Saturday, February 10, 2007

Incweasingly Stwong Evidence

The "Noise Machine" is still going strong and the target is Iran. This morning in the story on the Casey to Petraeus handoff in Iraq NPR dutifully rebroadcasts accusations against Iran:

Scott Simon asks Jamie Tarabay, "This handover is coming at a time when US Defense Secretary Robert Gates says that there’s increasingly strong evidence to his mind of Iranian involvement in Iraq, what can you tell us about these reports about manufac—, explosive devices manufactured in Iran?"

To which Tarabay replies, "Well when he spoke to reporters, Secretary Gates said that there were markings on these explosives that were pretty good evidence, were the words that he used, that Iranians were supplying either the weaponry or the technology to insurgents in Iraq. He says there might be serial numbers on the fragments of these explosives but he didn’t say how those numbers could be traced back to Iran..." Then after noting that the US has repeatedly "put off" presenting any evidence she says "what we know is that General Casey recently said that five men arrested in the north of Iraq were connected to the Iranian revolutionary guard and they were in Iraq as intelligence operatives...."

Beyond the mention of the postponed briefings, there is no attempt to debunk this nonsense; no sense of embarrassment at once again repeating groundless claims of "evidence." How many times does Elmer Fudd NPR have to be set up with lies before it starts expressing some serious skepticism? Even better would be investigative reporting into the absurdity of these accusations. The story these reporters should be broadcasting is not the BS they get from the secretaries and generals, but the likely motivations and machinations behind these deceptions. Wouldn't it be great to see the unmasking of this junk intelligence done now instead of waiting for some tepid inspector general's report to come out four years and hundreds of thousands of lives too late?

3 comments:

Porter Melmoth said...

There seems to be some element of human nature, and particularly in American human nature, that can't resist being seduced into following a tragic pathway. It must be the desire to be part of something, something big, no matter how erroneous, which is the main hook. The prospect of changing course tends to be unthinkable. It is a perverse love of the inexorable, and the porno thrill therein. I imagine that there are a great number of NPR newsies who genuinely feel they are near, if not in, some inner circle, some upper echelon of power. This tendency, combined with a self-infatuation that just won't quit, plus a heady realization that they are reaching thousands of 'thinking' people within their broadcasting halo, creates a state of delusion not unlike the most hardened of neo-cons.
Personally, I can't possibly trust the likes of Jamie Tarabay and Scott Simon to give me anything close to an objective view of anything so terrible as the looming Iran situation. Thank heavens their listening audience is as small as it is. I actually find network hacks more tolerable to deal with than these NPR shills for - whatever the hell it is they're shilling for... !

Kevan Smith said...

Some element of human nature ...

Someone once said, "There's a sucker born every minute...and two to take 'em."

Anonymous said...

Just as in the lead up to the Iraq invasion, NPR is totally in support of an aggression towards Iran. The network, based in D.C., is just not credible anymore, and is clearly under some sort of directive to push the idea that Iran must be invaded.

One would think that NPR listeners would have caught on as a result of how NPR pitched the Iraq war.

NPR continues to participate in the propaganda war against Americans, and NPR listeners are paying the bill for this quite willingly.