

Recall, back in May of 2004, a superficially contrite New York Times editorial staff admitting it published “questionable” information about claims of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, information that ultimately paved the way for the slaughter of 650,000 Iraqis.



In an rather unconvincing and apparently obligatory mea culpa, the editors shifted blame for publishing this blatantly false and obvious propaganda, more accurately described as neocon spawned fairy tales, to convicted embezzler Ahmad Chalabi and “a circle of Iraqi informants,” refusing to admit they were used as a propaganda tool by the neocons, described merely as “hard-liners within the Bush administration,” not psychopathic warmongers. “We consider the story of Iraq’s weapons, and of the pattern of misinformation, to be unfinished business. And we fully intend to continue aggressive reporting aimed at setting the record straight,” the newspaper concluded.



Of course, the New York Times didn’t really mean it, as “unfinished business” would necessitate sweeping out the rogues and neocon agents ensconced deeply within its editorial offices. One such rogue is Michael R. Gordon, “the same Times reporter who, on his own, or with Judith Miller, wrote some of the key, and badly misleading or downright inaccurate, articles about Iraqi WMDs in the run-up to the 2003 invasion,” notes Greg Mitchell, writing for Editor and Publisher.



Recall Gordon’s absurd claim, following Colin Powell’s theatrical dog and pony show held before the gathered at the United Nations in the orchestrated lead-up mass murder in Iraq, “it will be difficult for skeptics to argue that Washington’s case against Iraq is based on groundless suspicions and not intelligence information.” As we now know, and some of us knew at the time, Powell’s evidence was little more than a donkey cart of steaming dung, rolled out into the public arena, offered as gospel truth, thus straining credulity, at least for those of us who recognized the stench immediately.



Gordon is at it again. “The Bush administration is expected to make public this weekend some of what intelligence agencies regard as an increasing body of evidence pointing to an Iranian link, including information gleaned from Iranians and Iraqis captured in recent American raids on an Iranian office in Erbil and another site in Baghdad,” the seasoned propagandist is allowed to write.



As expected, the race is on to sell us another murderous pretext, thus demonstrating we are indeed a nation of chumps, although this designation would require we are fully awake, paying attention, and give a whit about the prospect of World War Four and what it means for our families, children, and neighbors. As it stands, we are fast asleep, or half-awake, tuned in to the circus sideshow that is the untimely death of Anna Nicole Smith.



“U.S. military commanders in Iraq have shown members of Congress explosive devices that bear Iranian markings as evidence Tehran is supplying Iraqi militants with bombs, a senior U.S. government official said Saturday,” reports Forbes, the business magazine founded by B.C. Forbes, a former scribe for Hearst newspapers, the media empire infamous for publishing lies that helped facilitate a handy pretense for the Spanish-American War.



In normal, non-Bushzarro times, with a semi-cognizant public in attendance, the fact this “evidence” is vetted by Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, a congressional cheerleader for Israeli and American war crimes nonpareil, would be highly suspect, to say the least. “One of the lawmakers, independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, said he has seen some of the evidence, though he would not be specific. ‘I’m convinced from what I’ve seen that the Iranians are supplying and are giving assistance to the people in Iraq who are killing American soldiers,’ said Lieberman, who was attending an international security conference in Munich,” a one-worlder confab “devoted to the 50th anniversary of the European Union,” according to RIA Novosti. Of course, as we are well into the Bushian era, or rather the neocon era, few take note of this particularly egregious conflict of interest, least of all the corporate media, inheritors of the Hearst “yellow journalism” legacy.



So-called “national security officials” are about ready to proffer “materials,” said to consist of in part “slides and 2 inches of documents,” providing “evidence” of “Iran’s role in supplying Iraqi militants with highly sophisticated and lethal improvised explosive devices and other weaponry,” never mind the nagging question of why exactly Iran would collude with the Iraqi resistance, composed in large part of former enemies.



“The assertions have been met with skepticism by some lawmakers still fuming over intelligence reports used by the administration to propel the country to war with Iraq in 2003. In fact, a report this week by the Pentagon’s internal watchdog criticized prewar assertions by the Defense Department about al-Qaida’s connections to Iraq,” thus “there is some disagreement about how much to make public to support the administration’s case,” in other words, the neocons will need more time to tweak their fairy tale and make it more palatable to “lawmakers still fuming,” mostly over the fact they were hornswoggled. Naturally, such considerations serve only as a minor irritant for the neocons, who will, regardless of what Congress and the American people think, push on with the Iran attack.



As the Guardian reports, the neocons are antsy to get moving with their mass murder campaign, blaming Bush for apparent reluctance, if such can be believed. For instance, Meyrav Wurmser, wife of David Wurmser, the neocon accused of spying for AIPAC at the behest of Israel, “is disappointed with the response of the Bush administration so far to Iran and said that if the aim of US policy after 9/11 was to make the Middle East safer for the US, it was not working because the administration had stopped at Iraq.” Of course, she really means making the Arab and Muslim Middle East “safer” for Israel, as Ms. Wurmser is a Revisionist-Herut-Likud “scholar” and co-founder and director of the Middle East Media Research Institute, along with Colonel Yigal Carmon, formerly of Israeli military intelligence. MEMRI specializes in mistranslating Arabic and Farsi, most notably the speeches of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, thus preparing the groundwork for an attack designed to kill Iranian toddlers and grandmothers.



Another blood-thirsty neocon, Josh Muravchik, purportedly a “Middle East specialist” at the American Enterprise Institute, the criminal organization where Bush gets his “minds,” is “among its most vocal supporters of such a strike” against Iran, although of late he has voiced frustration with the Bushites, as has Wurmser. “The Bush administration have said they would not allow Iran nuclear weapons. That is either bullshit or they mean it as a clear code: we will do it if we have to. I would rather believe it is not hot air.” In lieu of an attack, Muravchik and Wurmser advocate meddling in Iranian domestic affairs, unleashing officially declared terrorist groups against the Iranian people, including Mujahideen-e Khalq, the wacky Marxist cult led by husband and wife team Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. In the 1970s, MEK killed U.S. military personnel and civilians working on defense projects in Tehran, not that Dr. Wurmser and Josh Muravchik can be bothered by such niggling details, as their primary focus is Israel, not America.



Finally, as if to demonstrate hysterical propaganda here in the heartland knows no bounds, the Associated Press tells us Iran school kids are being trained as suicide bombers. “Textbooks used in Iranâ€™s schools are instilling students with hatred toward the West, especially the United States, and urging them to become ‘martyrs’ in a global holy war against countries perceived to be enemies of Islam, a new study says,” the news agency reports. “The books emphasize the teachings of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and repeatedly refer to the United States as the ‘Great Satan’ and to Israel as ‘the regime that occupies Jerusalem,’ said the study by the Israel-based Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace,” described as “a shadowy pro-Israel group” by the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.



Normally, such obvious propaganda would be discarded out of hand, but then, as the New York Times demonstrates, the point here is not objectivity and unbiased reportage, but rather greasing the skids for an attack leveled against Iran.



No doubt, after the attack, the New York Times may once again admit it was used, although the neocons guilty will likely remain on staff, as they did after the invasion of Iraq.







