Subject:  AS DISTRACTIONS SHOCK, ROCK, & NUMB NATION--U.S. BACKS TERRORISTS
Date:  Sat, 21 Apr 2007 22:54:23 -0500



http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig7/davis3.html

Is the US Already at War With Iran?
Maybe - But You Wouldn't Know It by Reading the News

by Charles Davis

Until the recent tragic massacre on the campus of Virginia Tech,
the media's previous obsession was covering what was undoubtedly
the most important story since the paternity test results were
revealed for Anna Nicole Smith's baby: Don Imus, the favored "shock
jock" of the Washington political establishment, is something of a
bigot. Of course, this isn't news to anyone who has paid passing
attention to the man over the past few years, but it did provide
national news outlets with a much-needed excuse to avoid reporting
on all of those depressing stories from Iraq, which are just too
much of a distraction from the truly important work that remains to
be done in this country - like electing the next American Idol.

By giving Don Imus more coverage than any single human being
deserves, news outlets were able to shelve stories that had started
to grow a little stale - like that one about the United States
government supporting terrorist attacks in the Middle East. Oh
wait, you didn't hear that one? Well imagine this: a group
described in news reports as "part drug smuggler, part Taliban,
part Sunni activist," operates in a remote region of Pakistan and
receives covert backing from a major regional power player in order
to conduct cross-border terrorist attacks involving the kidnapping
and videotaped execution of a neighboring country's military and
intelligence officials. Now if the country involved were say, Syria
or Iran, such a story might make the front page of the New York
Times or the Washington Post. But as it is the United States
government that his been implicated, the nation's leading news
outlets are silent.

According to an April 3rd piece published by ABC News, the United
States is backing a Pakistani tribal group called "Jundullah," or,
"the Army of God," in what ABC calls a "secret war against Iran."
The group operates in a region called "Baluchistan," a lawless area
of Pakistan not controlled by the central government. They have
claimed responsibility for several deadly attacks near the
southeastern part of Iran that borders Pakistan, including a
February bombing in the town of Zahedan that killed eleven people.
Iran has accused the CIA of supporting the group, but the United
States government has denied any involvement. But according to the
ABC News report, the support is arranged in such a way "that the
U.S. provides no funding to the group, which would require an
official presidential order or 'finding' as well as congressional
oversight." Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller
(D-WV), when asked about the report, said he believed the Bush
administration "would go to any lengths" to conceal the activity
from Congress. Pressed on what he could do as Intelligence Chairman
to investigate the matter, he responded:

"Don't you understand the way Intelligence works?  Do you think
that because I'm chairman of the Intelligence Committee that I just
say 'I want it, give it to me?'  They control all of it - all of it
- all the time.  I only get, and my committee only gets, what they
want to give me." (Listen to an MP3 of the exchange.)

The arrangement is eerily similar to the backing that the Afghan
mujahadeen received in the 1980s from both the Carter and Reagan
administrations. At that time the United States was engaged in a
proxy war not against Iran, but the Soviet Union. In a 1983
proclamation, President Ronald Reagan went so far as to declare
March 21st "Afghanistan Day," praising the Islamic groups, which
included Osama bin Laden and others who would later form Al Qaeda,
as "valiant and courageous Afghan freedom fighters" for their
resistance to the Soviet occupation.

But the news that the United States may be backing militant
extremists should come as no surprise. Investigative reporter
Seymour Hersh revealed in the New Yorker back in January 2005 that
President Bush signed several executive orders permitting Special
Forces and commando units to target "suspected terrorist sites" in
at least ten different countries. The units operate under the
Pentagon's command structure so as to bypass restrictions and
oversight requirements that are placed on the CIA. According to
Hersh, Pentagon advisers said the covert activities could involve
the recruitment of local citizens in the Middle East "to join up
with guerillas or terrorists," and involve "organizing and carrying
out combat operations, or even terrorist activities." As a former
military official familiar with the plan put it, "We're going to be
riding with the bad boys."

So why has the media afforded such extensive coverage to
"Imus-gate," yet found no time to cover allegations of
American-sponsored terrorism?

Outside of ABC News, it's a struggle to find any discussion of U.S.
support for anti-Iranian extremist groups in the major media
outlets.  While the New York Times was quick to speak about the
Imus affair in an  April 11th editorial, there has been not so much
as a mention of the Jundullah story in their paper, much less a
critical look at how the
story undermines the White House's moral authority to criticize
Iran for
its supposed "meddling" in Iraq. The same goes for the Washington
Post,
where a search for "Jundullah" reveals only two wire articles on
the
subject. One finds no editorials questioning the policy, no
reaction
from lawmakers, no introspective takes on the morality of such a
policy
- one finds next to nothing. In contrast, the paper has run over
200
articles on the Don Imus story, examining it from every possible
angle
until the point where the mere mention of the name "Don Imus" is
enough
to cause one's mental faculties to shut down in protest.

This isn't the first time that the major news outlets, namely the
Washington Post, have downplayed reports that may be detrimental to
the
Bush administration's claims against Iran. In fact, on April 7th,
the
Post simply rewrote history. As a number of blogs have noted, the
Post
extensively rewrote a Reuters article that directly contradicts
administration claims that deadly devices known as "explosively
formed
penetrators," or EFP's, could only be supplied by Iran. The Reuters
piece describes a recent battle in the southeastern Iraqi town of
Diwaniya, and quotes a U.S. military spokesman describing how
troops
there "discovered a factory that produced 'explosively formed
penetrators' (EFPs)." A Google News screenshot shows that the Post
initially included this information: [H/T Eschaton]

But it only took a few moments before the offending paragraph was
removed. In its updated version, the Post neglects any mention of
the
EFP factory, choosing instead to include details about a roadside
bombing near Baghdad that involved an "explosively formed
projectile, a
particularly deadly type of device which Washington accuses Iran of
supplying Iraqi militants."

More than just a mere oversight, the Post's rewriting of history is
just
further evidence that the news media has failed to learn from the
mistakes that played a major role in leading the country into war
with
Iraq. Then, as now, the news media failed to ask the hard questions
of
misleading and deceptive statements made by the Bush
administration.
Reporters, like the New York Times' Judith Miller, uncritically
reported
administration claims in breathless stories that graced the front
page,
often with no mention of dissenting views or conflicting evidence.
If
the media had been more critical of claims of an "imminent threat"
and
weapons of mass destruction, then perhaps the country would not
have
been so easily led into war. But since 9/11, the American media has
often been too afraid to be seen as unpatriotic to ask the hard
questions. This has left some news outlets to conduct themselves
more as
an appendage of the American government and less as an independent
body
worthy of a democracy (a topic explored in depth in a new PBS
documentary by veteran journalist Bill Moyers). As bombs fell on
Baghdad
at the beginning of the U.S. invasion, cable news anchors regaled
viewers with images of "shock and awe," too busy adjusting their
American flag lapel pins to do much else but read Pentagon press
releases. Today, many Washington reporters still seem more
comfortable
socializing with congressional staffers and watching Karl Rove rap
than
they are asking the vital, informed questions that could prevent
another
conflict.

Journalists can, and should, do a better job questioning the
assertions
made by the political elite, and not fall prey to the all too
common
inside-the-Beltway mentality and its often-misguided "conventional
wisdom" (see: Iraq). The fundamental goal of journalism - exposing
deception and speaking truth to power - can occur only when
journalists
aren't afraid to offend those in power or to take a risk in asking
questions that may prevent them from attending Washington's
swankiest
cocktail parties. While the United States government continues to
struggle with the disastrous occupation of Iraq, it should be the
duty
of every news outlet that propagandized for the invasion of that
country
to ensure the public is fully informed of any and all attempts to
embroil this nation in another conflict in the Middle East - but
don't
hold your breath.

April 20, 2007

Charles Davis [send him mail] is a freelance journalist in
Washington,
DC. More of his work may be found on his personal website.

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