On Mon, 3 May 2004 10:12:18 -0700 (PDT), Gautam Mukunda <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Well, you have to ask yourself how you feel about > treating the Arab press as reliable. Do you, for > example, believe that the entire war in Iraq is a > Jewish conspiracy launched by sinister "neocons" who > are actually pawns of the state of Israel? That > would, after all, be the standard story of the war as > reported in the Arab press. I tend to trust other > media just a tiny bit more...
Well, I learned about the reliability of the American press last year when I went to independent sources and found out that Iraq had shut down its nuclear weapons program immediately after the first Gulf War. This was at the same time our VP and President were saying that we could not wait for weapons inspectors because the only warning we would get would be a mushroom cloud. Our press never challenged them. The closest to reliable reporting in mainstream American papers preceeding the war was a few deep buried articles in the Washington Post and some Kight-Ridder stories. I have constantly found out stuff days to years before the American media ever picks it up. When Powell went to the UN within days there was an analysis of his purported claims in the UK. Six months after the war was when the first American newspaper went back and looked at those claims. When Powell's assistant in charge of Iraq weapons quit and went public that there was nothing to Powell's claims this was months old to me. I suppose I should respond to your specifics - Sure the Arab press can be unreliable, so is the American. Live with it and learn the bias. They don't teach that at Harvard? The neocons - no quotes - were very open that they were going to have this war, for two of the latest people who say that look to General Zinni "it was an open secret' and former Treasury Secretary O'Neal who had to attend all the NSC meetings - the very first meeting was how to take out Saddam, by force if necessary, military plans were ordered updated. Do you disagree with that? For the earliest neocon plans for the region and the world look up Project for a New American Century, they are quite open about it, but realize the principals were planning it much earlier starting with Bush ! where they formed the uberhawk team B that overhyped threats to the US. They had other informal names in the White House at that time. More neocons are Catholic and Christian than Jewish. While the Likud party approved of the US attacking Iraq and a couple of the neocons have links to the party the neocons are not pawns of Israel. I actually think the name neocon might be a misnomer. Neo-imperialist or even, as a couple political scientists have pointed, out neo-confederate might be better. #1 on google for liberal news
_______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
