More on Bush, Cheney, Iran and Journalists
We have learned a lot in the last six years about the relationship between government officials, particularly Bush government officials, and journalists. From a different angle, here's another story on Iran with some interesting observations by Kevin Drum of the Washington Monthly:
Perhaps Cheney and company are behind the spin on the naval exercises story after all. It's still speculation but we are in dangerous times. And the fact remains that the Bush Administration and any number of journalists, anxious to keep their sources so they can keep writing their stories, are not being entirely straight with the American people these days.
...let's face it: a campaign of "propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of Iran's currency and international financial transactions" is just about the mildest possible covert operation you can imagine. Why would anyone at the CIA, let alone multiple sources, be so outraged by it that they decided to leak its existence to ABC News?
Beats me. Maybe I'm not using my imagination enough. But there is an alternative: namely that this wasn't the work of malcontents at all. Rather, it was deliberately leaked as a way of sending a message to Iran, in much the same way that Simon Tisdall's "senior US official in Baghdad" decided that the Guardian might be a good place to plant a similar message. There seems to be a fair amount of that kind of thing going on right now.
Perhaps Cheney and company are behind the spin on the naval exercises story after all. It's still speculation but we are in dangerous times. And the fact remains that the Bush Administration and any number of journalists, anxious to keep their sources so they can keep writing their stories, are not being entirely straight with the American people these days.
Labels: Dick Cheney, Iran
posted by Craig at 4:45 PM
1 Comments:
Perhaps Cheney or a member of his inner circle leaked the covert operation story. Could've been to jinx it, in hopes the military action alternative would then be resorted to. Could've been plain old spite.
There's another possibility. A Bush & Co. staffer or proxy might've leaked it to generate public outrage against media "traders" (as one Blotter commenter called them); rile up Bush's base and, who knows, maybe down the line justify overt military action because, in the current climate, covert activities can't be kept secret, and something must be done.
What makes this scary is that these clowns don't have what it takes to successfully manage a well-attended birthday party for an 8-year-old. God help us if they keep messing around until we've got a full blown regionwide conflict to deal with.
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