Gearing up for war on Iran.. Blitzer is in, Are you?

Blitzer's vivid imagination makes for awesome doses of truth

It’s not hard for anyone who follows the news to notice the similarities between the pre-Iraq war period and now. UN sanctions based on hypothetical predictions are being cranked out left and right. Before it was about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and Baghdad’s apparent unwillingness to cooperate with UN inspectors, and now it’s we’re hearing about sanctions against Iran for its unwillingness to stop enriching uranium.

The media is once again playing a role in gearing up public opinion to help the Washington hawks do as they wish. I bet if you were to ask an average Joe about anything they know about Iran, he’ll probably mention the word nuclear in his answer. Somehow, the majority of Americans still rely heavily on the media outlets to give them the “truth” without taking the time to cross examine the facts, or maybe use common sense. The American public suffers from a severe case of amnesia, and a definite lack of critical thinking.

Is it ironic to anybody that the only country to have ever used nuclear weapons, and continues to possess enough nuclear warheads to destroy the world X times over, is calling on Iran to halt enriching uranium? Or that the US continues to support countries like India, and Israel both of which have quite the arsenal themselves? India and Pakistan are the not the best of friends and they both posses nuclear weapons. It seems logical to me that allowing these two countries to possess nuclear weapons poses much greater risk to “world security”, than a country which needs at least 10 years to develop nuclear weapons. Or are India and Pakistan excepted from nuclear proliferation because they’re helping with the “war on terrorism”? And why should the world, and most importantly, the American public, believe anything Bush and his hawks tell us? The illegal war on Iraq certainly did not produce any “weapons of mass destruction,” and with estimates of civilian deaths ranging from 55,000 to 650,0000, the war certainly didn’t produce a “better Iraq.” With a track record full of scandals, lies, and deception, I’m surprised Bush still has a 34% approval rating. But since pointing out anomalies in US foreign policy is too easy, let’s get back to the media end of things…

My “inspiration” to write this post was a laughable interview that Wolf Blitzer conducted with Republican presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee, a few days ago. At the end of the interview Blitzer asked intelligently (I rephrase here)

“Now, let me put you in a nightmare scenario, and tell me how you would act in such a situation… Iran launches nuclear war heads at Tel Aviv, and destroys it. As the president of the US, how would you react?”

Obligingly, Huckabee states:

“The US should, and will protect its citizens and allies from any harm”

Blitzer, a bit agitated by the vague, and non-action packed answer insists:

“So how would you behave, what actions would you take?”

Huckabee maneuvers around the stupid question:

“I am not going to give you an exact plan for such a hypothetical situation. The US will protect it’s allies, and will take whatever measure to do so. Let’s hope that neither me, nor any president is put in such a situation”

Blitzer, a bit shutdown

“I certainly hope so”

Apart from Blitzer’s clear and quite pathetic attempt at instilling the idea of a nuclear Iran, against a weak and defenseless Israel, Blitzer’s question has many shortcomings.

If the interview is to be conducted to help the American public get to know the presidential candidate, wouldn’t they be interested to hear answers to different, more relevant questions. To be fair to, Blitzer did ask Huckabee questions about internal affairs, but the fact that he ended the interview with the aforementioned questions just doesn’t make sense. There is a myriad of topics that would provide for a relevant ending question. For instance Blitzer could have asked about the war on Iraq, or Huckabee’s education and healthcare views, or even taxes. All of these topics are more relevant to the average American. It is certainly a waste of viewers’ time asking an irrelevant question, about a highly unlikely scenario, especially by a seasoned journalist like Mr. Blitzer…that is, unless Blitzer had something else in mind.

technorati tags: CNN, blitzer, wolf, media, Iran, nuclear, Israel, Bush, war, Iraq, lies, deception