October
12th, 2004
Media
Bias, Oil For
Food, and “No” WMD’s.
The omnipotent United Nations?
There are many
people in media who were falling all
over themselves chanting about Charles Duelfer’s report to Congress on
October 6th 2004 that “proves” there were no stockpiles of Weapons of
Mass Distruction, ignoring the fact that in the same report Charles
Duelfer also said that Hussein was funneling HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of
dollars from the “Oil For Food” program to the same branch of the
military that was responsible for the “WMD’s” that were used against
the Kurds, Shi’as and Iran. Just as the media are hardly able to
contain themselves with the “Bush Lied” aspect of the report, they have
no problems containing the rest of the report saying the Saddam
corrupted the United Nations via the “Oil For Food” program and was
getting help behind the scenes from France right up to the start of the
war in March of 2003.
Starting on page
1 of “The Key Findings Summary of
the Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s
WMD”, Mr. Duelfer also states that in many different segments of his
speech and report that Hussein’s regime violated the UN sanctions and
“centered on Saddam’s efforts to influence certain UN SC permanent
members, such as Russia, France, and China and some nonpermanent
(Syria, Ukraine) members to end UN sanctions.” The Goal of this effort
was “…to pursue his military reconstitution efforts starting in 1997
and peaking in 2001. These efforts covered conventional arms, dual-use
acquisition, and some WMD-related programs.”
Mr. Duelfer
states in the section of the report
(which can be found here in Volume I, Section
“Regime Finance and Procurement”, Ambassadors to the United Nations
from France and other countries who had seats on the Security Counsel
were insisting that we should “Give the Sanctions more time to work”
were also the same people who were working with the Hussein Regime to
give resources for his weapons program’s to commence once more once
these same sanctions were lifted.
The most
sensational aspect of the report, the
speech Mr. Duelfer gave to Congress, and the questions that followed is
the accusations of corruption and scandal of members of The United
Nations and members of the Security Counsel were defying their own
sanctions, not the “hidden” aspect that “Bush Lied to Bring us to war”.
Mr. Duelfer was very clear that if The United States hadn’t invaded
Iraq, no inspector from the UN, NATO or The United States would have
been able to get a clear picture of what was going on in Iraq. But the
media has chosen to ignore that aspect as well while at the same time
embellishing the part of President Bush’s “War Crimes and Arrogance
towards the International Community”. If President Bush had played by
the same rules that the United Nations where cheating on, then one can
make the argument that once the sanctions WERE lifted then Iraq would
have indeed become the danger the International Community said he was.
Ironic.
The real meat of
this report is the corruption with
in The United Nations, ample resources for stories, editorials and news
specials on programs such as “60 Minutes” on CBS or “Dateline” on NBC
or newspapers like The New York or Los Angles Times… but no. It’s
EASIER repeat the same story over and over again, to bash just ONE
person, even easier if that person doesn’t fit into your world view or
doesn’t agree with your political agenda. Since many members of the
media believe the United Nations is a divine body above reproach,
criticism is uncalled for and invalid… returning to the default
position of trashing a politician, someone who can be discredited
because of “being selected, not elected” to the White House.
Playing Favorates
Another aspect
of this recent media bias is how they
treat both candidates for President. Every word (or every utterance of
‘duh’, ‘uh’ or ‘um’,) George ‘Dubya’ Bush says is scrutinized, over
analyzed and even taken out of context, while at the same time John
Kerry is allowed to say almost anything with out the same level of
scrutiny… with the exception of Talk-Radio and FOXNews. The perfect
example is in the first debate, John Kerry said he wouldn’t act
preemptively with out his actions passing a “Global Test”, afterwards
his surrogates were parsing out what he “really” meant.
When
George Dubya Bush contradicts himself, it’s
called “A Lie”, but when John Kerry makes contradictions of his own,
the media and his surrogates call it “Nuance”. The media just doesn’t
allow this double standard, The media pertuates it. Perfect example of
this are two controversies created by both CBS and ABC news.
First is the CBS controversy
in September. Dan Rather and his “60
Minutes – Wednesday” team did a segment that “illustrated” that our
current President didn’t fulfill his obligation to the National Guard
30-odd years ago. These documents turned out to be forgeries and that
many of the experts CBS news relied on were misquoted and their
statements were misrepresented in these documents authenticity. In
turn, the family of the now deceased officer whom were to have written
these documents have also come forward and pointed out several
different facts that continue to prove that these documents were
counterfeit. Later Mr. Rather said that the documents themselves were
fake, but he believed in the content that they were based on was in
fact still true. While trying to save face, instead of making the issue
go away he’s actually made it worse.
Second is
a news item that broke Friday on
Syndicated Radio: “The Laura Ingraham Show”, where she read a memo that
was leaked to her which was to the staff at ABC news written by
Political Director Mark Halperin. In the memo he clearly states in so
many words that there should be a different standard for each candidate
and they should do anything to get their guy, Kerry, Elected.
“It's up to Kerry to defend
himself, of course. But as one of the few
news organizations with the skill and strength to help voters evaluate
what the candidates are saying to serve the public interest. Now is the
time for all of us to step up and do that right.”
As many of the
media have asked and will continue to
ask in the near future; what about objectivity and just reporting the
news? During the Eight Years of the Clinton Dynasty, you weren’t
allowed to question the Presidents actions because his motives were in
the right place. People would become indignant if you brought up his
many blunders, there were those who would become indignant and chastise
you for speaking ill of the first President of the “Flower Power”
generation. Now, if you apply the same standards towards this President
you’re charged with impeding other’s “Freedom Of Speech”, even while
those who insult this man’s character, faith and intelligence, far
worse and far more inappropriate then what was said about the man from
“Hope, Arkansas”.
Connections and Conclusion
When asked by
John McCain if the Sanctions were
working, Duelfer replied that the “Scations were in Free-fall”, but
there are those who have said and continue to say that “Scations
worked” and that if it was the United Nations who imposed these
sanctions against Iraq then it should have been the United Nations who
should have been responsible to insure they were seen through to the
very end.
Just like Appeasement aided
Hitler and gave him more time to build up
and retool the German military machine before World War II, the
sanctions imposed on Iraq helped Saddam Hussein build and acquire the
resources to reinstate his weapons programs once the aforementioned
sanctions were lifted. Imagine if members of The League Of Nations were
aiding Hitler and his rise to power and getting rich while at the same
time saying that the world should give the Treaty Of Versille more time
to work. That is exactly what’s occurring now.
Similarly in the
media- Those who are supposed to be
reporting the news of the campaign have now become intertwined with it,
and with it is a return of Yellow Journalism… report the sensational
even if it isn’t’ true and don’t report the truth if it is sensational
if it hurts the cause.
The
United Nations and the media were built on
principles of the same men and women we celebrate here on The Fedora
Chronicles. I believe there’s a united effort to corrupt that legacy
for personal and selfish gain. The way to put an end to this is to make
your voices heard, contribute essays and articles to this web page that
you have sent to your local newspaper and other media outlets. If you
need help, please be sure to drop us a line a
letters@thefedorachronicles.com. One of the goals of this webpage is to
rekindle the rugged individualism of The Golden Era and to effect
positive change with the modern tools we have at our disposal. The
memories of those heroes of that era are counting on us all.
