{"id":46253,"date":"2019-05-20T14:54:48","date_gmt":"2019-05-20T19:54:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=46253"},"modified":"2019-05-20T14:54:54","modified_gmt":"2019-05-20T19:54:54","slug":"media-setting-up-iran-as-new-threat-that-must-be-confronted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=46253","title":{"rendered":"Media Setting Up Iran as New \u2018Threat\u2019 That Must Be Confronted"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Media Setting Up Iran as New \u2018Threat\u2019 That Must Be Confronted<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"New<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"WaPo:<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Once again the Washington Post<\/strong> (5\/14\/19<\/a>) presents the United States as \u201cdrifting toward war\u201d\u2014this time with Iran.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Washington Post<\/strong> editorial\u2019s headline (5\/14\/19<\/a>)  had the US \u201cdrifting\u201d toward war with Iran\u2014another example, as analyst Nima Shirazi quipped<\/a>, of the \u201cworld\u2019s superpower somehow having no agency over its own imperialism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we can still call things \u201csurreal,\u201d that would describe watching corporate media do the same things they did<\/a> in the run-up to the Iraq War, things they later disavowed: the credulous repetition of administration claims about the supposed threat; the reliance, for interpretation  of \u201cintelligence,\u201d  on officials with well known records for manipulating intelligence; the stenographic reporting of \u2018troubling\u2019 actions by the enemy state, that later have to be walked back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A May 13 New York Times<\/strong> piece<\/a> led with the statement that Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan had \u201cpresented an updated military plan that envisions sending as many as 120,000 troops to the Middle East should Iran attack American forces or accelerate work on nuclear weapons, administration officials said.\u201d As researcher Derek Davison reminds, in a piece for LobeLog<\/strong> (5\/14\/19<\/a>), there is, as the Times<\/strong> has acknowledged on other occasions, no evidence that Iran is working on nuclear weapons, at whatever pace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later, the piece says:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some senior American officials said the plans, even at a very preliminary stage, show how dangerous the threat from Iran has become. Others, who are urging a diplomatic resolution to the current tensions, said it amounts to a scare tactic to warn Iran against new aggressions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

 \u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Media Setting Up Iran as New \u2018Threat\u2019 That Must Be Confronted Once again the Washington Post (5\/14\/19) presents the United States as \u201cdrifting toward war\u201d\u2014this time with Iran. The Washington Post editorial\u2019s headline (5\/14\/19)  had the US \u201cdrifting\u201d toward war with Iran\u2014another example, as analyst Nima Shirazi quipped, of the \u201cworld\u2019s superpower somehow having no agency over its own imperialism.\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[20526],"class_list":["post-46253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","category-liberty","tag-fairness-and-accuracy-in-reporting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46253"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46254,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46253\/revisions\/46254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}