*Inventing the next enemy* October 5, 2007 | Pages 8 and 9
ERIC RUDER examines the claims made by politicians and the media about Iran and its president--and shows that the real threats of war in the Middle East come from a different source. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - THE MAINSTREAM media's bitter campaign against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during his trip to New York City in late September was a superb study in what Noam Chomsky calls "manufacturing consent"--the all-but-unanimous media verdict on a given issue that serves the interests of the U.S. ruling establishment. In an editorial, the "liberal" *New York Times *set the tone, denouncing Ahmadinejad as "loathsome" for "his call to wipe Israel off the map and his country's sponsorship of terrorism. Equally loathsome is Iran's denial of basic civil rights to its citizens, including the right of free speech." Columbia University President Lee Bollinger did the *Times *one better by introducing Ahmadinejad to a campus audience as a "showing all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator." But that wasn't enough to satisfy New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and New York City Council member David Weprin. The two Democrats have threatened to withhold millions of dollars in public funds from Columbia University for inviting Ahmadinejad at all. *What else to read* For more on the charges that Ahmadinejad has threatened to "wipe Israel off the map," see Juan Cole's "Turning Ahmadinejad into public enemy no. 1"<http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/09/24/ahmadinejad/>and "Ahmadinejad: 'I am not anti-Semitic.'"<http://www.juancole.com/2007/06/ahmadinejad-i-am-not-anti-semitic.html>Stephen Zunes' "My Meeting with Ahmadinejad" <http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4592> in *Foreign Policy in Focus *examines the Iranian president in light of his New York visit. Left-wing writers Edward Herman and David Peterson's "Hegemony and Appeasement: Setting Up the Next U.S.-Israeli Target"<http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=11963>on ZNet is a systematic debunking of the administration's allegations. Peter Galbraith's "The Victor?" <http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20651> is a harsh critique of the Bush administration's strategic blunders by a mainstream Democrat from the U.S. foreign policy establishment. Also look for the *International Socialist Review's<http://www.isreview.org/> *ongoing coverage, including most recently "Targeting Iran?"<http://www.isreview.org/issues/50/targetiran.shtml>by Saman Sepehri. Only a few media outlets caught the irony of politicians threatening Columbia's finances for inviting Ahmadinejad to speak--while denouncing the Iranian president for his disregard for free speech. New York's tabloid newspapers denounced Ahmadinejad as a "monster" and the "new Hitler" in giant headlines, and others in the press repeated the Bush administration's claim that Iran's nuclear energy program is aimed at producing nuclear weapons. Further down the media food chain, Greg Gutfeld, host of the show *Redeye *on Fox News, wrote: "So the foul-smelling fruitbat Ahmadinejad spoke at that crack house known as Columbia University." Nowhere in the media was there any serious examination of the allegations made against Iran--nor any questioning of the larger U.S. aims at work in the demonization of Ahmadinejad. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - *Nuclear weapons* POLITICIANS AND media commentators almost universally treated Ahmadinejad as a nuclear maniac intent on obtaining weapons of mass destruction. But Iran has only insisted on its right to develop a nuclear energy program--as guaranteed to it under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Iran has signed, though U.S. allies Israel, India and Pakistan have not. Mohammad ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which oversees inspections of Iran's nuclear sites, repeated again last month that the agency has been unable to find credible evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program, including any sign of underground production sites or forbidden radioactive substances. ElBaradei has called for a three-month waiting period before the UN Security Council pursues further measures. Second, even if Iran "got a nuclear weapon, it couldn't use it except in desperate self-defense as both Israel and the United States have many nuclear bombs and superior delivery systems, so that any offensive use of its nuclear weapon(s) would entail Iranian national suicide," wrote media experts Edward Herman and David Peterson. "It may be recalled that Saddam used his WMD only against Iran and his Kurds, but not even in self-defense during the 1991 Persian Gulf war attack on Iraq by the United States and its 'coalition'--the former use was with U.S. approval, the latter case of non-use was because Saddam would have suffered disproportionate retaliation by the United States and his restraint followed. "This point is not made in the establishment media, possibly because it would seem to qualify the Iran nuclear menace. The media also do not draw the further inference that an Iranian nuclear weapon would therefore serve only as a means of self-defense and to give Iran a little more leverage in dealing with the nuclear power states--the United States and Israel--that openly threaten it. "Instead, the media, following the official line, talk about an Iranian nuclear weapon as 'destabilizing,' when what they really mean is that the Israeli-U.S. continuous war-making, ethnic cleansing, and deliberate and effective destabilization of the Middle East would be made more difficult." --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send email to greenyouth@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
