American news media beating the drums to start war against Iran

It is shocking and dismaying that American “news media” is currently leading the charge for America’s next war, against Iran. “News outlets are focusing on how the war would progress rather than challenging the propaganda of the American government and Israel. Please read this article by Glenn Greenwald and speak out. Here’s an excerpt:

The propaganda at play here is intense indeed. For several years, the U.S. and Israel threaten on an almost daily basis to aggressively attack a country, all while engaging in multiple acts of war against them, and then when their leaders suggest they may not acquiesce to such an attack with passivity and gratitude, those vows of defensive retaliation are used to depict them as the threat-issuing aggressors. And the American media, as always, eagerly implants the propaganda. Thus, if such a war breaks out, NBC News‘ Mik announces, “the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet would be the world’s first line of defense,” though those crazed Persian leaders have threatened to use “Iran’s massive stockpile of ballistic missiles” and to “launch those missiles at U.S. targets.” . . . time and again, Americans support whatever new war of aggression their government proposes, then come to regret that support and decide the war was a “mistake,” only to demonstrate that they learned no lessons from their “mistake” by eagerly supporting whatever the next proposed war is.

This recurring felt-need to go to war repeats pursuant to a tried and true formula described by Normal Soloman in his documentary, “War Made Easy.” When you hear out-of-touch commentators (even “liberal” commentators) advocating the “need” for war with Iran, take the time to respond by questioning the claims and offering real world facts. Take a look at what happened at Huffpo when Alan Dershowitz showed that he has drunk the Kool-aid–notice the many hostile comments to his article.

The case of Iran is an intense and coordinated propaganda battle that is turning into yet another terrible and destructive war to feed the pockets of the military industrial complex and to satisfy America’s need for a scapegoat for its many self-inflicted problems. We are truly living in days of bread and circuses.

Share

Erich Vieth

Erich Vieth is an attorney focusing on civil rights (including First Amendment), consumer law litigation and appellate practice. At this website often writes about censorship, corporate news media corruption and cognitive science. He is also a working musician, artist and a writer, having founded Dangerous Intersection in 2006. Erich lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his two daughters.

This Post Has 5 Comments

  1. Avatar of Erich Vieth
    Erich Vieth February 14, 2012 Reply

    Comment from Reddit.com post on this topic:

    The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don’t know each other, but we talk and we understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you.

    And our governments are very much the same.

    Marjane Satrapi, Iranian Graphic Novelist

    Here’s another:

    We need to surround the TV stations and tell them to stop lying. They are using our public airwaves to manufacture consent for an attack on Iran which will again result in the deaths of millions of innocent people. We cannot allow them to keep controlling us, using our public airwaves and our tax dollars to push propaganda, violate our constitution, violate international law and loot our treasury.

    http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/ppdj8/greenwald_time_and_again_americans_support/

  3. Avatar of Erich Vieth
    Erich Vieth February 15, 2012 Reply

    It’s time to get serious to stop this insanity. It’s time for Barack Obama to announce the following:

    The United States will not be initiating any military action against Iran because the United States is not under any meaningful threat from Iran. Keep in mind that the United States spends more on its military than the rest of the world combined. We will not be dragged into war by unilateral military action by Israel. If Israel attempts to attack Iran, the United States will shoot down Israel’s planes. We have had an entire decade of unnecessary war at great expense of lost American lives, lost lives of civilians in the war zones and the waste of massive amounts of tax dollars. None of this was necessary. It is time to direct our attention to re-building America. Exhibit A: 75% of young Americans are unfit for military service due to criminal records, obesity or lack of education. Our infrastructure is in an equally bad condition. It’s time to quit squandering America’s future on warmongering. Now let’s get to work rebuilding America.

  4. Avatar of Adam Herman
    Adam Herman February 15, 2012 Reply

    The President won’t announce that because he has said that Iranian development of nuclear weapons would be a redline. And as we’ve seen, he’s not afraid to use force. However, a rather ingenious campaign of sabotage has been giving the Iranians fits, which is why they are lashing out now with their own proxies. So there probably won’t be a bombing campaign or a war because our covert operations, or someone’s covert operations(could be anybody, Iran has lots of enemies) are probably sufficient to keep them from a bomb.

  5. Avatar of Erich Vieth
    Erich Vieth February 16, 2012 Reply

    Glenn Greenwald discusses the media hype for war on Democracy Now:

Leave a Reply