The Neo Con New York Times

Peacenik looks at the byline of this op-ed piece in the New York Times and Peacenik almost gives up hope. Hope that any world problems can be resolved peacefully. John Bolton is a warmonger. John Bolton is a neo con. John Bolton wants war with Iran. Yet here is John Bolton, blithely offerring up his opinions on Iraq and Iran. Check out this story about Iraq and then decide how wonderful the "surge" has been. A totally discredited, shameless warmonger commands the op-ed pages of the New York Times. John Bolton shouldn't be able to get a letter to the editor of the Parry Sound Beacon published. Peacenik is speechless.

Media Disinformation: Iran's Link to Iraqi Insurgents

New York Times vs McClatchy by Greg Mitchell

Global Research, May 6, 2008

Editor and Publisher - 2008-05-05

Michael Gordon, the military writer for The New York Times who contributed several false stories about Iraqi WMD in the runup to the U.S. attack on Iraq in 2002, has written several articles in the past year about Iran’s alleged training of Iraqi insurgents -- or supplying them with weapons to kill Americans. He produced another major report on this subject for today’s Times – based solely on unnamed sources -- which is at odds with an account from McClatchy’s Baghdad bureau.

Gordon asserts that “Militants from the Lebanese group Hezbollah have been training Iraqi militia fighters at a camp near Tehran…An American official said the account of Hezbollah’s role was provided by four Shiite militia members who were captured in Iraq late last year and questioned separately.

“The United States has long charged that the Iranians were training Iraqi militia fighters in Iran, which Iran has consistently denied, and there have been previous reports about Hezbollah operatives in Iraq.

“But the Americans say the reports of Hezbollah’s role at the Iranian camp offer important details about Iranian assistance to the militias, including efforts Iran appears to be making to train the fighters in unobtrusive ways.”

But McClatchy has a quite different take.

Leila Fadel, the bureau chief, and Shashank Bengali report: “The Iraqi Government seemed to distance itself from U.S. accusations towards Iran Sunday saying it would not be forced into conflict with its Shiite neighbor. And Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki ordered the formation of a committee to look into foreign intervention in Iraq.

“As the government appeared to back down from its hardening stance against Iran, four marines were killed in Anbar in the deadliest attack in the Sunni province in months.

"The government spokesman, Ali al Dabbagh, told reporters Sunday that a committee was formed to find ‘tangible information’ about foreign intervention, specifically Iran's role in Iraq rather than ‘information based on speculation.’

"’We don't want to be pushed into any conflict with any neighboring countries, especially Iran. What happened before is enough. We paid a lot,’ Dabbagh said, referring to the eight years war between the two nations in which an estimated 1 million people died.”

Also today from Agence France-Press: “Iraq said on Sunday it has no evidence that Iran was supplying militias engaged in fierce street fighting with security forces in Baghdad.

“Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said there was no 'hard evidence' of involvement by the neighbouring Shiite government of Iran in backing Shiite militiamen in the embattled country. Asked about reports that weapons captured from Shiite fighters bore 2008 markings suggesting Iranian involvement, Dabbagh said: ‘We don't have that kind of evidence... If there is hard evidence we will defend the country.’"

Here is a list of Gordon’s sources in his Times article:

-- “An American official”

-- “But the Americans say”

-- “American officials”

-- “American officials”

-- “The Americans “

--“American officials”

--“An American official”

-- ditto, and so on

Greg Mitchell's new book explores Gordon's and McClatchy's past reporting on Iraq and Iraq. It is titled, "So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President -- Failed on Iraq."

© Copyright Greg Mitchell, Editor and Publisher, 2008

More Iraq War Propaganda

Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)
http://www.fair.org

Action Alert

No Antiwar Voices in NYT 'Debate'
Look back at Iraq features nine hawkish 'experts'

The New York Times offered a look back at the Iraq War in its March 16 "Week In Review" section that leaned heavily towards pro-war voices.

The Times explained to readers:

"To mark this week's fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, the Op-Ed page asked nine experts on military and foreign affairs to reflect on their attitudes in the spring of 2003 and to comment on the one aspect of the war that most surprised them or that they wished they had considered in the prewar debate."

The "experts" who were asked to weigh in all more or less supporters of the Iraq War, most of whom evinced no regret about their errors. The neoconservative American Enterprise Institute provided three columnists: Richard Perle, Fred Kagan and Danielle Pletka, all of them among the strongest advocates for the invasion. The Times also gave space to the Brookings Institution's Kenneth Pollack, another strong supporter of the invasion.

Keep Reading...

punditman says... More propaganda from the newspaper with the masthead logo that states: "All the news that fit to print." Have they no shame?

Everyone the US fights in Iraq is now "al-Qaida"

punditman says:
...and everyone Canada fights in Afghanistan is "Taliban."
The analysis below is an excellent example of how the propaganda system works.

by Glenn Greenwald

Josh Marshall publishes an e-mail from a reader who identifies what is one of the most astonishing instances of mindless, pro-government "reporting" yet:

It's a curious thing that, over the past 10 - 12 days, the news from Iraq refers to the combatants there as "al-Qaida" fighters. When did that happen?

Until a few days ago, the combatants in Iraq were "insurgents" or they were referred to as "Sunni" or "Shia'a" fighters in the Iraq Civil War. Suddenly, without evidence, without proof, without any semblance of fact, the US military command is referring to these combatants as "al-Qaida".

Welcome to the latest in Iraq propaganda.

That the Bush administration, and specifically its military commanders, decided to begin using the term "Al Qaeda" to designate "anyone and everyeone we fight against or kill in Iraq" is obvious. All of a sudden, every time one of the top military commanders describes our latest operations or quantifies how many we killed, the enemy is referred to, almost exclusively now, as "Al Qaeda."

But what is even more notable is that the establishment press has followed right along, just as enthusiastically. I don't think the New York Times has published a story about Iraq in the last two weeks without stating that we are killing "Al Qaeda fighters," capturing "Al Qaeda leaders," and every new operation is against "Al Qaeda."

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