Beyond the Headlines
If one were to look simply at the headlines in the major media outlets these days, it would be easy to conclude that the current administration deliberately misled the American public in its casus belli against Iraq. Apparently (at least this is what we are being told), there were two reasons given for invading Iraq: First that Saddam had amassed a deadly stockpile of so-called Weapons of Mass Destruction (or WMD as has become popular) including Anthrax, Sarin gas, mustard gas, et alii. Second, that our primary new foe in the War on Terror, al Quaeda, was nursing a relationship with Iraq and Saddam Hussein.
The inability of coalition forces to find any actual WMD in Iraq has allowed those in the media, and elsewhere, to claim that there never were any there in the first place. Some even claim that Bush and others in the administration knew this ahead of time and fabricated the evidence. This past Thursday, the appointed bi-partisan "9-11 Commission" printed, in their 15th Staff Statement, that there is "no credible evidence that Iraq and al Quaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States." So much for the administration's second justification for going to war.
So now, with both said reasons for war unfounded, the media has opened the flood gates of attacks on Bush and his crew. You can read it and hear it everywhere you turn, insistence that Bush now does not have a leg to stand on, that the war is criminal, that Bush is a criminal, that the American public was misled. Various individuals have called for the appointment of an independent counsel to determine how much Bush really knew and what he manufactured (an independent counsel a la Kenneth Star...touche!).
If you believe the headlines, Bush is a criminal and he did lie to us, the American public. However, the whole story often lies beyond the headlines. Those who have enough of a distrust of the quick information sources such as the evening news, or the morning "news" shows, to dig for further information will find that the story is much more complex and less clear-cut. In fact, in this case, one would find that much information has been selectively ignored by those reporting it. Indeed, if it were reported, those headlines would have to change.
I will spend the next several posts looking beyond the headlines.
(Let me just say that I am skeptical of what I read from any news source and will take it with a grain of salt until I can corroborate any claims with other stories on the same subject from other journals. I am equally as skeptical of what I hear on CNN as I am of Fox News. Many of these posts will probably end up being reactions to discrepencies between the truth and what is reported. That is sad to say, but it's important that the microwave media be seen as a questionable source on which to base your conclusions. Always look deeper, because there is almost always more to the story.)
The inability of coalition forces to find any actual WMD in Iraq has allowed those in the media, and elsewhere, to claim that there never were any there in the first place. Some even claim that Bush and others in the administration knew this ahead of time and fabricated the evidence. This past Thursday, the appointed bi-partisan "9-11 Commission" printed, in their 15th Staff Statement, that there is "no credible evidence that Iraq and al Quaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States." So much for the administration's second justification for going to war.
So now, with both said reasons for war unfounded, the media has opened the flood gates of attacks on Bush and his crew. You can read it and hear it everywhere you turn, insistence that Bush now does not have a leg to stand on, that the war is criminal, that Bush is a criminal, that the American public was misled. Various individuals have called for the appointment of an independent counsel to determine how much Bush really knew and what he manufactured (an independent counsel a la Kenneth Star...touche!).
If you believe the headlines, Bush is a criminal and he did lie to us, the American public. However, the whole story often lies beyond the headlines. Those who have enough of a distrust of the quick information sources such as the evening news, or the morning "news" shows, to dig for further information will find that the story is much more complex and less clear-cut. In fact, in this case, one would find that much information has been selectively ignored by those reporting it. Indeed, if it were reported, those headlines would have to change.
I will spend the next several posts looking beyond the headlines.
(Let me just say that I am skeptical of what I read from any news source and will take it with a grain of salt until I can corroborate any claims with other stories on the same subject from other journals. I am equally as skeptical of what I hear on CNN as I am of Fox News. Many of these posts will probably end up being reactions to discrepencies between the truth and what is reported. That is sad to say, but it's important that the microwave media be seen as a questionable source on which to base your conclusions. Always look deeper, because there is almost always more to the story.)
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