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How Mainstream Media Echoed a Fabricated Story
"Do you think that Iranian speedboats will threaten US warships in the Persian Gulf again?" asked my friend Jacob. Like most people, he followed the infamous January 6th incident for just a few days before moving on. But he was left with the potent image in his mind that Iran's aggressive behavior towards American vessels could have ended in bloody confrontation.
This is not precisely what happened on January 6th between the US and Iran in the Strait of Hormuz, but it is exactly what the people who engineered - or fabricated -- the whole story, had in mind. The Bush administration has tried to extensively portray the Iranian government as an aggressor that is in hot pursuit of a nuclear weapons program, actively supports terrorism in the Middle East, and cannot help but meddle in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Last January, US officials arrested four Iranian diplomats on charges of being associated with the Qods Army - a special unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guard that allegedly operates in Iraq. Since then no evidence has been presented to prove that claim. Later that year, the US officials brought up Iran's widespread support of insurgency in Iraq and accused them of equipping insurgents with deadly IED's. Evidence provided by military officials proved insufficient to attract any attention, but such allegations still garnered coverage by domestic media as a consequence of their addiction to official sources. The aim of the press in this case appears to have been to portray the Iranian government as behind all the misery, suffering, mismanagement, crises and difficulties in the Middle East. It appears as though they want to keep Tehran bound to the "axis of evil."
This intention manifested itself in policies towards Iran's nuclear program. The US's insistence that Iranians are trying to build a nuclear bomb pushed President Bush to talk about a possible World War Three in October. Watching some of the episodes of Glen Beck's conservative TV show illustrates the goal of making Iran into a serious threat by utilizing anonymous officials. (I remember watching a documentary done by The History Channel entitled "Beyond the Top Secrets" which clearly claimed that Iranians are hard at work at a nuclear bomb.)
All in all it seems as though there was no way to deal with Iran other than launching a strike. It would not have been very hard to anticipate the US's next step toward the Persians were it not for the publication of the National Intelligence Estimate [PDF] and its findings that Iran halted its nuclear weapon program back in 2003.
After publishing the NIE there was a perception that the administration would leave its warmongering path and follow a softer policy while joining various European countries in pursuing constructive negotiation. Iran is a country that is thriving to talk to the United States on an equal level. But it seems that the Bush administration and high level officials in the Pentagon are still thinking about confrontation with Iran as a means of pursuing their political agenda. This would surely be disastrous.
On the other hand, it seems that the Iranians have understood the message. After the propaganda effort by the Pentagon - which had blind support from mainstream media outlets - the Iranians released their own version of video showing the conversation between the warships and speedboats. Since they have become aware that the US is looking for an excuse to make a big deal out of it, the Iranians have equipped their cheap, unarmed, simple speedboats with video cameras and audio recording equipment.
In all of these cases the administration's intention has been to keep Iran as a threat in the public eye by manipulation, distortion, and fabrication of stories. I think to an extent they have been successful in portraying Iran as a threat by using the mainstream media which does not appear to have learned the lessons it should have since the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. In certain areas, they rarely ask the basic journalistic questions: Why? How? When? Who? Where? And when the truth comes out, they do not honestly present it to the public. For example, take the speedboat case in which it was initially claimed that somebody in the boats said that they are going to explode the US warship in a few minutes. But what was discovered later on was different.
"The threatening radio transmission heard at the end of a video showing harassing maneuvers by Iranian patrol boats in the Strait of Hormuz may have come from a locally famous heckler known among ship drivers as the 'Filipino Monkey'."
Fortunately, there have been lots of outlets criticizing the fake story of speedboats such as independent journalists, bloggers and activists. But mainstream media outlets such as CNN, Fox and CBS did not cover the reality behind the story properly.
This sort of behavior calls into question the reliability of mainstream media. That's one of the reasons that it has become harder and harder to understand what is news and what is propaganda.
Follow Omid Memarian on Twitter: www.twitter.com/omid_m
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My honest question is whether or not the American news media is actually that dense - or are they willingly propping up this war mongering gov't? If the latter - why? I read a more balanced view of the exchange on CBC (Canadian Broadcasting) and then incredulously heard the catastrophying faux play by play on CNN. It was apparent what the purpose behind this little game was. When the story was posted (for a fraction of a second) on the Huff at the time, my response then was:
"Please - this is another very pathetic attempt to drum up support for a war on Iran. Except nobody is buying it. '... fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - you can't get fooled again.' -President George W. Bush (Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002).
All things considered, the Iranians are amazingly tolerant of this intrusion - can you imagine how the US would react if North Korea or China had their warships hovering off the coast of California or Hawaii and behaving in a beligerent manner after continual threat of violence? This bullying and egocentrism has just got to stop - it isn't conducive to the peace that the little bushwacker so earnestly seeks in the middle east."
-I stand by my first sentiments.
Most of the MSM is propaganda. They also Fabricated that Bill Clinton is a racist. And the sad thing is now thry have people believing it!! Tell a lie often enough,it will become the truth. What a sad pathetic bunch of lapdog journalists. We deserve better than this.
Two things:
1) Yes the msm effed up, tried to make a big deal out of what was basically an annoyance. Did you expect anything different?
2) On the other hand I've had eyewitnesses tell me that Iranian mil jets buzz the US Navy ships pretty regularly in the straights of Hormuz. Some of those US ships take 5 miles to turn, in an area 35 miles wide, with crap loads of traffic, stuff happens. Those guys aren't on a hair trigger, they are annoyed.
Of course the Iranians didn't capture the hapless British sailors...all they wanted were cheap Iranian-made suits.
High speed mainstream media has a desire to be first. Add a touch of "exclusive" and it is a veritable coup de creme.
The inept media scores across the board and does not make mistakes only for one party - they're like Mikey, they'll eat anything.
January 2006 - the Sago Mining disaster. CNN tripped over itself to have the banner on their coverage with Anderson Cooper that read of a "miracle" - "12 Miners Survive". Praise the Easter Bunny folks - but wait - as the sole ambulance had already passed and Randi Kaye had pointed out to Cooper that the medical triage folks were all walking away and were soon to pass his location looking a tad bit glum - Cooper had to wait for some local gawkers who he spoke with earlier to tell him "they's all daid".
Not missing a beat - Cooper immediately turned the tide by raising the question., ""how could the mining company allow this erroneous rumor to perpetuate itself for up to three hours after the ringing of the church bells"? Not that CNN could have done a better job and waited for accurate information - even though Cooper had let it walk right past.
The wonder is whether it would be effective if one network waited on every story - and satisfied the "hype" gene in each American viewer by pointing out how gullible their competition was?
It has taken many years to get the general population to realize that bush lies and what is said or done by him and his crowd is all geared toward manipulating us into letting him do something using our name and country. I caught on early as did many but the bulk of the country gave him the benefit of doubt. Now that we have almost all decided the man is lying and every time he tries to start something with Iran we now see as jaded as possible what he again is trying to do. The boats and ships thing has been going on for years in the med and it's not something that has led to Iran doing something to our military ships in recent years. They are not that stupid. Small boats-big ass military ship who would win that one? The media has been the most obvious reason it has taken so very long for the general population to read through the lies. The media is also to blame for taking all at face value and left bush alone when there should have been many many questions. Why did they give bush and crew a pass on the truth? There should be blood on the hands of those who bought the lies and stories about winning the war in Iraq. Are/were the media so empty of people who had worked in the middle east enough to know about the different sects and tribes all those things that have made the war harder to accomplist anything. So many media were embedded with the military and the stories told that it made it look like a bad movie while bush/cheney waited for the flowers to be thrown at the troops the ieds and suicide bombers started killing en mass.
For the past seven years every news story from and about this administration, has started out with a lie. From the reasons of 9-1-1 to the "attack" by Iranian speedboats. The death of the football player started out as a pr lies and has evolved into a possible homicide by members of his own platoon. There is no subject or story that is criminal corrupt administration has not distorted and/or made up. The have lied about not only the who but also the why, the when, the where and the how. Their "spokespeople" have stood before the press of the wold and have slandered and lied to the press. They have planted faux journalists in press conferences. They have treated questions as if they were acts of treason against the US. The have questioned the motives of those who question what this corrupt, criminal administration has done in the name of the people of the USA.
Mainstream media has been both the victim and been an active member of the conspiracy by this administration to lie not only to it's citizen, but also to first among the three equal members of Government. I am of course referring to the Legislative Branch, AKA the Congress of the US. For Six years, no hearings were allowed to oversee or to investigate this criminal, corrupt administration. Books can and will be written on this subject. Students in college majoring in journalism will receive advanced degrees based on the lies of GW Bush and his administration.
As President Kennedy said "Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names".
Right, and this is the same U.S. Navy that stood up to the kamakazi attacks at Iwo Jima and Okinawa?
Fought the Battles of Midway and Leyte Gulf?
You know Leyte Gulf where destroyers and destroyer escorts attacked the largest battleship ever built in what was clearly a losing proposition for those tiny ships.
Now they are afraid of speed boats? On the open seas?
Give me a break!
nine hundred and thirty-something lies, wasn't it?
The MSM is charged with keeping an informed public, and they always blame the public schools, even though most of the viewers finished school decades ago. Why can everyone name the Three Stooges and not three supreme Ct judges? 'Cause every single baby boomer knew the three stooges... But what people have got out the "Boob tube" since then, particularly recent news, is bs about pop stars and missing Blond girls, and how scary the city is.
So they messed up the truth of another story... Can you believe that people ACTUALLY BUY this information?
It's good that Huffpo buried the correction to the American governments fabricated story about the Iranian speed boats in the Media section, as opposed to front page which is where they post all of Amb.Ginsbergs war mongering and lying and manipulations to bring us to war against both Iran and Pakistan now.
I'm surprised that in an article discussing the Administration's dishonesty in how it portrays events, I find included without comment, the N.I.E. statement that Iran halted its nuclear weapons programme in 2003.
There is literally NO evidence that Iran has ever had a functioning nuclear weapons programme.
People were so happy that the N.I.E. assessment debunked the Administrations lies concerning any current threat from Iran, that the nuclear weapons statement was given a free pass and has now become accepted as fact.
That oversight may come back to haunt everyone at a later date.
I loved this. Truth...real information...debunking and resisting the government's attempts to shape public opinion with lies and wild exaggerations. My god...please...give me more!!!!
Virtually the only thing reported about I'madinnerjacket's visit to NYC was his "outrageous assertion" that there are no Gays in Iran. The mainstream media gave us two days of guffawing over that one and the jacket was gone and with him a rare opportunity to get to the point.
Good article! thanks for some authentic journalism.
It is called PSYOPS! It was designed as a cheap and acceptable operation to help facilitate the Bush administration"s sales presentation on his trip to the Middle-East. What the public is told is hollow truths. Yes to foster peace and boost relationships, but nothing like the Ideological peace and relationships the public thinks of in generic terms. It is a bout insurance (protection) and money laundering.
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