Saturday, April 26, 2008

A Grain of Salt with my Prime Rib Please

Any half-witted reader knows that it is the nature of governments to lie, and then to lie some more, and finally to lie again. People of all ilks have pointed out Goebbels' pointed remarks about the power of the big lie (ironic link warning!). Of course, the US is as guilty as any promoting lies that have dire consequences: from Vietnam and El Salvador to secret prisons and torture. The Bush administration, however, has taken this tendency and turned it in to a stock in trade.

So you might expect any thinking person, and especially a journalist, to be extremely skeptical about the latest Bush Administration presentation of "intelligence" on the Syrian facility destroyed by Israel back in September. You might expect it, but not NPR. To serve up this latest dish from the White House, NPR turns to Tom Gjelten. Here's just a sample of his hard-hitting skepticism evidenced on Thursday's ATC :
  • "...the amazing thing Melissa is that they have photos...that were taken inside the reactor by somebody, a spy presumably..."
  • "...photos show definitively that what was being built there was in fact a nuclear reactor."
  • "...however they did have a very interesting picture of a senior North Korean official..."
  • "...they also said that they could support all of these pictures and the conclusions they drew from them with other evidence."
I'm not claiming to know whether or not Syria was building a nuclear reactor or not. The silly video that the Bush folks produced makes a dumbed-down case, but are the photos real, current, actually from the bombed site, etc? NPR doesn't express a hint of doubt, but, as Glenn Greenwald has pointed out, joins the rest of the mainstream media in just repeating whatever the administration claims. For a bit of salt on this juicy story you can read the Greenwald piece, take a look at Larisa Alexandrovna on Huffington Post, David Kurtz on TPM, or Steve Benen on Carpetbagger Report. Or you can just sit at the counter with NPR and gobble it up - yum.

Update (4/27): Juan Cole (through an informed reader) pokes more holes in the US/Israel case against Syria. In his post he also recommends this Farley article in Counterpunch (which spanks Gjelten and National "Pentagon" Radio).

2 comments:

Porter Melmoth said...

For anyone still believing ANYTHING the Bush Administration might be 'announcing' these days, I would refer you to NPR News, as they and their crack team are ready to swallow any ejaculation BushCorp might chance to spew from any orifice of humiliation. Because, the mighty folk of BushCorp always know that the good grovelers at NPR will always line up at the slop trough to take the leavings and the droppings left as tantalizing bait. Because they know that NPR is just stupid enough to snort up said droppings in order to show them off as trophies, as if they're breaking new ground, or something. Little do they know that BushCorp surely rolls their eyes and scoffs behind their backs at the thing that is NPR. Because, if they did the same thing with those faith-based outfits that thought BushCorp would HELP them (i.e. mock them in their absence), why wouldn't NPR be mocked in their absence, as well? It would take a mucking thesis to explain what I'm trying to say properly, but hopefully, you'll know what I mean.

NPR no doubt prides itself on being 'savvy', but how come they usually end up being the stupidest dumbshits on the block? Can they not conceive of the fact that they might be taken for a ride on a REGULAR basis? If I'm sitting out here in, say, Weeping Water, Nebraska, figuring this stuff out, how come these things evade the Beltway vets of NPR? Huh? Why? - because they're STUPID, and they've lost their way, long ago, if they even WERE on the right track. The rantings of a dissatisfied listener? Hardly. It doesn't take too much sophistication to figure out what a bozo operation NPR is. Just scan this blog to consider their record of disgrace and worthlessness. Tune in elsewhere! (Like I need to suggest that to any reader of this helpful blog!)

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much for the links to articles explaining this story. I never believed it from the beginning, but your links gave me the ammunition I lacked.