As the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) has expanded control over territory in Iraq and Syria, a growing chorus of politicians and pundits are demanding the Obama administration take more forceful military action. ISIS’s gruesome beheadings of two American journalists have only increased those calls, leading some to compare the media frenzy to the run-up to the Iraq War.
Prominent pro-Iraq pundits continue showing up as experts–for example, discredited war booster William Kristol recently appeared on CNN (9/3/14)–demonstrating once again that advocating for the invasions that contributed to the present chaos does not seem to affect one’s standing in corporate media.
Indeed, the discussions about what Obama should do lean heavily towards former military and national security insiders, which inevitably produces a “debate” not over the wisdom of military strikes, but over how big a war the United States should be waging.
On ABC‘s This Week (8/31/14), anchor Martha Raddatz first convened a discussion between Dick Clarke–who “directed counterterrorism efforts at the highest levels for several administrations”–and former deputy secretary of Homeland Security Jane Holl Lute.
The next panel was former military officials:
Col. Steven Ganyard is a former Marine Corps fighter pilot and State Department official. And Adm. Robert Harwood is a former deputy commander of US Central Command that covers all these areas.
CBS‘s Face the Nation, unsurprisingly, led with an interview with hawkish Sen. John McCain. On NBC‘s Meet the Press (8/31/14), Andrea Mitchell introduced her panel:
For more on the military options for taking on ISIS, I’m joined by Michael Leiter, NBC national security analyst, who served as director of the National Counterterrorism Center; Michele Flournoy, who served as under secretary of Defense for policy in President Obama’s first term, and she’s now executive director at the Center for New American Security, and Gen. Anthony Zinni, our former commander-in-chief of US Central Command, and special envoy to the Middle East.
Elsewhere on the show, NBC correspondent Richard Engel was asked about the White House’s reluctance to bomb Syria:
Well, I speak to military commanders. I speak to former officials. And they are apoplectic. They think that this is a clear and present danger. They think something needs to be done.
When the range of discussion consists primarily of current and former military officials, along with boosters of the Iraq War, it’s impossible to have an actual debate.
An echo chamber of horrors
I wonder when they will learn the words of wisdom “you can’t solve a problem by using the same faulty thinking that caused the problem in the first place”.
“directed counterterrorism efforts at the highest levels for several administrations”
Haha. That is quite a statement.
Wait so the people who want to deal with an org that’s has declard war on the USA, are folks that deal in war matters. Who should they ask code pink or the UN that has never got it right
Once again FAIR demonstrates its fearless, shock-proof shit detector when it comes exposing how the corporate media beats the war drums and tries to pass off its propaganda as news reporting. Anyone who’s worked in corporate media knows the debt FAIR is owed, whether they can acknowledge it publicly or not.
Does anyone besides me see the recent regrouping of IS into only Syria, where they were trained to be in the 1st place, and in Iraq where they are helping shore up western control over northern Iraq’s oil reserves (because Baghdad wasn’t doing such a good job of it, with their constant infighting with the Kurds) as a little at odds with IS’s over-arching global mandate?
I was thinking a few weeks ago that they were about to storm Tel-Aviv.
Doesn’t it strike anyone as a little too convenient for western foreign policy goals (secure Iraqi oil), and not to mention the bottom line improvements for the western (and Israeli) arms manufacturers/dealers?
That and the largely unquestioned lack of un-refuted evidence that either Foley or Sotloff were actually beheaded? I don’t believe 99.9% of the people who accept these alleged acts as fact have actually seen the videos or made any effort to consider the evidence that in my opinion does refute these alleged acts as factual.
This lack of consideration holds even more true in the media, where either no one has looked at this evidence, or is colluding with the perpe-traitors.
Until a couple of days ago, I had not made any attempt either to find and view these IS Pr films. Mainly because it seemed to be a potentially depraved thing for me to do when I can just take my government’s word for it.
They don’t lie, right?
I think that’s what they count on. That decent people want question the lack of physical evidence. Those who do are conspiracy nuts or IS enablers.
Well if you can believe that a person can have their head “sawed” off with a hunting knife, without bleeding or struggling, after giving a 500+ word speech without falter, hesitation or any sign of nervousness or fear for their life, then you are the perfect applicant for the New American Century; an Orwellian dystopia beyond that which even has been written by the greatest of sci-fi futurists.
Nuts!
I don’t want to invite a barrage of criticism here, but I have to say, as someone who does support a military confrontation with ISIS, I still share FAIR’s criticism of the imbalance in these discussions. There should be one voice at least on these panels recommending caution or incredulity.
Again, in the final analysis, I would be for a military intervention regardless of what talking heads they put on TV — but this homogeneity is simply bad for public knowledge and debate.
Boom, boom, boom. Beat that drum. Boom, boom, boom.
The fear-mongering is SO obvious, it amazes me how many sheeple buy into it. ISIS takes control of some Iraqi and Syrian cities and military bases, and beheads a couple American journalists (who knew full well the risks), and Americans (safe and snug within their borders) get totally freaked out, as if ISIS’s next target was the US.
The problem is too many people in this country don’t stop to give any critical thought to this situation. If they did, they’d relax and realize the probability of ISIS committing a 9/11-style operation is next to zero.
The whole point of 9/11 was to draw the US into the Middle East so we would wreak havoc, thus weakening our standing in the world. It worked. Today, we’re already there, our presence ever-growing, so ISIS is already getting what it wants, and thus has no reason to attack within our borders.
But you’ll never hear that narrative on MIC-owned media.
It would be interesting to know what Obama’s top military advisors are actually telling him about the consequences of escalating US military ops in Iraq and proposed attacks on ISIS in Syria. I remember last year that Joint Chiefs Chair General Martin Dempsey refused to say that US air strikes against Assad’s forces would be a “cake walk.” Seymour Hersh reported that Dempsey’s view was that an attack against Assad in Syria would be a “military blunder,” and joint chiefs didn’t buy the story that it was Assad’s forces, who had used sarin gas. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n08/seymour-m-hersh/the-red-line-and-the-rat-line
I have to give Dempsey credit for doing his part to keep us out of a war in Syria last year. On August 25, Dempsey publicly advised against US airstrikes against ISIS in Syria because “ISIS is not currently plotting or planning attacks against the U.S. or Europe.”
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/08/25/joint-chiefs-chairman-says-isis-not-direct-threat-to-west-wont-recommend-syria/
But some of Dempsey’s more recent public statements indicate that he may be caving into pressure to get on the war bandwagon in both Iraq & Syria. If someone can prove that I am wrong about what seems to be this change in Dempsey’s public stand, please do so!
Complete stenography. Not only is the corporate media incredibly destructive, it’s a complete embarrassment. Have they no scruples that the betray the very purpose of journalism? Of course it is a clear and present danger. But before we go making the same mistake that has resulted in the chaos, we’d better fully understand how we got here. It follows: jailing the Bush regime for their war crimes, their crimes against humanity, their initiation of the invasion of Iraq in 2003 on complete false pretenses, is the only prospect that we go not down that road again.
Too bad about being a troll thomas.