What the Media Should be Asking the American People

There were a lot of amusing and bemusing reasons given by the mainstream media for their lack of coverage of the Downing Street Memos. But my personal favorite was this one – everyone already knows the Bush administration was lying about the war.

Really? Then why did they vote for him in November? Are people happy about being deceived or do they simply expect it out of this administration or government in general?

Actually, these are terrific questions that the media should be asking the American people. Given that everyone knows the Bush administration was lying about the reasons for the Iraqi war, how do you feel about being lied to?

You might want to start by asking the parents and families of US soldiers killed in Iraq. How do they feel about being lied to?

Or how about you just ask the wives of soldiers who lost their arms or legs in Iraq. How do you feel about the lies that led us into a war where your husband lost his limbs? I wonder if they would be as cavalier about the issue as the press seems to be.

Then ask the average taxpayer who has to foot a $208 billion bill for the war. And that’s just what we’ve paid so far. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld says we might be in there for 12 more years. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice is even more pessimistic and thinks it is a generational commitment. If we’ve paid $208 billion for a little over two years, imagine what the bill is going to be for a generation of occupation. Please ask the American taxpayer how they feel about being lied to about that?

“The oil revenues of Iraq could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years…We're dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.” – Paul Wolfowitz, [Congressional Testimony, 3/27/03]

“In terms of the American taxpayers contribution, [$1.7 billion] is it for the US. The rest of the rebuilding of Iraq will be done by other countries and Iraqi oil revenues…The American part of this will be 1.7 billion. We have no plans for any further-on funding for this.” – USAID Director Andrew Natsios, 4/23/03

$1.7 billion?

That’s how much the war cost last week. Literally. The $208 billion we’ve spent so far divided by the roughly 118 weeks we’ve been in Iraq comes out to $1.76 billion a week.

The administration’s cost estimate was off by more than hundred fold – and that’s just in little over two years. And no one was fired over that small miscalculation. Imagine if a project at your work cost over hundred times what you said it would cost -- and the project wasn’t even close to being done. Do you think you’d keep your job?

I love the cavalier attitude of the media – everyone knew it was a lie. Really?

Then let’s ask the average American how they feel about being manipulated into thinking Iraq had something to do with 9/11. That the administration used their grief and outrage over September 11th to trick them into going to war with a country that had nothing to do with the September 11th attacks. Let’s see if they’re just as cavalier as the press.

Let’s ask the average American how they feel about pulling troops out of the fight against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan to invade Iraq when it turns out Iraq had nothing to do with al-Qaeda and was absolutely no threat to us. Let’s ask them how they feel about the President spending all of our resources to get Saddam Hussein, who did not attack us and could not attack us, and saying he is “unconcerned” about Osama bin Laden, who did attack us and could attack us again.

Let’s ask the average American how he or she feels about being played for a fool when the administration based the invasion on WMD allegations. Especially when the Downing Street Memos indicate the British and the Americans knew Libya, Iran and North Korea had more capacity for WMD and no one knew for certain if Iraq had any WMD (by the way, in case you’ve been living in a box, it turned out Iraq didn’t have any). When the administration tricked the public with talk of mushroom clouds and Iraqi submarines and drone planes. Does the public feel taken advantage of now? Let’s ask them.

According to Bob Woodward’s book, Plan of Attack, the CIA drew up a report about red-and-white Iraqi submarines patrolling the Tigris River. Iraqi submarines! That’s still my favorite.

But then again, Dick Cheney thought we would be greeted as liberators and he now believes the insurgency is in its last throes.

And Dana Milbank thinks John Conyers is playing make-believe?

But if you think those are outrageous fabrications and outright lies by the administration -- you’re right -- but wait till you get a load of this doozy by the Secretary of Defense on Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction: "We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat." [3/30/03]

Well, if they knew where they were, then where the f—k are they?

It’s one thing to say you think they might have WMDs and turn out to be mistaken, it’s another to say you know they have them when it is clear that you did not know any such thing. How about giving the American people that quote above by Rumsfeld and asking them, “How do you feel about your Secretary of Defense lying to you so brazenly?”

And, oh by the way, how do you feel about Iraqi submarines? And the nuclear capability they were supposed to have and the possibility that might be able to strike us in 45 minutes?

There are so many blatant lies that I partly don’t blame the media for thinking that it is accepted fact that everyone knows the administration lied about the reasons for going to war. But I think it’s fair to ask the people and find out for sure. And more importantly, ask them how do they feel about being lied to?

The lies are not in dispute. Whether people have enough information about the lies is in dispute. And how they feel about those lies once they have the information is in dispute.

Perhaps the American public is so jaded about their elected leaders that they think it’s standard operating procedure for the government to mislead its own people. Or perhaps when they find out the truth, they are not going to be pleased.

Only one way to find out … ask them.