Screengrab from https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/c/embed/fd11b6ef-1b58-41f2-87b2-875b602f09fa

Yesterday, I covered a tweet sent out by The Washington Post’s Beirut Bureau Chief in which she seemingly blamed President Trump for Iran’s recent aggression.

This comes in the wake of Iran attacking two tankers in the Strait of Hormuz.

Big escalation in the Persian Gulf. Two oil tankers struck and on fire in the Strait of Hormuz, focus of US-Iran tensions. Comes after Trump failed to heed the last tanker warning & imposed more sanctions https://t.co/zrEiVf5eIK — Liz Sly (@LizSly) June 13, 2019

There’s a lot wrong with that description, starting with the idea that we should “heed” warnings from a rogue state. You can read the full story is here.

Today, more media outlets decided to shame their profession with their coverage of the incident.

One of the things we’ve seen in response to what happened is liberals pushing “false flag” conspiracy theories, i.e. the suggestion that the U.S. and/or Saudi Arabia set this attack up to falsely blame the innocent Mullahs in Iran. You know, because famously isolationist Donald Trump wants to go to war with Iran or something. Makes sense, right?

Here’s Obama Bro Ben Rhodes doing that song and dance.

This definitely feels like the kind of incident where you'd want an international investigation to establish what happened. Huge risk of escalation. https://t.co/a2X18hNmmD — Ben Rhodes (@brhodes) June 13, 2019

Wait just a second.

I thought we must always trust our intelligence agencies? I remember a time when any question of an intel assessment was tantamount to an “attack on our institutions,” yet here’s Rhodes saying we need an “international investigation” to determine what really happened. Does he not trust the honorable rank and file at the CIA? I’m getting whiplash from all the rule changes lately. Funny how things seem to shift depending on what partisan narrative is being pushed.

Rhodes is probably going to tell us fire can’t melt steel next. Of course, he’ll no doubt be given his usual space in The Washington Post over the coming days to bloviate instead of being called out for pushing conspiratorial nonsense.

So, do or don’t believe the Intel community? And you’re not really a trusted source to weigh in on Iran… You sold the public the falsehood of a moderating Iranian regime – using your media “echo chamber” (your words)- & ignoring the true danger Iran presents in the region. https://t.co/KriHBpOWtf — Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) June 14, 2019

It wasn’t just Rhodes though. Supposed “hard news” outlets also tacitly pushed the false flag narrative with headlines like these.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed Iran for an attack on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman, saying the assessment was based on intelligence, but offering no evidence for his claim https://t.co/Ao7II8Zz8Q pic.twitter.com/Ezj8wQXPPY — CNN (@CNN) June 13, 2019

This is a game that the media only play with the Trump administration. Never in a million years would they have questioned an intelligence briefing from Hillary Clinton by describing her as “offering no evidence” for a claim. CNN does it here though for obvious reasons and you can read the comments to see just how whipped up they’ve got the crazies.

Notably, the U.S. government did release pictures and video showing Iranian boats removing a mine from the ship after CNN sent that tweet. So they did in fact provide evidence.

Not to be outdone, The New York Times got in on the act too.

One of the tankers that were attacked in the Gulf of Oman was struck by a flying object, the ship’s Japanese operator said, disputing at least part of the account of U.S. officials who had blamed Iran for the attack https://t.co/ZWRdeC3vBi — The New York Times (@nytimes) June 14, 2019

Notice the language here. They say it “differed from the explanation of American officials who blamed Iran.” The clear insinuation there is that the U.S. government is lying and trying to falsely blame the Mullahs.

The problem is that nothing the ship’s operator says really “differs” as much as it simply provides a different context from a different vantage point. The operator, for example, says that the damage was above the waterline and that things were flying through the air. That’s not inconsistent with what Pompeo said. We have pictures of the mines placed above the waterline. It’s also likely that what was “flying through the air” was shrapnel from the explosion. Nothing else really makes sense as gunshots would have been heard if they were bullets.

The entire description that we are “blaming Iran” is typical pro-Mullah propaganda. We aren’t “blaming” them. We are saying they did it because they did it. That’s just reality. The video shows an Iranian gunboat along side the ship. The pictures show the mines on the boat in the exact position we see the Iranian gunboat removing an object from the side.

Here’s an idea. Instead of shilling for Iran non-stop, maybe these outlets could just accept the fact that Iran is a terrorist state? This is the kind of stuff they do regularly. They’ve been attacking boats in the gulf for a while now with little fanfare, never mind their escapades throughout the rest of the Middle East. This time, the flames got a little too big and it caught our attention.

We know what Iran is and it’s completely irresponsible for supposed journalistic outfits to purposely fuel “false flag” conspiracy theories just because they want to slap at Trump. Whoever wrote those tweets for CNN and the Times knew exactly what they were doing.

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