John
C. O’Day publiceerde vorige week vrijdag een artikel op Fair.org dat ik
overnam van Anti-Media (en dat je onder mijn schrijven terug kan
vinden). Hierin vestigt O’Day de aandacht op de Iran-deal van een paar
jaar geleden, deze deal of: the
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), werd destijds
bediscussieerd in de reguliere (massa-) media, waar men stelde dat
Iran ofwel deze deal moest slikken, daar anders alleen oorlog met
Iran zou overblijven als alternatief………

De
voorspelling dat oorlog het enige alternatief zou zijn, werd door de
Trump administratie gevolgd, door de deal alsnog af te blazen en met enorme anti-Iran propaganda te beweren dat Iran zich niet aan de deal houdt, ook al zeggen alle VN wapeninspecties dat Iran inderdaad is gestopt met de verrijking van uranium en is begonnen met het ontmantelen van de daarvoor benodigde centrifuges.

Bolton, de oorlogshitser en oorlogsmisdadiger (die voor
het leven gevangen zou moeten zitten in Scheveningen) beweerde dat
wanneer Iran de boel zou belazeren, het land te maken zou krijgen
met ‘de woede van de VS’, ofwel met grootscheepse terreur in de vorm
van één van de zwaarste oorlogsmisdaden, het beginnen van alweer
een illegale oorlog door deze grootste terreurentiteit op aarde…………

Een belachelijke uitlating van Bolton daar de VS zonder enig bewijs en in tegenspraak met officiële VN rapporten toch al stelt dat Iran vals speelt, m.a.w.: de reden voor de VS om een (illegale) oorlog tegen Iran te beginnen, is door de VS zelf gecreëerd…….. (iets waar de VS ‘goed in is’, neem alle false flag operaties van deze terreurenteit)

O’Day
stelt dat de woorden van figuren als Bolton en Trump nog amper op
kritiek kunnen rekenen in de VS, wat volgens hem het gevolg is van de berichtgeving
in de reguliere media……. O’Day noemt een groot aantal voorbeelden
en stelt dan ook dat de Trump administratie die media volgt, echter
daar ben ik het niet mee eens. O’Day vergeet het begrip Deep State,
de werkelijke machthebbers, die al helemaal niet blij waren met de
Iran-deal. Deze Deep State beheerst ook de massamedia en zijn
derhalve verantwoordelijk voor wat die media brengen aan (nep-)
nieuws, leugens en pure propaganda (waarbij Goebbels z’n gore vingers
zou aflikken….)

Ondanks dat een groot deel van die media in onmin
leven met Trump, staan ze volkomen achter de terreur die de VS
verspreidt over het Midden-Oosten, Latijns-Amerika en Afrika……. Vergeet daarnaast niet dat het in feite niet uitmaakt wie er regeert in de VS, al helemaal niet wat betreft de buitenlandpolitiek, neem ‘vredesduif’ Obama die als eerste VS president de volle 2 termijnen in (illegale) oorlogen was verwikkeld met meerdere landen en er zelf (officieel) 2 begon….

Echter
lees het artikel van O’Day en oordeel zelf; wat hij schrijft over de
media is zonder meer feitenmateriaal (zoals je onder de links kan
lezen):

Trump
Administration Follows Corporate Media Playbook for War With Iran

October
5, 2018 at 8:03 am

Written
by John
C. O’Day

(FAIR.org) — Three
years ago, as Americans debated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of
Action (JCPOA) agreement with the Islamic Republic of Iran—popularly
known as “the Iran deal”—I highlighted a troubling media trend
on FAIR.org (8/20/15):
“For nearly all commentators, regardless of their position, war is
the only alternative to that position.”

In
the months since US President Donald Trump tore up the JCPOA
agreement, his administration has been trying to make good on
corporate media’s collective prediction. Last week, John Bolton
(BBC, 9/26/18),
Trump’s national security advisor and chief warmonger, told Iran’s
leaders and the world that there would be “hell to pay” if they
dare to “cross us.”

John
Bolton (BBC, 9/26/18):
“Let my message today be clear: We are watching, and we will come
after you.”

That
Bolton’s bellicose statements do not send shockwaves of pure horror
across a debt-strapped and war-weary United
States is thanks in large part to incessant priming for war,
facilitated by corporate media across the entire political spectrum,
with a particular focus on Iran.

Back
in 2015, while current “resistance” stalwarts like the Washington
Post (4/2/15)

and Politico (8/11/15)
warned us that war with Iran was the most likely alternative to the
JCPOA, conservative standard-bearers such as Fox
News (7/14/15)
and the Washington
Times
(8/10/15)
foretold that war with Iran was the agreement’s most likely
outcome. Three years hence, this dynamic has not changed.

Cartoonist
Patrick Chappatte (New
York Times, 5/10/18)
presents Trump and Bolton’s “deal” for Iran.

To
experience the full menu of US media’s single-mindedness about
Iran, one need only buy a subscription to the New
York Times.
After Trump withdrew from the JCPOA, the Times’
editorial board (5/8/18)
wrote that his move would “lay conditions for a possible wider war
in the Middle East.” Susan Rice (New
York Times, 5/8/18),
President Barack Obama’s national security advisor, agreed: “We
could face the choice of going to war or acquiescing to a
nuclear-armed Iran,” she warned. Cartoonist Patrick Chappatte (New
York Times, 5/10/18)
was characteristically more direct, penning an image of Trump
alongside Bolton, holding a fictitious new agreement featuring the
singular, ultimate word: “WAR.”

On
the other hand, calling Trump’s turn against JCPOA a “courageous
decision,” Times columnist
Bret Stephens (5/8/18)
explained that the move was meant to force the Iranian government to
make a choice: Either accede to US demands or “pursue their nuclear
ambitions at the cost of economic ruin and possible war.” (Hardly
courageous, when we all know there is no chance that Trump or
Stephens would enlist should war materialize.)

Trump’s latest
antics at
the United Nations have spurred a wave of similar reaction across
corporate media. Describing his threat to “totally destroy North
Korea” at the UN General Assembly last year as “pointed and
sharp,” Fox
News anchor
Eric Shawn (9/23/18)
asked Bill Richardson, an Obama ally and President Bill Clinton’s
ambassador to the UN, whether Trump would take the same approach
toward Iran. “That aggressive policy we have with Iran is going to
continue,” Richardson reassured the audience, “and I don’t
think Iran is helping themselves.” In other words, if the United
States starts a war with Iran, it’s totally Iran’s fault.

Politico (9/23/18),
meanwhile, reported that Trump “is risking a potential war with
Iran unless he engages the Islamist-led country using diplomacy.”
In other words, if the United States starts a war with Iran, it’s
totally Trump’s fault. Rice (New
York Times, 9/26/18)
reiterated her view that Trump’s rhetoric “presages the prospect
of war in the Persian Gulf.” Whoever would be the responsible party
is up for debate, but that war is in our future is apparently all but
certain.

Politico’s
article cited a statement signed
by such esteemed US experts on war-making as Madeleine Albright, who
presided over Clinton’s inhuman
sanctions against
Iraq in the ’90s, and Ryan Crocker, former ambassador for
presidents George W. Bush and Obama to some of America’s favorite
killing fields: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria. James
Clapper, Obama’s National Intelligence Director, who also signed
the letter, played an important
role in
trumping up WMD evidence against Saddam Hussein before the United
States invaded Iraq in 2003. When it comes to US aggression, they’re
the experts.

Vanity
Fair (9/26/18)
interviewed John Glaser of the Cato Institute, who called Trump’s
strategy “pathetic,” and also warned that it forebodes war. In an
effort to “one-up Obama,” Glaser explained, Trump’s plan is “to
apply extreme economic pressure and explicit threats of war in order
to get Iran to capitulate.” Sound familiar? As Glaser implies, this
was exactly
Obama’s strategy,
only then it wasn’t seen as “pathetic,” but rather reasonable,
and the sole means for preventing the war that every US pundit and
politician saw around the corner (The
Hill, 8/9/15).

When
everyone decides that war is the only other possibility, it starts to
look like an inevitability. But even when they aren’t overtly
stoking war fever against Iran, corporate media prime the
militaristic pump in more subtle yet equally disturbing ways.

Benjamin
Netanyahu speaks for the Iranian people on CNN (9/29/18).

First
among these is the near-complete erasure of Iranian voices from US
airwaves (FAIR.org, 7/24/15).
Rather than ask Iranians directly, national outlets
like CNN (9/29/18)
prefer to invite the prime minister of Israel, serial
Iran alarmist and
regional pariah Benjamin Netanyahu, to speak for them. During a
jovial discussion this weekend over whether regime change and/or
economic collapse is Iran’s most likely fate, Netanyahu explained
to the audience that, either way,

“The
ones who will be happiest if that happens are the people of Iran.”
No people of Iran were on hand to confirm or deny this assessment.

Bloomberg (9/30/18)
similarly wanted to know, “What’s not to like about Trump’s
Iran oil sanctions?” Julian Lee gleefully reported that “they are
crippling exports from the Islamic Republic, at minimal cost to the
US.” One might think the toll
sanctions take on
innocent Iranians would be something not to like,
but Bloomberg merely
worried that, notwithstanding the windfall for US refineries, “oil
at $100 a barrel would be bad news for drivers everywhere—including
those in the US.”

Another
prized tactic is to whitewash
Saudi Arabia,
Iran’s chief geopolitical rival, whose genocidal destruction of
Yemen is made possible by the United States, about which corporate
media remain overwhelmingly silent (FAIR.org, 7/23/18).
Iran’s involvement in Yemen, which both Trump and the New
York Times (9/12/18)
describe as “malign behavior,” is a principal justification for
US support of Saudi Arabia, including the US-supplied
bombs that
recently ended the brief lives of over 40 Yemeni schoolchildren.
Lockheed Martin’s stock is up
34 percentfrom
Trump’s inauguration day.

Corporate
media go beyond a simple coverup of Saudi crimes to evangelize their
leadership as the liberal antidote to Iran’s “theocracy.” Who
can forget Thomas Friedman’s revolting puff piece for the Saudi
crown prince Mohammad bin Salman? Extensively quoting Salman (New
York Times, 11/23/17),
who refers to Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as “the new Hitler of
the Middle East,” Friedman nevertheless remains pessimistic about
whether “MBS and his team” can see their stand against Iran
through, as “dysfunction and rivalries within the Sunni Arab world
generally have prevented forming a unified front.” Oh well, every
team needs cheerleaders, and Friedman isn’t just a fair-weather
fan.

While
Friedman (New
York Times, 5/15/18)
believes that Trump has drawn “some needed attention to Iran’s
bad behavior,” for him pivotal questions remain unanswered, such as
“who is going to take over in Tehran if the current Islamic regime
collapses?” One immediate fix he proposed was to censure Iran’s
metaphorical “occupation” of Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. Isn’t
this ironic coming from an unapologetic propagandist for Washington’s
decades-long, non-metaphorical occupation of the two countries to the
east and west of Iran (FAIR.org, 12/9/15)?

In
a surprising break from corporate media convention, USA
Today (9/26/18)
published a column on US/Iran relations written by an actual Iranian.
Reflecting on the CIA-orchestrated
coup against
Iran’s elected government in 1953, Azadeh Shahshahani, who was born
four days after the 1979 revolution there, wrote:

“I
often wonder what would have happened if that coup had not worked, if
[Prime Minister] Mosaddeq had been allowed to govern, if democracy
had been allowed to flourish.”

“It
is time for the US government to stop intervening in Iran and let the
Iranian people determine their own destiny,” she beseeched readers.

Code
Pink’s Medea Benjamin confronts the head of Trump’s “Iran
Action Group” (Real
News, 9/21/18).

Shahshahani’s
call is supported by some who have rejected corporate media’s war
propaganda and have gone to extreme lengths to have their
perspectives heard. Anti-war activist and Code Pink founder
Medea Benjamin was recently forcibly removed after she upstaged Brian
Hook, leader of Trump’s Iran Action Group, on live TV, calling his
press conference “the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen”
(Real
News, 9/21/18).
Benjamin implored the audience: “Let’s talk about Saudi Arabia.
Is that who our allies are?”

“How
dare you bring up the issue of Yemen,” admonished Benjamin as she
was dragged from the room. “It’s the Saudi bombing that is
killing most people in Yemen. So let’s get real. No more war! Peace
with Iran!” Code Pink is currently
petitioning the New
York Times and Washington
Post to
stop propagandizing war.

Sadly,
no matter whom you ask in corporate media, be they spokespeople for
“Trump’s America” or “the resistance,” peace remains an
elusive choice in the US political imagination. And while the public
was focused last week on Supreme Court nominee Brett
Kavanaugh’s perjurious
testimony,
the Senate finalized a $674
billion “defense” budget.
Every single Democrat in the chamber voted in favor of the
bill, explicitly
naming Iran as
persona non grata in the United States’ world-leading
arms supply network,
which has seen a 25 percent increase in exports since Obama took
office in 2009.

The
US government’s imperial ambitions are perhaps its only truly
bipartisan project—what the New
York Times euphemistically
refers to as “globalism.” Nowhere was this on fuller display than
at the funeral for Republican Sen. John McCain (FAIR.org, 9/11/18),
where politicians of all stripes were tripping over themselves to
produce the best accolades for a man who infamously
sang“bomb
bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran” to the tune of a Beach Boys song.

McCain’s
bloodlust was nothing new. Nearly a hundred years ago, after the
West’s imperial competition culminated in the most destructive war
the world had ever seen, the brilliant American sociologist and
anti-colonial author WEB Du Bois wrote,
“This is not Europe gone mad; this is not aberration nor insanity;
this is Europe.”

Iranian
leaders have repeatedly said they do not want war with the US
(AP, 9/27/18),
but US corporate media, despite frequently characterizing Trump as a
“mad king” (FAIR.org, 6/13/18),
continue to play an instrumental role in rationalizing a future war
with Iran. Should such an intentional catastrophe come to pass, we
can hardly say that this would be America gone mad; war is not
aberration, it is always presented as the next sane choice.
This is America.