NPR leads the charge to war with Iran

[Cocoa]

I didn't hear this piece, but if Counterpunch is characterizing this correctly it's unbelievable. Especially after Iraq, which I don't think NPR has even issued a mea culpa about...

http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney08312004.html

When did "liberal" NPR become a champion of American aggression against Iran?

Listeners to National Public Radio are increasingly apt to criticize the "rightward shift" in the station's news coverage. The August 30 "Morning Edition" program, however, reached a new low for slanted journalism and for making the Bush Administration's case for war with Iran.

The commentary titled "US Presses UN Agency on Iran Nuclear Program" was a textbook example of propaganda dressed up to look like unbiased reporting.

All three interviewees were charter members of America's "far right" establishment; haling from the American Enterprise Institute, the Nixon Center and the Project for the New American Century. All three of these groups were "front and center" in facilitating the unwarranted attack on "unarmed" Iraq. The Bush Administration is looking for an excuse to attack Iran; that much is clear.

more...

[bloom]

1. I hate having lost NPR

that is a sad assesment.

[sui generis]

2. it's been infiltrated and gone for a while now

I've stopped giving money to that rotting corpse.

[Canadian_moderate]

3. Why are liberals protecting Iran's theocracy?

Iran is a theocracy that oppressed peoples' liberties. I don't think that the USA should go to war with Iraq, but I do think that the world should assist the freedom-loving people of Iraq in ousting their ultra-conservative theocracy. What's wrong with that?

Trust me, if Iran has nukes or other forms of WMD, Bush will not attack Iran. Change in Iran must take place from within.

It's time for liberals to stop making excuses for dictator too.

BTW, go Kerry! Good luck and best wishes from Toronto, Canada.

[billbuckhead]

4. NPR's run by the CIA now

For immediate release
November 11, 1998

NPR Announces New President and CEO


NPR President Kevin Klose NPR President Kevin Klose
Washington, DC – The Board of Directors of National Public Radio® (NPR®) announced today its selection of veteran journalist and international media executive Kevin Klose as the next President and Chief Executive Officer of NPR, effective in mid-December. Klose, 58, a former editor and correspondent at The Washington Post, is currently Director of the U.S. International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB), the U.S. global, non-military radio and television system.

<http://www.npr.org/about/press/981111.klose.html>

[sui generis]

5. where did you get that impression?

We cannot invade every country who has a political system that we disagree with. We simply don't have the resources to even be in the war we're fighting right now.

Not invading is not the same thing as defending their political system. And in the order of priority, genocidal states always go ahead of theocracies for invasion, and there's already a list.

In conservative minds, states that have oil are ahead on the list for invasion.

[Canadian_moderate]

7. Liberals need to offer alternatives

Instead of just opposing wars, we need come up with viable alternatives to war. Not just sanctions, or similar methods, but real action to force dictatorships into change.

Yes, Saddam was no real threat to the USA, but he was a tyrant to his own people. Are actions up to 2003 never really seemed to deter him. Without the threat of war, if necessary as a last resort, it is very hard to force change. Even the sanctions never really hurt Saddam. They mainly affected the average Iraqis, especially the oppressed Shi'ia Muslims.

I don't like GWB or his policies, but I also do not think that the pacifist approach would work either. We cannot force regime changes all over the world, but we should at least attempt to help these people force the changes from within.

[cprise]

8. I agree about the need for alternatives

...but if you want to grouse about an opressive regime I suggest you turn your attention to Saudia Arabia. Iran is an egalitarian paradise in comparison, and the absurdity of invading a country that has been making great strides only sends a message that Islamic countries will be punished no matter what they do about human rights.

"We cannot force regime changes all over the world, but we should at least attempt to help these people force the changes from within."

By "we" you mean the government? Yeah, lets have more of that CIA-style "liberation" to fatten the wallets of multinational corporations.

There should be no forced "regime change" unless the country in question is experiencing genocide or is itself invading other countries.

[sui generis]

9. I think you prejudge

not all liberals are opposed to war, and I am the very last person you could call a pacifist. However, I am not an aggressor either.

I for one am opposed to unjustifiable wars, especially wars with dictatorships that have higher oil reserves and lower body counts than countries like the Sudan, wars that we have been manipulated into by a particular industrial sector through lies, evasion, and intentional misinterpretation of questionable intelligence.

There are very real problems that warrant military intervention and I am 100% behind war and regime change in the case of terrorism and genocide. I agree with you on sanctions -- but they are the first step that must be taken in diplomacy, even if a painful one.

[cprise]

11. I thought pacifism was nonviolence, even in self-defense

This issue has nothing to do with pacifism. It is about agression.

[sui generis]

12. I am not a pacifist -

I don't like violence, and I especially despise war, but I also understand that it is necessary sometimes.

I just think that if we do it we had better be justified and we had better never be acting unilaterally. Iraq was and is wrong. However, if we had actually had real evidence of weapons of mass destruction ready to be deployed in 45 minutes, it would have been justified. If Saddam had murdered more civilians in 20 years than we did in one year of "collateral damage", then maybe. Oh no, I'm not a pacifist at all. I just know that we better have a sound rationale for putting the lives of our children at risk, because we're the ones that have to put flowers on their graves when they come back in boxes, and we're the ones that have to answer the questions for the rest of our lives, "was it worth it?"

[LisaM]

6. Duh... this is Newt Gingrich's doing....

the more support you give to NPR, the less they will depend on the corporate funding they've needed to solicit since they were defunded during the Contract On America.


That said, Steve Inskeep needs to GO. I actually heard him chuckling along with Latortue during an interview a few weeks ago. Ridiculous. And they take too many quotes from right-wing think tanks.

[cprise]

10. Mmmmmm... don't quite agree

The problem with our "public" broadcasting is that its not public. It relies on the political process and private charity to function. Other countries have broadcasters funded by a flat license fee; These public corporations form their identities around their populist demographic, and they can usually be counted on to contrast (in content, not just style) with the commercial broadcasters.

Also, the average American these days has much less disposable income; the worse the income disparity gets, the more money PBS/NPR will get from the wealthy. I fully expected them to shift to the Right.

[LisaM]

13. Well I personally believe it should be federally funded

but since Newt held his recission hearings, NPR has lost money every year.

[cprise]

15. You want a network controlled by politics?

I would rather have an independant public broadcaster that can collect revenue directly from the general public.

Note that NPR has tried desperately to win back that federal money. But nevermind... now they get an extra boost from some of the tax money the wealthy no longer pay.

[roguewolf5]

14. ah man, wheres my liberal media?

seriously!

[cprise]

16. it doesn't exist

...because all liberals can do is run around repeating a conservative-crafted phrase: "Liberal media! Liberal media! How can they call it Liberal media!!!".

"Baaaawk!!!"



Too many years of promoting liberalism in slogans six words or less has produced a generation of complete brain-rot.