During an August 18 segment about the Iraq War, anchor Brian Williams said (emphasis added):
Let’s bring into this conversation retired U.S. Army Colonel Jack Jacobs. He’s a decorated combat veteran, a recipient of the Medal of Honor and, of course, an NBC News military analyst.
Well, at this point, people like me always ask people like you, what have we learned. Critics of this war are always going to look at it as an elective. They’re always going to say those 9/11 pilots weren’t Iraqis. And they’re always going to say we never found the weapons of mass destruction. So as an analyst–a civilian now, but a veteran military man, what do you think we’ve learned?
Williams is right about one thing–people like him do always seem to prefer to pose questions to retired military officials. During the run-up to the Iraq War, for instance, NBC was running this advertisement touting their coverage:
Showdown Iraq, and only NBC News has the experts. General Norman Schwarzkopf, allied commander during the Gulf War. Gen. Barry McCaffrey, he was the most decorated four-star general in the Army. General Wayne Downing, former special operations commander and White House adviser. Ambassador Richard Butler and former U.N. weapons Inspector David Kay: Nobody has seen Iraq like they have. The experts. The best information from America’s most watched news organization, NBC News.
Whether those experts provided the “best information” can speak for itself.Back to the present: If Williams really wanted to know what critics of the war think about the war, why didn’t he just ask one?
He might’ve gotten an answer.
None of the on-going wars of aggression were based on any truth, and could never have happened had the MSM did their natural job in investigative journalism.
War is stupid. People die, and most of them are innocent civilans. Do I know what I’m talking about? You bet I do!
FYI: I am a 72 year old veteran of 28 years active duty in the US Air Force, 1958-1972.
Explain, if you can: In 1941 the U.S. goes to war, initiates a draft, mobilizes, fights two wars and is home in less than five years.
We have been training Afghan and Iraqi soldiers for years longer than it took us to prepare for and fight WWII. I’ve been through the routine: into the military, four or five months of training, next thing you are seated on Quad 40s heading for Korea, Vietnam, or wherever. How long are we expected to change diapers for the people in these countries?
When will we,
see,
that these wars
ain’t what they appear
to be.
Our military budget could feed every hungry person in the world.
Endless war is now official government policy. The people who fight them aren’t the people who start them or benefit from them–but since the people who benefit from them are our overlords, I can’t see any change in policy or news coverage in the foreseeable future. After all, the owners of our media are the same ones who benefit from war. It’s the free market system in action!
We need to say over and over, “War is not the answer” and stop supporting the corporate war machine in every way that we can.
My mother used to say, “If you kill enough people, they don’t call it murder.” The first time I heard this, I asked, “What do they call it?” “War,” she said.
Having Brian Williams question Col Jack Jacobs is like on an infocommercial where the seller is asked if the product he is selling is any good. It is all scripted. I am getting to the point with my DVR of instead of fast forwarding through the commericals to get to the news, I find myself fast forwarding through the news to get to the commericals.
Well, Ask ME!
Or ask me, an Iraq war protester and a father of a daughter who served in the Army in Afghanistan and Iraq.
“They’re always going to say those 9/11 pilots weren’t Iraqis. And they’re always going to say we never found the weapons of mass destruction.”
Isn’t it interesting (Maybe that’s the wrong word – “stomach-turning”, perhaps?) that the corpress deals with the facts by ignoring them, or distorting them (some might label that “lying”), or, in this case, acknowledging them in such a way as to try to render them irrelevant?
To get all All-American about it, that’s a triple play.
Or a triple threat.
Whatever, we lose.
Bob Charron (see above response) has it right regarding the infomercial analogy – – I would suggest that the only difference is that the MSM is ‘tacitly’ scripted while infomercials are obviously actually scripted. Employees in the MSM who want to keep their jobs and/or advance in the organization KNOW the range of questions/comments that are highly preferred by their bosses and the pro-business managers of the for-profit enterprise they work for. There are SO many anti-war groups (in fact, one could make a separate argument that this is one of the problems with the the anti-war movement… the organizations are too numerous) that to choose a retired soldier — who is NOT even reported as being a member of an anti-war veterans organization — is just being disingenuous. I long ago gave up watching these ‘debates’ on TV because they are so predictable, and so wrong.
“They’re always going to say those 9/11 pilots weren’t Iraqis. And they’re always going to say we never found the weapons of mass destruction.”
And there’s never going to be a better example of the extent to which Brian Williams is corrupt.
The second I navigated to the incredible The End Of Nations blog I thought that FAIR blog’s commentators really have to act as jury on this: http://hubpages.com/hub/Global-Union-The-End-Of-Nations
“Critics of this war are always going to look at it as an elective. ” well duh! wonder what brian really thinks made this war MANDATORY…..ge’s pentagon budgeting?
Great Thank you
very nice post thanks..