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TIME FOR THE TRUTH!
A CHALLENGE TO THE NY TIMES
From TvNewsLIES , June 2004
Printable version: Click here.
The People have a right to the Truth as they have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. - Frank Norris
Only the very naïve are surprised when politicians stray from the truth. The more jaded among us have learned to be skeptical and cynically distrustful of those in power. But we also know that there are lies and there are damn lies. For more than three years now, the American people have been bombarded by their President and his cohorts with the most egregious, damn lies in recent history.
Tragically, the mainstream media has been complicit in supporting and disseminating these lies. The consequences of this unholy collaboration have been unbelievably devastating and deadly, and the time has come to demand the truth.
THE PLAIN TRUTH
The June 17, 2004 edition of the New York Times featured an editorial entitled The Plain Truth. Included in its discussion of the 9/11 Commission conclusions, were these words:
It's hard to imagine how the commission investigating the 2001 terrorist attacks could have put it more clearly yesterday: there was never any evidence of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda, between Saddam Hussein and Sept. 11.
Hey, we knew that! The tens of millions of people around the world who protested against the illegal invasion of Iraq knew that. We carried posters and made speeches that couldn’t have stated it more clearly. There was no link between Iraq and Al Qaeda. There was no link between Saddam Hussein and September 11th. This was not about payback. This was illegal, immoral and wrong.
Flashback: TvNewsLies.org was created because a barrage of lies was out there, and the mainstream media was repeating and supporting the lies. The New York Times was as guilty as any other newspaper of doing this. They printed the lies, they promoted the lies and they repeated the lies. They and their colleagues in the American print and television news media fanned the flames of war for weeks and months, and cheered the invasion when it began.
The Times editorial goes on to boldly suggest that:
Now President Bush should apologize to the American people, who were led to believe something different.
In total agreement, and in the name of fairness, we will go on to boldly suggest that now the New York Times should also apologize to the American people who were led to believe something different. No, we won’t accept the recent story buried on page 14 that tried to explain the laxity among some reporters and editors in verifying information about WMD’s. That article was too little, too late and lacked any reference to the responsibility of the media for lying on a continuous basis. That article assumed no blame for rallying a nation to war, and showed no nexus between the lies that were reported and the horror that has ensued. We demand much more. It is time for truth.
The international community continues to be nonplused by the fact that 69% of the American public believed that Iraq was directly connected to the attacks of 9/11. Consider that the same 69% of Americans supported an armed invasion of a nation that had never in its history posed a threat to us. Where did these people get their information? Did they watch the George W. Bush Channel? No. Did they read the Daily Bush Gazette? No. Did they watch the O’Bush Factor or tune into the Bush Limbaugh radio program? No. Most of these people were led, or we should say misled to war by the mainstream American news media.
As the Bush administration presented its falsified case for war against Iraq, most Americans turned to the news media for information that would help them understand what was happening. Most of us believed that there would be some media sources whose integrity we could rely on. We were wrong. Many of us watched in horror as the news media, the New York Times included, went into a coma and simply became a text messaging system for the Bush administration. The Bush administration had at its disposal a cost free, national public relations firm called the American news industry.
Very soon after the attacks of September 11, it became evident that George Bush was going to invade Iraq. It was no secret to many that the plans for this war had been laid out on the mid 1990’s by members of the Project for a New American Century. The New York Times and the rest of the news media never introduced the American people to the PNAC members who were the new policy makers in Washington. Their preplanned national strategy was never alluded to as the invasion drew near. The daily fare of news linked Iraq to the war on terror, and convinced the public that the war was being waged to make them safe. Those were blatant lies, pure and simple.
During the months that led to war, we heard presidential speeches about terror, terror and more terror, ad nauseam. Iraq was the frontline in the war against terror. Fighting terrorists in Baghdad was better than fighting terrorists at home. The media never challenged that premise. The media embraced the illusion that became Operation Iraqi Freedom, and complied with the admonition that any criticism of the war or the president was akin to an act of treason. Anti-war protests across the country and the world received minimal coverage. The nation went to war and the New York Times joined the other news media in cheering it on. It’s so easy to lie once you know how.
Having said that, we feel it’s quite hypocritical of the NY Times editorial board to write:
Of all the ways Mr. Bush persuaded Americans to back the invasion of Iraq last year, the most plainly dishonest was his effort to link his war of choice with the battle against terrorists worldwide.
We say: Of all the ways that the NY Times and the rest of the mainstream news media persuaded Americans to back the invasion of Iraq last year, the most plainly dishonest was their full support of the effort to link Mr. Bush’s war of choice with the battle against terrorists worldwide.
The Times editorial continues:
No serious intelligence analyst believed the connection existed; Richard Clarke, the former antiterrorism chief, wrote in his book that Mr. Bush had been told just that.
No serious journalist who has the slightest understanding of the Middle East would have believed this either. The information was everywhere except in the American mainstream media. Everywhere!
And it continues:
This is not just a matter of the president's diminishing credibility, although that's disturbing enough.
Without overstating the obvious, nobody who is informed about the issues awards any credibility to President Bush. However, the diminishing credibility of the American mainstream news industry is even more disturbing. We expect politicians to be wordsmiths and to occasionally manipulate the facts; we do not expect journalists to betray us. It is so very sad to have witnessed the deterioration of a once reputable journalism community. The credibility of the Gray Lady and her associates has been badly damaged and is in need of radical and immediate repair.
Finally, the NY Times editorial states:
Mr. Bush is right when he says he cannot be blamed for everything that happened on or before Sept. 11, 2001. But he is responsible for the administration's actions since then. That includes, inexcusably, selling the false Iraq-Qaeda claim to Americans. There are two unpleasant alternatives: either Mr. Bush knew he was not telling the truth, or he has a capacity for politically motivated self-deception that is terrifying in the post-9/11 world.
Unlike Mr. Bush, the NY Times can be blamed for its actions and non-actions. This includes inexcusably promoting the false image of a president and his administration who have hijacked our Constitution, obliterated our national credibility and image, evaporated and robbed our financial wealth, raped out environment and destroyed the birthplace of civilization. George Bush has committed the highest crime that can be perpetrated by a president: he manipulated intelligence information and took a nation to war under false pretenses.
There are two unpleasant alternatives: the NY Times and the rest of the American mainstream media either knew all this about the Bush administration, or they had a capacity for politically motivated deception of the American people.
There is blood on the hands of the American mainstream media and the NY Times. The full and horrendous consequences of their blind support of lies and distortions are yet to be fully measured and cannot be undone. But the NY Times and the other news media can turn the corner and acknowledge the lies they told, - not in hidden mea culpa articles, but in front page and prime time acknowledgments of their complicity in the lies that led to war. The people have a right to know. The people have a need to know. The country is waiting for the truth. It is time.
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