Untitled Document

U.S. Is Studying Military Strike Options on Iran
Any Mix of Tact, Threats Alarms Critics

By Peter Baker, Dafna Linzer and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, April 9, 2006; Page A01

The Bush administration is studying options for military strikes against Iran as part of a broader strategy of coercive diplomacy to pressure Tehran to abandon its alleged nuclear development program, according to U.S. officials and independent analysts.

Once again, the Washington Post covers vitally important issues from a narrow "inside the Beltway" perspective, completely evading the major issues that matter to the ordinary people who (used to) buy the paper. It's a long article (over 1800 words) on the front page. It goes into great detail about the debate inside Washington over whether the Bush administration should attack Iran with nuclear weapons.

I am sure that the Washington Post thinks of it as a hard-hitting article, especially because of this sentence, which is actually bold, for them:

"Many military officers and specialists, however, view the saber rattling with alarm. A strike at Iran, they warn, would at best just delay its nuclear program by a few years but could inflame international opinion against the United States, particularly in the Muslim world and especially within Iran, while making U.S. troops in Iraq targets for retaliation."

So the Post has told us that there is a hot and heavy debate among decisionmakers about attacking Iran. It has also told us about the menu of different approaches being considered, including the classic "surgical strike." (After all the reports that we have had of civilians being killed by air strikes-- like this one originally in the Post -- could we please see this tired phrase abolished?)

Unfortunately, the article completely leaves out the things about the situation that would matter to a normal human being.

Is there any good reason to believe that Iran is a military threat to the United States? There is not any discussion of this question. The Post ignores this question, which should be the first consideration for our government. Couldn't they find anyone who could seriously evaluate this question? Or does it just not matter to them?

Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union had some capacity to attack the United States. Does Iran have any such capacity? Is there any reason to think it ever will? I'm not referring to sneak terrorist attacks, which obviously many nations, as well as various non-state groups, have the ability to carry out.

If Iran is not now, and may never be, a military nuclear threat to the U.S., then why are we even considering war? This gets into the increasingly fuzzy notion of national security. Iran is certainly a military threat to U.S. troops in Iraq, having one of the largest armies in the immediate area. It's a threat to control of the Mideast oil supply by Exxon Mobil. But how is it a threat to ordinary people in Keokuk or Pasadena?

What Washington insiders are so blithely discussing doing to Iran is exactly what U.S. citizens condemned when the Japanese military did it to us. It's an illegal sneak attack.

Why isn't this perspective in the article? Couldn't the Post find one single person on the whole planet who they could quote saying that? My guess is that there are hundreds of theologians, clergypersons, and attorneys who would be glad to say it, and maybe even a few heads of state. Maybe they could even find a Pearl Harbor survivor to talk about how it feels to be attacked in this way. Or they could quote what President Franklin D. Roosevelt had to say about "this form of treachery." (Yes, I know the Bush Administration did the same thing to Iraq already; as far as I know, having already committed a crime once is not a defense when you commit it again.)

Finally, the supposedly hard-nosed and realistic article never mentions the political interests of the Bush Administration. Arguably, the Bush Administration has only survived politically because of the perception that it is leading us against external enemies. The Post itself wrote:

"In the past two congressional elections, Republicans gained seats on the strength of Bush's popularity and a perception among voters that the GOP was stronger on national security than Democrats."

Blogger and former Republican Senate Staffer John Aravosis is no fan of Bush, but this statement on his blog on April 8 is an accurate one:

"There have been a few major spikes in the positive direction, mostly when Bush declared war in Afghanistan and then again in Iraq. But shortly thereafter, each time, his popularity started to sink again. Just look at the chart, it's been one steady decline since election day 2000."

Given this reality, aren't the politics of this situation relevant? If we are being hard-headed and realistic, shouldn't we consider the possibility that the Bush Administration is considering war with Iran because of its domestic political impact? Wouldn't a nation full of fear of Iranian nuclear attack (no matter how absurd the idea) be much more amenable to supporting Bush -- and also to supporting continued actions that increase White House executive power at the expense of the Constitution? Again, in a nation that has turned against the Iraq war and the Bush Administration, and in a world that overwhelmingly opposed both from the beginning, surely someone could be found who would speak to these questions.

To find signs that the Bush Administration might do grossly immoral things to hold onto power, we need look no farther than this week's headlines.Tom DeLay, a close ally of the White House, faces increased legal jeopardy for actions he took to ensure Republican dominance. The web of crime around Valerie Plame's outing grows wider, and goes deeper into the White House every week. In this environment, how can the Post write an entire article about the Administration's plans for war on Iran and never mention the political advantage such a war might give the Bush Administration?

The Post gives us article after article like this. It focuses on what "inside Washington" chatters about, and ignores the normal concerns of human beings.

Imagine the Post writing about armed robbery the way it writes about U.S. foreign policy (and connecting these two is a not a new idea). Such a newspaper would print almost nothing about the wounds of the victims, or whether they lived or died, or how much money was taken from them. The paper probably wouldn't even mention the names of the victims.

Instead, victims would be discussed mostly in terms of which one should be robbed next, and how to do so successfully. The Post's articles would skip lightly over the "technicalities" of breaking the law and using violence. Instead, the articles would focus on practical issues, like whether the robbers would be wiser to use a .38 or a .45, and to rob in the daytime or after dark. Experts with experience on these issues would be quoted at great length and with great respect. ("John Smith, currently a Fellow at the Red Onion Correctional Institution, criticized Dave Jones for his plan to pistol whip an old woman to death for her watch, suggesting that Jones had not done adequate target intelligence, and that while beating her to death was an appropriate option, her credit cards were a higher priority than her watch.")

Once in a while, of course, the Post might mention the protests of the colorful but irrelevant fringe anti-crime groups. An occasional news analysis articles might even note with amused interest that polling seems to show a strong feeling by the unsophisticated public that armed robbery is "bad."

As for the police, they would be treated as a kind of joke -- an outdated and incompetent enforcement institution, badly in need of hard-nosed and realistic reform in light of the modern-day realities that make armed robbery reasonable and even necessary.

This would, of course, be a sick and immoral way to write about armed robbery, and it's a sick and immoral way to write about illegal invasions and unconstitutional military and paramilitary actions. About the unnecessary deaths of human beings for the benefit of people in power.

As ordinary human beings , we want our newspaper to discuss whether we are safe, whether our leaders are doing the right thing, and why our leaders are doing what they are doing. We won't learn any of that from the Washington Post -- and the more serious the issue, the less we will learn. The Post is a fine birdcage liner; it's a comfortable daily habit from days gone by; it has TV listings and puzzles; it's got Doonesbury (though Boondocks is on hiatus). Those are nice features, I suppose. But the Washington Post is worse than useless as a tool for understanding the threats that exist in the world around us.

The New Pravda -- How the Washington Post Maintains the Status Quo

This occasional feature showcases articles in the Washington Post that spin the news to protect the US government as we know it.

My thesis is that the Post is neither liberal nor conservative, but is the house organ of those in power in the federal government, whoever they are. (Of course at the moment they are "conservative," i.e. they claim to support culturally conservative values and small government, and to identity with white workingclass people with fundamentalist faith. These claims are a bit shaky.)

While the articles critiqued here were written by specific reporters, this critique is of the whole internal process of the Post. We can assume that what is printed is not necessarily what the bylined reporter wrote or wanted to write. Post reporters are mid-level employees of a large corporation, which, like all corporations, has a "political line" that its employees must follow, and that line overrides its commitment to fact-based journalism. Just as at Pravda under the Soviet Union, some "stars" get a little more leeway, and occasionally stories seem to stretch the party line a bit.

But the overall party line at the Post is consistent from day to day --

Federal power is exercised by responsible individuals who are motivated by sincere values and ideology to do the best thing for the nation and its people.
Political differences in Washington are almost always matters of principled opinion and personality, of region and local interest and agency infighting. They do not reflect corrupt power blocs of people seeking personal profit. They also do not reflect grassroots movements for social change.
Everyone worth taking seriously is a liberal or a conservative or a moderate, as defined by certain simple "hot button" issues. Radicals of all kinds are funny and silly.
"National security" decisions in particular are not driven by corporate profit or by lust for power, but by genuine concern for our safety. These decisions are sometimes mistaken, but are never foolish, pathological, or criminal. Only those who have been employed in "national security" work have standing to say what "national security" means; if they say so, keeping a dictator in power in Central Asia is vital, while preventing nuclear reactors here in the US from being blown up is a minor concern. As for civil liberties, it's nice to protect them procedurally, but security (as defined by experts) always comes first.
There may be a few "bad apples" in the high circles of federal power, but the independent mainstream media will seek them out and they will be punished. There never has been and never will be a corrupt conspiracy making our national decisions. There also never has been a grassroots movement based on popular outrage that has made a difference in people's lives.
While there are always scandals in Washington, they just come and go, always unrelated to each other, with no need for organized action by citizens to fundamentally change the system. There are no patterns of power and privilege operating behind the scenes.

And if you buy all that, I have a nice monument I want to sell you, with a great view of the White House and the Capitol and the place where they keep that Constitution thing people used to care about so much.

A note on national security written in July, 2004:

A year ago, most of Congress, most of the mainstream media, and Washington insiders in general agreed that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and that obviously the U.S. could prevail in Iraq in whatever way it chose to. Whoops. A few years before that, the same crowd believed that Enron was the exemplary business for a new era, and that tax cuts for the rich would create employment. Somewhere in there, we were told that SDI would work and that there was a new internet-based economy. Once upon a time, the precursors of this bunch believed that we could and had to "stop communism" in Vietnam. In these inner circles, there is deep heartfelt appreciation for every set of the emperor's new clothes . Let's face it, the claims of the "national security community" and the average highly paid pundit or pol are about as reliable as the average late-night infomercial -- and the cost of believing them is a lot higher.

Social Justice Connections -- A Personal Website

Want to see what else is on this site?

The New Pravda -- How the Washington Post Maintains the Status Quo

`click the door, open a selection from my novel`

`>>>>>>`