July 02, 2005

Chicago Tribune plays lapdog

The Chicago Tribune published an editorial, "About that memo..." on June 29th. The author's stumbled into Bush's alternate universe. In defense of the floundering occupation, or what is deemed "building a representative democratic government for Iraq" (truly representative to its people if built in the interests of another country, eh?) the author struggles to downplay the Downing Street Minutes as mere evidence of government "business as usual," rather than acknowledging it as the smoking gun that it is.

The author is guilty of the same mistakes the media made 3 years ago at the time of the DSM's writing. He still attempts to use 9/11 as justification for the war in Iraq, though Iraq was not the hotbed of terrorism it is now prior to invasion. He take the same defensive stance big media outlets have taken, acting as though objective inquiry and equal time were offered to peace advocates, when papers like the Washington Post and New York Times (both of which were forced to do mea culpas after the invasion) did little more than beat the drums of war.

But hey, if you can't blame the liberal media, there's always the UN--the author tries to place responsibility for the war on the international body, saying they could've stopped the war if it "had been willing to enforce its resolution." The author forgets that the US ignored UN recommendations for further weapons inspection and attacked preemptively.

UN weapons inspector Hans Blix reported in detail on Iraq's failure to cooperate with inspectors. If Iraq had cooperated, it would have defused any U.S. intention to go to war. Iraq did not.

The author neglects another British memo released in the Times after the minutes, showing the Brits scrambling to push a UN ultimatum on Saddam to justify the illegal debacle in which they would be complicit. The UN's involvement is a lame excuse--the administration was determined to override their requests, as they see the institution as little more than a tool subject to nothing more than their own foreign policy decisions.

Tony Blair has acknowledged the authenticity of the memo. If the DSM were not the smoking gun, the media would not be so hard pressed to silence and discount it by regurgitating the party line and passing it off on the body that tried to halt the invasion.

No comments: