’s op-ed page, where writers like Thomas Friedman have prospered despite their erroneous war judgments and where one of the few changes has been to recruit prominent neoconservative William Kristol, who has used his column to chide Americans who won’t hail Bush’s courageous war leadership.

Deeper Trends

In evaluating this corrupt political/media elite, a historian might want to go back even further and wonder how someone as eminently unqualified and unfit as George W. Bush became president of the most powerful nation on earth. How did a technologically sophisticated country like the United States with a relatively free press get led down this dangerous path? Why did so many American voters in 2000 believe made-up stories about Al Gore’s supposed delusions, like the apocryphal quote, “I invented the Internet”? Indeed, how did a seemingly endless supply of myths and half-truths take root in the American psyche? Going back even a bit further, how were Americans sold on the happy tales of Ronald Reagan’s presidency as the blood of U.S.-supported dirty wars in Central America and elsewhere was washed from the nation’s memory bank?

Why in a media environment with 24-hour cable news programming has intelligent dissent against U.S. foreign policy been so marginalized and excluded? Why are editors and producers so afraid of allowing some of these voices to be heard? How has such a destructive “group think” been allowed to take hold? One of the obvious answers is fear – at least fear that one’s career would be irreparably damaged by wandering too far outside the safety of the herd. And while running with that herd, it’s understood that there’s much greater safety in veering right, given the well-funded conservative attack groups that have devoured the careers of many independent-minded journalists who refused to bend.....

MUCH MORE AT LINK!

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth' are also available there. Or go to Amazon.com.

[Faygo Kid]

1. Wish I could recommend 100 times. Damn the spineless media.

As a reluctant subscriber to The Washington Post, I can vouch for it being little better anymore than the Washington Times, Sun Myung Moon's right-wing mouthpiece. On one day last week, columns appeared on the same page by Krauthammer, Michael Gerson and Robert Novak, each of them Bush butt boys who, like Kristol, show zero remorse and less shame for their roles in enabling and supporting this insane war. Don't hold your breaths for any of that crowd to ever do the decent thing and turn on Bush.

As for the Kristol hiring, he has used his poorly written and factually inaccurate column each week to bash Obama, who he correctly believes is most likely to get elected and turn this country around - the last thing this gang of excrement wants to see happen.

Real journalism has gone the way of the LP album in this country. The Internet is our best hope; the Washington Post our least.

[blm]

2. It has my recommend....

This part of our nation's recent history is the root of everything wrong that has been going down and the coverup by the establishment powerstructure and some friendly Dem powermongers is what even ALLOWED an idiot like Bush to gain and stay in power.

Thanks alot Bill.

[Doctor_J]

4. Not spineless - complicit

the people who run, edit, and write for all the MSM are right-wing war mongers who have made fortunes off of the murder in Iraq. Bill Kristol should have been tried, convicted, and executed for treason years ago.

For those in the media who read this, we're going to get our country back pretty soon, and when we do there won't be any place for you to hide, and payback is going to be a real bitch.

[lyonn]

3. Robert Parry is a good example of what happens to a journalist

when he digs deep and finds the truth - he is banished from the corporate media. No way will a journalist like Parry, truth telling, now days get any time on the talking shows. This is truly scary and why we are in the shape we are in now, brain washed masses.

This attention and money that Obama is getting makes me think that many people know there is a serious problem, maybe not exactly what it is but that the U.S. is and has been going in the wrong direction for a long time. They must see him as a chance to really change things.

[GOPBasher]

5. Rec'd. n/t