Wikileaks Exposes Media Complicity: Docs Show NYT and WaPo Shill for Govt on Iran Missile 'Threat'

[Octafish]

More evidence of who keeps America's eyes wide shut as our nation's "leaders" play the Mighty Wurlitzer for war and more war.

Documents Show NYT and Washington Post Shilling for US Government on Iran Missile "Threat"

Wikileaks Exposes Complicity of the Press

By GARETH PORTER
CounterPunch
December 1, 2010

A diplomatic cable from last February released by Wikileaks provides a detailed account of how Russian specialists on the Iranian ballistic missile program refuted the U.S. suggestion that Iran has missiles that could target European capitals or intends to develop such a capability.

In fact, the Russians challenged the very existence of the mystery missile the U.S. claims Iran acquired from North Korea.

But readers of the two leading U.S. newspapers never learned those key facts about the document.

The New York Times and Washington Post reported only that the United States believed Iran had acquired such missiles - supposedly called the BM-25 - from North Korea. Neither newspaper reported the detailed Russian refutation of the U.S. view on the issue or the lack of hard evidence for the BM-25 from the U.S. side.

The Times, which had obtained the diplomatic cables not from Wikileaks but from The Guardian, according to a Washington Post story Monday, did not publish the text of the cable.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/porter12012010.html

Unelected Leader Quote 1:

"We have a saying in Iran: 'The dogs bark but the caravan continues.' People can bark and it will not bother us. Why should it?" -- The Shah of Iran, in 1979.

Unelected Leader Quote 2:

"There's an old saying in Tennessee, I know it’s in Texas, it’s probably in Tennessee, that says: 'Fool me once… (2-second pause)… Shame on ...(2-second pause)... Shame on you… (3-second pause)… It — fool me. You can’t get fooled again.'" -- A reportedly sane George W. Bush, addressing a group of Nashville schoolchildren on the subject of his family's former business partner and CIA-supported despot, Saddam Hussein.

[snot]

1. K&R'd

[Octafish]

2. I'm so sick of this nonstop war, snot.

I remember talking about that with you for what, eight years now?

[defendandprotect]

3. Pelosi morning after '06 election: "Democrats were elected to end the war!" ....

There's video on that --

What happened? Four years of refunding Bush's wars ---

Sending drones over Pakistan --

And big eyes for attacking Iraq -- in fact, Joe Biden has been encouraging Israel

for more than a year now to attack Iran -- "they'd be justified" --- !!!



'Those of us who had worked for the Kennedy election were tolerated in the government for that reason and had a say, but foreign policy was still with the Council on Foreign Relations people.' -- J.K. Galbraith

Interesting signature -- and I've been frightened to learn that evidently Kissinger is still

involved in directing foreign policy!!

[Octafish]

4. Then Steny Hoyer beat out John Murtha for Majority Leader.

And everything changed after that.

Seafan's thread about the State Department was All-World, defendandprotect.

[defendandprotect]

13. Didn't realize ....

it was you Octafish! Usually don't look at usernames --

Thanks for the reply -- Re Murtha/Hoyer, I share the confusion of those replying

on that post -- and don't really know if either one would have worked to stop the

refunding? And, my sense was directions came from above Pelosi -- she had

expectations, yes -- but then seems to me something more than Hoyer happened.

But, maybe he is more powerful than I understand. I don't like him on any count.


Read Seafan's thread the other day -- constant concerns about what's actually going on --

in fact, is Kissinger still involved in foreign policy?

It's all shameful and disgusting and we need a way to overturn this whole system of

rotten apples -- from beginning to end!


:)

[sabrina 1]

31. Kissenger and Baker!

Obama Recruits Baker, Kissinger to Press for Arms Treaty Vote

Apparently there are no Democrats known to Obama who could have been 'recruited' for this job.

These people apparently never go away. They are the shadow government Julian Assange is talking about, imo. It's not as if they are popular here in the U.S. except in far right circles.

It looks like in this New World Order there are no Democrats. The Far Right, MIC, is well represented in the Shadow government that apparently runs this country.

[Forkboy]

5. "The dogs bark but the caravan continues."

K&R

[Octafish]

8. Remember all those minerals they found in Afghanistan?

There's a trillion in lithium alone.

As you've said over the years, Forkboy, all the lithium in the world isn't worth the life of a child.

[Forkboy]

11. Surely that was just coincidence.

Why do you hate America? :)

[Luminous Animal]

6. Also from FAIR

http://www.fair.org/blog/2010/11/29/nyt-oversells-wikileaksiranian-missiles-story/

NYT Oversells WikiLeaks/Iranian Missiles Story
11/29/2010 by Peter Hart

[Octafish]

22. Thank you for the extra ammo, Luminous Animal.

Interesting to see Corporate McPravda at "work" covering the trail of truth in service of the state:

At the request of the Obama administration, The New York Times has agreed not to publish the text of the cable.

In addition to preventing readers from seeing for themselves what the deal is, the orders are in direct conflict with the Press's constitutionally mandated responsibility:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. -- First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States

Without the Truth, We the People don't stand a chance. I guess that's the idea.

[Swamp Rat]

7. Surprise surprise surprise!

NOT!

[Octafish]

23. ''Golly, Sgt. Swampy! I never knew the *Army* would staff CNN with undercover interns!''

From BEFORE 9-11:

CNN Responds to FAIR on PSYOPS in the Newsroom



"Is it just me, Private Pyle, or does it also seem to you like we've been living under martial law for a long time?"

[leftstreet]

9. K&R

Good article

[Octafish]

24. Gareth Porter is TOPS! He does what journalists and scholars are supposed to do: ...

...Tell the Truth.

Here's another example:

Iranian Scientist Amiri Told CIA Iran Has No Nuclear Bomb Programme

[starroute]

10. The Times did the same things on the Iraq Wikileak dump

They reported that there were US military messages saying Iran was providing IEDs to the Iraqi insurgents as if it was some fresh revelation, without mentioning that the US had been claiming the same thing all along and there were strong arguments against it's being the case.

[defendandprotect]

17. Thanks --

The Times story said the newspaper had made the decision not to publish "at the request of the Obama administration". That meant that its readers could not compare the highly- distorted account of the document in the Times story against the original document without searching the Wikileaks website.

As a result, a key Wikileaks document which should have resulted in stories calling into question the thrust of the Obama administration's ballistic missile defense policy in Europe based on an alleged Iranian missile threat has instead produced a spate of stories buttressing anti-Iran hysteria.

[Octafish]

25. There's a saying in Texas they might have said it in Michigan too...

"Never let the truth stand in the way of a good story."

In the case of demonizing Iran for the good of War Inc., nothing is impossible, edited or rejected when it comes to cherry-picking the diplomatic traffic needed for the desired result.

Chemical Weapons, Iranian Agents and Massive Death Tolls Exposed in WikiLeaks’ Iraq Docs

This Empire crapola goes back to 1947.

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. Why do you think I read foreigner news?

We have had an iron wall for at least twenty years.

[Octafish]

26. The Invisible Government

What nadinbrzezinski and Chomsky said:

The Invisible Government

EXCERPT...

Perhaps the biggest revelation of the outed cables so far is what they don’t say, as Noam Chomsky discussed a few days ago on “Democracy Now!” What our diplomats aren’t talking about, and don’t particularly care about, is what ordinary Arabs think, he said, citing a Brookings Institution poll in which 80 percent of Arabs said they regard the U.S. and Israel as major threats, while only 10 percent see Iran as a threat.

“What that reveals is the profound hatred for democracy on the part of our political leadership and the Israeli political leadership,” Chomsky said. “These things aren’t even to be mentioned. This seeps its way all through the diplomatic service. . . .When they talk about Arabs, they mean the Arab dictators, not the population.”

CONTINUED...

That's why we're Democrats, Nadi. We don't believe in secret government because it's not in our, er, constitution-z.

[nadinbrzezinski]

27. Yeah it is not in our system

Yet those who know US history realize that there's been secrecy in diplomacy from before there was a us... Yes, Franklin's mission to the Court of Louis XVI was secret. You and I know about it, but it WAS secret. Oh and that was a world war.

That's the truth...

We might question what is classified and Empires classify a sneeze, but you should understand this if nothing else from this leak. This goes back to at least the rise of civilization. Oh and so-far the only shocking revelation is the depth of the Sunni-Shia divisions...in secret both Israel and a few Arab nations (Sunni) want to take care of Iran and see it as a threat? Ok...explains all the damn rumors over the last ten years.

I am sorry, doing history makes you aware as to how far away from any myth the people of the us believe this country to be, it really is.

But you want to know what is really going on? The foreign press is better at tea leaves...and this should wake people up as to how far from exceptional the US is.

[OnyxCollie]

14. K&R. nt

[EFerrari]

15. Can I say quietly how creepy it was to watch Secretary Clinton

the other night, pitching how evil Wikileaks is. She said she understood that in the past there have been leaks that exposed wrong doing but that this wasn't one of them.

[defendandprotect]

16. Ahh.... does the quest for an opponent's DNA somehow suggest ....

modern day vampire-ism or something akin to it?

America ... leading the way!!

[boppers]

18. The machine doesn't like having its gears inspected.

Clinton is very much part of the machine now.

[EFerrari]

19. The pilot fish.

[StarsInHerHair]

20. recc'd up to 31

nt

[TexasObserver]

21. Proving the "liberal media" is a false meme.

There is no liberal media. That's why they can disappear David Schuster and Phil Donahue, and anyone else who dares not toe the corporate line.

[Poboy]

28. recommend

[Parker CA]

29. Kick and Rec!

[Frank Booth]

30. Russia has no credibility.

Unfortunately, neither does the New York Times, the Washington Post, or the US government. Who to believe? As the last ten years have proved, it's best to assume that unless the intelligence is transparent and definitive, the weapons don't exist.

[bobthedrummer]

32. K&R+

US rejects Israeli call to threaten Iran (11-8-10 Israel News/ynet)
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3981196,00.html

on edit:
otoh
Iran to step up protection of nuclear scientists after assassination by Saeed Kamail Dehghan (12-2-10 Guardian)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/02/iran-protection-nuclear-scientists

Chag Sameach!

[Supersedeas]

33. Judith Miller Redux -- RW talking points are part of the Corp Media's being

[earth mom]

34. I read elsewhere that Wikileaks / Assange is connected to the CIA and dare I say it....

Israel.

Just an fyi for everyone. Nothing is ever what it seems.

:yoiks:

[Uncle Joe]

39. To be honest, I've considered the possibility myself, but if he were, what would be gained by this?

:shrug:

[me b zola]

35. K&R

[alsame]

36. Unelected Leader Quote 3:

Raddatz: "Two-thirds of Americans say it's not worth fighting, and they're looking at the value gain versus the cost in American lives, certainly, and Iraqi lives."

Cheney: "So?"


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/03/20/BL2008032001868.html

[Poboy]

37. This must be why Wiki didn't let the NYT in on this latest leak.

[Uncle Joe]

38. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Octafish.

[laughingliberal]

40. Yep. NYT: one of the key conspirators in selling Bush's Iraq war to the public. SOP. nt

[H2O Man]

41. Recommended.

I was pleased to read, in the opening pages of Dr. Rubin "Hurricane" Carter's soon-to-be-released book, his opinion on the sins of the corporate media, in promoting George W. Bush's wars. I've probably told you about when we were discussing Bush -- who Rubin dealt with when he was governor of Texas, in regard to the death penalty -- that Rubin decided Bush's middle initial stood for "Death." He told me that Bush was the coldest human being he ever met.

The media has committed many crimes over the decades. They inject the social-moral novocaine into the public consciousness.

[Poboy]

42. .

[David Zephyr]

43. Judy Miller lives on within a thousand other pseudo corporate journalists.

Same shit, different day.

[bobthedrummer]

44. All your corporate Dems singing along with McCain: "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran"

is more music to the ears of the ma$ter$ of the univer$e aka the culture of death.