[Peace-discuss] Glenn Greenwald: What propagandist Goldberg has been up to

[C. G. Estabrook]

  I thought that this one of Greenwald's weaker columns.

He's usually so good, it's probably worthwhile to see why - and perhaps to help 
understand the Obama administration's pro-war propaganda.

Imagine what Goldberg would say in response, rejecting the claim that any 
"irony" was involved:

"In 2002 I repeated what the entire US intelligence community - civilian and 
military - and many others were saying. (E.g., '...bombing of the Osirak reactor 
in Iraq in 1981 ... according to available evidence, convinced Saddam Hussein to 
initiate his nuclear weapons program' - Noam Chomsky*.)

"The war revealed that that was wrong - and that the situation was what I 
described it in the recent piece.

"We must be sure that Iran is rendered ineffective, as Iraq and Syria were.  We 
must fight nuclear proliferation, as the President says."

I think in fact the whole account is false, from the effectiveness of the Osirak 
attack to the "threat" from Iran.  But we need to say that, not simply score 
debating points by suggesting propagandists have perhaps contradicted 
themselves.   --CGE


*["The little evidence we have - serious evidence - indicates that the 1981 
Israeli bombing of the Osirak reactor probably stimulated and may have initiated 
the Iraqi nuclear weapons development program. They were engaged in building a 
nuclear plant, but what it was nobody knew. It was investigated on the ground 
after the bombing by a well-known nuclear physicist from Harvard - I believe he 
was head of the Harvard physics department at the time. He published his 
analysis in the leading scientific journal, Nature. According to him, it was a 
power plant. He’s an expert on this topic. Other Iraqi sources, exiled, have 
indicated - we can’t prove it - that nothing much was going on. They may have 
been toying with the idea of nuclear weapons, but that the bombing of it did 
stimulate the nuclear weapons program..."]


On 8/13/10 2:50 PM, Paul Mueth wrote:
>  How propagandists function: Exhibit A
>  http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/08/12/goldberg/
>   By Glenn Greenwald
 >
>  Jeffrey Goldberg, in the new cover story in The
>  Atlantic, on an Israeli attack on Iran:
>
>  "Israel has twice before successfully attacked and destroyed an
>  enemy's nuclear program. In 1981, Israeli warplanes bombed the Iraqi
>   reactor at Osirak, halting -- forever, as it turned out -- Saddam
>  Hussein's nuclear ambitions; and in 2007, Israeli planes destroyed a
>   North Korean-built reactor in Syria.  An attack on Iran, then, would
>   be unprecedented only in scope and complexity."
>
>  Good news!  Israel can successfully end a country's nuclear program
>  by bombing them, as proven by its 1981 attack on Iraq, which, says
>  Goldberg, halted "forever, as it turned out -- Saddam Hussein’s
>  nuclear ambitions."
>
>  Jeffrey Goldberg, The New Yorker, 2002, trying to convince Americans
>   to fear Iraq:
>
>  Saddam Hussein never gave up his hope of turning Iraq into a nuclear
>   power. After the Osirak attack, he rebuilt, redoubled his efforts,
>  and dispersed his facilities. Those who have followed Saddam's
>  progress believe that no single strike today would eradicate his
>  nuclear program.
>
>  supreme irony, would be hilarious if it wasn't so dangerous!
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