Media Setting Up Iran as New ‘Threat’ That Must Be Confronted view post on FAIR.org Once again the Washington Post (5/14/19) presents the United States as “drifting toward war”—this time with Iran. by Janine Jackson The Washington Post editorial’s headline (5/14/19)  had the US “drifting” toward war with Iran—another example, as analyst Nima Shirazi quipped, of the “world’s superpower somehow having no agency over its own imperialism.” If we can still call things “surreal,” that would describe watching corporate media do the same things they did 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 “intelligence,”  on officials with well known records for manipulating intelligence; the stenographic reporting of ‘troubling’ actions by the enemy state, that later have to be walked back. A May 13 New York Times piece led with the statement that Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan had “presented 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.” As researcher Derek Davison reminds, in a piece for LobeLog (5/14/19), there is, as the Times has acknowledged on other occasions, no evidence that Iran is working on nuclear weapons, at whatever pace. Later, the piece says: 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. So that’s both sides; Iran is a dangerous threat or it needs to be prevented from “new aggressions,” though the piece doesn’t name any previous ones. Indeed, the Times quotes and leaves unremarked the claim from a National Security Council spokesperson that “the president has been clear, the United States does not seek military conflict with Iran…. However, Iran’s default option for 40 years has been violence”—a frankly mind-boggling statement that surely warranted more than frictionless transmission. At the very end of the article, Davison reports, the Times throws in that National Security Advisor John Bolton has been pushing for war on Iran since the George W. Bush administration, and has already asked the Pentagon to plan for a military strike at least once, before these new supposed “troubling” moves from the country.  But by that point, readers may have concluded that Iran is an emboldened rogue state, threatening the US and pursuing nuclear weapons—and the revelation that Bolton is trying to drum up a war with them might sound less unreasonable. Featured image: New York Times depiction of the USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf (photo: US Navy).

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RSN: William Boardman | Tanker Attack Was Imaginary, but US Says Iran Did It

19 May 19

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RSN: William Boardman | Tanker Attack Was Imaginary, but US Says Iran Did It 

William Boardman, Reader Supported News
Boardman writes: "These network stories are examples of fake news at its most dangerous, when it plays into the dishonest manipulations of an administration beating the drums for a war against Iran that has no reasonable basis. Not only do the networks and mainstream media generally fail to question the administration's rush to war, they also fail to do basic journalism by independently confirming whether a particular story is true or not."
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Chelsea Manning. (photo: ABC News)

Chelsea Manning Jailed Again as She Refuses to Testify Before Grand Jury
Ed Pilkington, Guardian UK
Pilkington writes: "Chelsea Manning was again behind bars on Thursday night after she was jailed for a second time for contempt of court, having refused to cooperate with a grand jury."
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Senator Elizabeth Warren. (photo: Getty Images)

Elizabeth Warren Just Announced Her Reproductive Rights Platform. It's Aggressive.
Anna North, Vox
North writes: "Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) on Friday released a statement calling on Congress to pass a slate of legislation aimed at guaranteeing abortion and other reproductive rights around the country, even if Roe v. Wade falls."
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Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. (photo: Alex Brandon/AP)

Mnuchin Rejects Democrats' Subpoena for President Trump's Tax Returns
Jeff Stein, The Washington Post
Stein writes: "Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Friday rejected a subpoena from House Democrats demanding President Trump's tax returns, setting the stage for a court battle over the documents."
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In March of 2019, Catholic leaders in Sioux Falls released the names of 11 priests who faced what church authorities called substantiated claims of child sex abuse. (photo: Jay Pickthorn/Argus Leader)

America's Failure of Indigenous Children Is by Design
Nick Martin, Splinter
Martin writes: "Indigenous invisibility has long been the norm in the United States. This isn't news to people from these communities, nor is it specific to this topic, so apologies to fellow Native readers for retreading painful ground."
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Syrian prisoners. (photo: Louai Beshara/Getty Images)

"Inside Syria's Secret Prisons": A Harrowing Account of How Assad's Torture Machine Crushed Dissent
Democracy Now! 

 

Excerpt: "A shocking expose by the New York Times looks at how Bashar al-Assad's government has jailed and tortured tens of thousands of Syrians since the uprising began in 2011."
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Single-use plastic containers are 'the biggest source of trash' found near waterways and beaches. (photo: Dimitar Dilkoff/Getty Images)

Plastics Threaten Global Climate at a Massive Scale During Each Point of Lifecycle, Report Finds
Madison Dapcevich, EcoWatch
Excerpt: "Plastic pollution across the globe is suffocating our planet and driving Earth toward catastrophic climatic conditions if not curbed significantly and immediately, according to a new report by the Center for International Environmental Law (CEIL)."
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