Global Research

Thanks to a subservient mainstream media, we are now fed a constant diet of preposterous double-think from American political leaders and their Israeli minions with regard to Iran and its alleged threat to world security. In this inadvertently valuable service, the pliant uncritical mainstream media is giving full vent to the most outrageous drivel dressed up as serious discourse.

By acting as mouthpieces rather than critical interlocutors, the media are allowing such political figures to indict themselves with their own baseless, contradictory and hypocritical words. A few recent examples: Director of US National Intelligence James Clapper Jr in congressional testimony this week asserted that Iranian leaders are “now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived US actions that threaten the regime”.

The Washington Post reported the “intelligence” briefing with the headline: ‘Iran, perceiving threat from West, willing to attack on US soil, US intelligence report finds. Yet Clapper, the US nation’s supposed intelligence supremo, presents no evidence to support his reckless claim that Iranian forces are preparing such attacks. Indeed, the Washington Post notes in the same paragraph quoting the Director of National Intelligence: “US officials said they have seen no intelligence to indicate that Iran is actively plotting attacks on US soil.”

Then the paper goes on to amplify the unfounded accusations and assertions, by writing: “The warning about Iran’s more aggressive stance was included in written testimony that Clapper submitted to Congress”. Note how the paper in the space of few words moves effortlessly from acknowledging that there is no evidence to support Clapper’s claptrap premise to peddling the claptrap conclusion that Iran has taken a “more aggressive stance”.

Rather than taking Clapper to task to justify his hyperbole about Iranian “threats on American soil” and possibly misleading Congress and the American people, the Washington Post passively goes along with the flow of what appears to be out-and-out propaganda. This meekness and complicity of the media in conditioning public opinion for a baseless war on Iran has echoes of the elusive, non-existent weapons of mass destruction that US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister were allowed to lie about by the same media for their criminal war on Iraq. But, as noted, this abject “churnalism” may eventually be a good thing. For it allows political leaders and their advisors to hang themselves with their own words.

Another recent star-turn on the propaganda stage was that of US Defense Secretary Leon E Panetta who told CBS 60 Minutes programme at the weekend that Iran may be “one year away” from acquiring an atomic bomb. “That’s a red line for us, and it’s a red line, obviously, for the Israelis,” said Panetta. Yet only a few weeks ago Panetta admitted on national media that Iran was not trying to build a nuclear weapon. “

Are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No,” he said then. However, in no time at all, Panetta has pirouetted over Iran, and yet the mainstream media permit the farce to be aired instead of ripping it apart, exposing what could be criminal misinformation. Only last week the pirouetting Panetta told the Wall Street Journal that the Pentagon needs to redesign its 30,000-pound bomb known as the Massive Ordnance Penetrator in order to take out Iranian nuclear facilities. US workers and their families will be throwing more of their taxes into the coffers of Lockheed Martin to facilitate the Pentagon’s phallic fantasies – all on account of lies and deception, or at least no evidence to provide a modicum of justification. Finally, Israeli President Shimon Peres weighs in with this ridiculous rant, given prominence by the Haaretz newspaper. This week Peres claimed that Iran’s ‘evil’ leaders cannot be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons, calling the Islamic Republic’s nuclear ambitions the world’s single most important issue, according to Haaretz.

“Nuclear weapons mustn’t be allowed to fall into the hands of Iran’s Ayatollah regime,” Peres said, calling Iran’s religious leadership the “most morally corrupt regime in the world… It is the duty of the international community to prevent evil and nuclear [weapons] from coming together. That is the obligations of most of the leaders of the free world, one which they must meet.”

Reality check. These are words from the leader of a country that has for decades violated international law and committed systematic crimes against humanity on the Palestinian people; that has invaded and occupied foreign territories; that runs clandestine murder and terror operations in foreign states; and that, to boot, possesses up to 300 nuclear weapons in contravention of international law. This rogue, criminal state along with its patron in Washington is maligning another state over its legitimate pursuit of civilian nuclear energy and trying to precipitate a war that could most likely escalate into a global nuclear conflagration – all based on lies. Talk about lunatics running the asylum.

The propaganda fog over Iran in particular is becoming so thick it is almost laughable – because the political leaders who are spouting this fog don’t even seem to realize just how much they are tripping up over their own absurd statements. And thanks, in a way, to the pathetically servile mainstream media, the lies and deceptions of these political figures are being exposed for all their worthlessness and criminality.

Finian Cunningham is Global Research’s Middle East and East Africa Correspondent

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