Why is the US press silent on Brzezinski's warnings of war against
Iran?
By Barry Grey in Washington DC
Feb 3, 2007, 04:52
The major national newspapers and most broadcast outlets failed even to
report Thursday's stunning testimony by former national security adviser
Zbigniew Brzezinski before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Brzezinski, national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, is among
the most prominent figures within the US foreign policy establishment. He
delivered a scathing critique of the war in Iraq and warned that the
policy of the Bush administration was leading inevitably to a military
confrontation with Iran which would have disastrous consequences for US
imperialism.
Most significant and disturbing was Brzezinski's suggestion that the Bush
administration might manufacture a pretext to justify a military attack on
Iran. Presenting what he called a "plausible scenario for a military
collision with Iraq," Brzezinski laid out the following series of events:
"Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks, followed by accusations of Iranian
responsibility for the failure, then by some provocation in Iraq or a
terrorist act in the US blamed on Iran, culminating in, quote/unquote,
'defensive' US military action against Iran..." [Emphasis added].
Thus Brzezinski opined that a US military attack on Iran would be an
aggressive action, presented as though it were a defensive response to
alleged Iranian provocations, and came close to suggesting, without
explicitly stating as much, that the White House was capable of
manufacturing or allowing a terrorist attack within the US to provide a
casus belli for war.
It is self-evident that such testimony at an open congressional hearing
from someone with decades of experience in the US foreign policy
establishment and the closest ties to the military and intelligence
apparatus is not only newsworthy, but of the most immense and grave
import. Any objective and conscientious newspaper or news channel would
consider it an obligation to inform the public of such a development.
Yet neither the New York Times nor the Washington Post carried so much as
a news brief on Brzezinski's testimony in their Friday editions. Nor did
USA Today or the Wall Street Journal. All of these publications, of
course, have well-staffed Washington bureaus and regularly cover
congressional hearings-especially those dealing with such burning
political questions as the war in Iraq.
There is no innocent explanation for their decision to suppress this
story. The Washington Post on Thursday published a large page-two column
and photo on Henry Kissinger's appearance the previous day before the same
Senate committee. The former secretary of state under Richard Nixon gave
testimony that was generally supportive of the Bush administration's war
policy.
Moreover, the Post's web edition carried an Associated Press report on
Brzezinski's appearance. That article introduced subtle but significant
changes to Brzezinski's speculative scenario of the road to war with Iran
which had the effect of underplaying the sharpness and urgency of
Brzezinski's critique of the Bush administration. It omitted the
suggestion that a terrorist attack within the US could become the
justification for war, and it removed the quotation marks from Brzezinski's
talk of a "defensive" war against Iran.
The World Socialist Web Site on Friday telephoned the New York Times, the
Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and USA Today to ask for an
explanation for their failure to report Brzezinski's testimony. None of
the newspapers returned our calls.
As for the television news outlets, the "News Hour with Jim Lehrer" on PBS
showed a clip of Brzezinski laying out his war scenario before the Senate
committee, without making any comment. "NBC Nightly News" ignored the
story entirely.
The suppression of this damning critique of the Iraq war, the
conspiratorial methods of the Bush administration, and its drive to an
even wider war in the Middle East is one more demonstration of the corrupt
and reactionary character of the American mass media. It indicates that
the establishment media is preparing once again, as in the run-up to the
invasion of Iraq, to serve as a sounding board for the administration's
war propaganda and lies.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/feb2007/brze-f03.shtml
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