Do Some Research
Kevin Drum at Political Animal, among many others, has posted on the the “leak” of a Presidential finding: “Yesterday ABC News revealed that President Bush has signed a “nonlethal presidential finding” that approves covert action to destabilize the Iranian regime.”
I’ve been talking about it for months, not the finding, but the actions.
Back on April 6th I wrote about the US sponsoring Jundulla since 2005 and supporting the MEK at least since since the invasion of Iraq. Both groups carry out attacks in Iran.
This is a continuation of Prince Bandar and the Saudi plan to re-make the Middle East by suckering the US into supporting Sunni thugs to attack people the US doesn’t like, with the promise that the Saudis will control them.
Al Qaeda was formed from the remnants of the Saudi plan to drive out the Soviets from Afghanistan and Fatah al Islam was the US-Saudi gift to Lebanon. Actually on February 27th I wondered: “Are we going to start reading articles about the US and Saudis supporting al Qaeda groups in Lebanon?”
I’m a guy with a website in a small town on the Florida Panhandle dealing with a lot of other issues, so how come I knew this and the MSM didn’t figure it until yesterday?
7 comments
‘cuz your’re smarter than the average MSM talking head.
Because you are paying attention and don’t have another agenda. The fact that we didn’t learn our lesson in Afghanistan and are repeating the same mistakes in Lebanon are what is so stupid.
They seem to wait to be told and don’t bother to follow their own stories anymore. This is all open source, none of it is secret. They pay “analysts” but don’t apparently listen to them.
Because thinking (like presidenting) is hard work, and nobody gets ahead in journalism by dint of hard work. It’s all about kissing ass. Besides, who cares about the U.S. embarking on another attempt to destabilize the least stable region in the world? There are missing white teenagers and a whole flock of blockbuster movies coming out that have to be hyped to death. Paris Hilton is still on the loose, and so are a whole flock of other celebrities behaving badly, about all of whose antics the American people must be kept au courant, for lack of anything better to cover on the nightly news.
I get more information scanning Le Figaro in the morning over breakfast than I do from reading half the major U.S. dailies and watching all the major news broadcasts.
Sadly, most of the stuff that I really source to US news is the oddball filler items used to balance the layouts in the back of what were once real newspapers.
You get to read AFP which actually has reporters in the area who can speak the local language.
I remember listening to a BBC report on problems in Chad. The news reader was speaking to a local leader and the leader was having problems with his English, so the BBC guy switched to French without skipping a beat. That is something you will never see on a major US channel.
What is the advantage of having editors and all of the other structures that are supposed to provide the gravitas of the MSM when compared to bloggers, if none of those people is paying attention.
Gravitas: that’s what makes things sink to the bottom, right? 🙂 At any rate, that’s what the MSM seems to have done.
Bryan, you have a genuine interest in foreign policy and foreign affairs. It matters to you how al Qaeda formed. It matters to you how the U.S. interacts with various factions in the Middle East. You pay attention because you realize these things have real-world consequences. By contrast, the incurious Bush thinks only of what extends or limits his power and his cronies’ profits, and the MSM pursues only what is “sexy” … which immediately omits most serious questions of international relations.
Say what they will about Al Gore, the MSM cannot truthfully accuse him of not understanding the context in the Middle East. But they’d rather accuse him of dressing unfashionably, or being fat, or stiff, or whatever. Our media has become unbearably shallow, and we have allowed them to do so.
One of the things that really annoys me is the assumption that people aren’t interested in this stuff. They will damn sure get interested if they are told how it affects them. As long as US troops and money aren’t involved I can see why people might not care, but with a credit card bill of a half a trillion dollars for a war in the area that has killed 3½ thousand American troops I think people really want to know what’s going on and the media owes them some answers, as does the government.
Supporting the Shrubbery isn’t a plan, it’s a cop out. Supporting the troops isn’t a plan, it’s a bumper sticker.
I want to know why the average political pundit is more suited to covering Oscar night than a political debate. The thought of these idiots covering the Lincoln-Douglas debates makes me cringe. It would have been about how tall Lincoln was and how badly dressed while Douglas was short but has a better choice of clothes. No one would have had any idea what they said.