Propaganda in the Making

Article one is an announcement that Iran has moved to bar IAEA inspectors. It is essentially a matter-of-fact statement that this has happened. Article two brings the original statement into question and or diffuses the original intent of article one. Article two states that article (Associated Press) called the IAEA after hours to get corroboration as regards their story. So there was no immediate information to contradict their story.
Article two makes it clear that when they called the IAEA responded and indicated that story one was not factually correct. As stated no comment from the IAEA was in the original Reuters or AP article. So is it just poor reporting or something more?




A mistake, shoddy reporting, propaganda, purposefully misleading. This is obviously a big issued because a similar 'event' lead us to war in Iraq. The US has the right to be 'outraged' by this type of behavior but is this what it seems or just a pretext to enact PNAC plans from 1998? Actually upon closer examination Reuters and AP seem to be doing the governments bidding. The after hours call could not have provided clarity it was after all after hours nor did they explain that to their readers.

Article two (below link) supplies needed information for one to make a more balanced decision. There is some discusion regarding 38 inspectors but there are 150 all together. It's much less threatening. But we weren't supposed to see that until later. The strategy was used to get people all riled up, a little saber rattling. Next thing you know an administration lackey will be at the UN saying they've spotted nukes on missiles pointed at you know who.

Related News Links:
www.rawstory.com


[edit: removed pending tag; as this was originally posted to ATSNN]

[edit on 10-2-2007 by 12m8keall2c]

Propaganda is easy. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR.ORG) has a good article on U.S. media selling the Iranian connection to the U.S. people in order to pull off any attack, unprovoked or retaliatory, against Iran:

www.fair.org...

Average Couch Potato Joe doesn't understand the various factions operating in Iraq or the linkages between them and other groups. It's easy to say, "Iran is supplying bombs to kill our soldiers." Most people don't understand or remember that Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki is from the Da'wa party and president Bush just had the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) party leader al-Hakim over to the White House for a nice visit.

Most of the current ruling Shi'ite officials that the Bush administration is backing were in exile during Saddam Hussein's rule, many of them in Iran. At the same time, most of the deadly attacks on our military forces are carried out by Sunni extremists -- insurgent groups and al-Qaeda. Ironically, Bush's "New Way Forward" allies in the region are the Sunni rulers of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt, and yet the Sunni populations in those countries financially back or even send jihadists to Iraq.

So, why rev up the propaganda machine against Iran?

Some speculate that it's because Iran is the ultimate target of the PNAC neocons from day one. Attack Afghanistan, attack Iraq, surround Iran, and then attack the real target. While I'm not an expert on the machinations of the PNAC crowd, I would think they may be re-thinking that plan since steps one and two aren't going too well at the moment.

But think for a moment. Had Afghanistan and Iraq embraced the U.S. as liberators, as the PNAC neocons originally envisioned, they may have been able to drum up support within Iraq to attack Iran. As it is, the Sunni's have enough Shia in Iraq to kill, and vice versa. The U.S. still has enough MEK to wreak a little unrest in Iran.

The Bush administration wants to change the subject

Recently, the acting Director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University, Gary Sick, offered the most likely reason to drum up propaganda to attack Iran in an interview on PBS's News Hour:

www.pbs.org...

Well, the United States bears a great deal of responsibility for the situation we're in. We invaded Afghanistan and did away with the Taliban, which was Iran's worst enemy to the east. We then did away with Saddam Hussein, who was their worst enemy to the west.

And then we installed a Shia government in Baghdad, for the very first time in history, that was friendly to Iran. Many of the people there were actually sheltered in Iran during the Iran-Iraq war.

So we shouldn't be surprised that a close relationship has developed between these two neighboring countries. And I think Iran wants it that way. And, to some very considerable degree, the Iraqis do, too.

The other thing that I think we really have to keep remembering and reminding ourselves in this period is that the real attacks against the United States, the place where Americans are dying most frequently, is not in the Shia territories that were mentioned before, and they're not by Shia weapons.

They are by Sunni insurgents in al-Anbar province. They are, in many cases, supported militarily, financially by people, individuals at least, in the countries that are our new allies, the Saudis, the Jordanians, the Egyptians, and others. Those are the people who blow themselves up in marketplaces and so forth.

By focusing our attention on Iran, we're correct, I'm sure, that Iran is doing some nefarious things in the country, but our real problem lies elsewhere. And I see it, as I say, an effort to change the subject.

It should be noted that Gary Sick was the Iranian expert on the National Security Council for Ford, Carter and Reagan.