Posted on 06/16/2004 4:31:38 PM PDT by swilhelm73
With the media's focus on chronicling every attack on coalition forces or terrorist attack against Iraqi civilians in Iraq, they might be forgiven for missing other stories occasionally. Reporting democracy at the local level or the opening of a new school isn't sexy work for the most part. It's the equivalent of traveling halfway across the world to cover stories that local beat reporters write every day in your local paper. That focus on Iraqi insurgents, however, seems to have blinded almost everyone to a major story that surfaced last week since it was largely ignored by the media with the exception of the World Tribune and some smaller newspapers.
On June 9, Demetrius Perricos announced that before, during and after the war in Iraq, Saddam Hussein shipped weapons of mass destruction and medium-range ballistic missiles to countries in Europe and the Middle East. Entire factories were dismantled and shipped as scrap metal to Jordan, the Netherlands and Turkey, among others, at the rate of about 1,000 tons of metal a month. As an example of speed by which these facilities were dismantled, Perricos displayed two photographs of a ballistic missile site near Baghdad, one taken in May 2003 with an active facility, the other in February 2004 that showed it had simply disappeared.
What passed for scrap metal and has since been discovered as otherwise is amazing. Inspectors have found Iraqi SA-2 surface-to-air missiles in Rotterdam -- complete with U.N. inspection tags -- and 20 SA-2 engines in Jordan, along with components for solid-fuel for missiles. Short-range Al Samoud surface-to-surface missiles were shipped abroad by agents of the regime. That missing ballistic missile site contained missile components, a reactor vessel and fermenters -- the latter used for the production of chemical and biological warheads.
"The problem for us is that we don't know what may have passed through these yards and other yards elsewhere," Ewen Buchanan, Perricos's spokesman, said. "We can't really assess the significance and don't know the full extent of activity that could be going on there or with others of Iraq's neighbors."
Perricos isn't an American shill defending the Bush administration, but rather the acting executive chairman of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and his report was made to the Security Council. Yet his report didn't seem to be of much interest to a media which has used the lack of significant discoveries to question the rationale for the war. After over a year of searching, experts have managed to find little in the way of the biological and chemical weapons that every major intelligence service -- including those of Germany and France -- maintained existed. We still haven't, but Perricos' report brings us one step closer.
The report neatly disarms arguments that Hussein's WMD programs were non-existent after the first Gulf War. While it's true that these finds are not the chemical and biological weapons we know existed after that war, they illustrate the tremendous difficulty in locating something in a semi-hostile nation larger than the state of California. They also prove that Hussein made ongoing efforts to hide illegal weapons programs from the world. Ironically, he and his agents used the world in which to hide them.
The implications of the United Nations' discovery of how Hussein's regime got rid of many of its banned weapons programs is staggering, especially considering that it happened partly under the watch of U.N. weapons inspectors. And yet many in the media are either unwilling or unable to break out of their cycle of waiting to report the next terrorist attack. The truth about the justification for the war and Saddam Hussein's Iraq is gradually being revealed to the world, but it seems our journalists don't want to tell the story.
The US news media has adopted the "Sgt. Schulz" approach to any news about Saddam's WMD -- "I know nothing!...I see nothing!..."
WMD bump
"The US news media has adopted the 'Sgt.Schultz' approach to any news about Saddam's WMD -- "I know nothing!...I see nothing!..."
I am sitting at my keyboard in Australia, shaking my head and wondering - not HOW does the media get away with this, but WHY does no one in 'head office' do something to counteract this rampant Leftwing misinformation campaign?
Translated to a business situation, if I were the CEO and my competitors were damaging my reputation, would I not find a way (advertising, communication) to set the record straight? Would I not owe it to my 'shareholders' to keep them informed?
Your journalists are running riot. There is no counter-action. Who is in charge of PR in the WH? Surely they are not going to rely only on a series of short speeches by President Bush (on cable?) Or campaign advertisments!
Does this media bias situation in the US not call for (something like) regular bulletins of progress in Iraq for example, that do NOT rely on the whims or political leanings of the Left wing press. Citizens of the US need the full story, they need to hear the truth.
In Australia we are subject to the same biased reporting because the TV networks feed us snippets from the same overseas news agencies. Nothing but 'poor little palestinian children being killed' and 'prison torture' not to forget 'quagmire in Iraq' blah blah blah.
Perhaps 'fireside chats' are a little out of date, but some form of communication between the administration at the WH and the population is called for - SOMEONE must provide the GOOD NEWS as well...and not just on the Net.
The U.S. Media's Big Problem is that they are by and large BIG backers of the third way system(socialism) and have been trying to shove it down our throats for years and years(hence kerry's LOVE for the french and germans). One day they will be around long enough to see me shove their loudmouthed microphones and cameras down their socialism loving throats if they continue to be socialists first and Americans last!!!!
I get your point...you obviously like journalists as much as I do. The next time I hear a terrorist called an insurgent - while he's holding up the severed head of a non-muslim in Indonesia for example - I'm going to kick in the screen. And those prison photographs...every day! The sheep are being interviewed in the street here, and in their utter stupidity, they believe 'those poor Iraqi prisoners were tortured - we want the troops to come home. And yes, we are anti-war...let the iraqi's have a civil war if they want to, it's no business of ours...'
It's more than I can stand. Thank goodness we are not required to be PC here. Yet. The GOOD NEWS from here is that many of the 280 thousand muslim immigrants we have, are complaining about being harrassed and insulted in the streets of our capital cities. Good old aussie 'call a spade a spade' is still working. I would hate to live anywhere else. More GOOD NEWS. Aussies are giving them such a hard time verbally, the imams have told their congregation 'if they want to be good, practising muslims, they should go back to their home country' ... THAT'S THE BEST NEWS I HAVE HEARD!
BTTT
Step by step, things are changing.....
"When will the war start?"
"The moment the French, Germans and Russians finish destroying the paperwork."
Understand the incredible cash flow that Oil caused, and then understand that all Media outlets are for sale in one form or another. Buy enough stock, buy enough struggling newspapers or radio stations...
And you end up with a media as a whole that takes it marching orders from the new owners, the ones that wear bedsheets on their heads, and scream about the Jooo's control the media. Mohammad understands quite well the value of a well placed buck in preparing the infidel for the harvest.
It is understandable for a journalist to report a story with a liberal slant if he is a liberal, after all that is the way he sees things. Now a days they just report what they are told to say, and often it is a clear fabrication. What they do not report is often much more of a story than what they focus on.
Their masters have an agenda and it shows.
Thanks for the reply. The fact that their masters are wearing bedsheets hadn't crossed my mind. If oil money calls the tune say, Reuters and AP etc...we are sunk...but it does explain an awful lot, particularly 'those poor poor little palestinian kids...'
That leaves us with nothing but the Internet. I wonder how long that will last?
I've been politically aware for, what is now, 10 presidential campaigns, and I've never seen anything like we're seeing with the full-court press the news media are engaging in to defeat Pres. Bush. They've given up all pretense of "objectivity." I hope the Bush campaign raises another $200 million, because it's going to need it to talk over the heads of the news media.
Yes, I agree with you. Bush supporters should give until it hurts. The media misinformation campaign - if it had to be paid for, must be worth a billion dollars. It's all free advertising for the Dems. Lies and Spin.
Reminds me of Germany, Hitler & Goebbels - the people believed what they were told. They believed Herr Hitler was such a nice, kind man...and in the US it's all Bush's fault. Maybe we should change that perception we have - that he who controls the oil, controls the world...it's more like he who controls the media, controls, period.
Nevertheless, my money is on Bush. God bless GWB.
"The truth about the justification for the war and Saddam Hussein's Iraq is gradually being revealed to the world, but it seems our journalists don't want to tell the story." They are merely following the directives of their beloved leaders at the DNC. [Here's a clue: when an investigative journalist refuses to write the truth of what he or she knows and defers to omit it in favor of creating a different impression, that is 'journalistic lying', an integrity void. The profession is rife with the disease.]
geeze, defender2, they are not "socialists". Neither are they "liberals" or "leftists" or "progressives" or any other such newspeak bullsh*t.
They are hardcore, unrepentant "neo-Stalinists" and nothing but.
I could really use some help down here in the language war...
See:
http://www.dsausa.org/
See:
http://bernie.house.gov/pc/members.asp
This is the "Progressive Caucas"
See:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1144777/posts?page=1,20
They are The Enemy Within!!!!
These socialists/communists are hell bent on trying to take over the country and have been trying for many years now. They almost succeeded in late 2000 except for 537 truly American Florida Voters!!!!
I entirely agree with you. The majority of the Left do not understand islam. How could they? They live on slogans and Marx - all they have in common are dreams of revolution - the destruction of society and world domination.
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