Right-wing bloggers and their supporters perpetuate myths about Iran in a push for war

In and around May 19 (it’s hard to remember the exact date and the article has since disappeared from the web), the [tag]National Post[/tag] ran a front-page story by neo-con writer Amir Taheri about Iran. It claimed Iran was passing a law that required religious minorities like Jews and Christians to wear colour-coded badges identifying their religion.

The article was soon picked up by major news organizations, causing outrage among columnists, bloggers and prime minister Stephen Harper, who said, “We’ve seen a number of things from the Iranian regime that are along these lines…It boggles the mind that any regime on the face of the Earth would want to do anything that could remind people of Nazi Germany.”

But the story wasn’t true.

Regardless, in a phenomenon reminiscent of Iraqi WMDs, just because it isn’t true hasn’t stopped people from believing it. Small Dead Animals posted the story when it broke, quoting Bernard Lewis as saying “I feel it’s 1938 again”. But SDA and friends are not backing down, posting a lame response by the original author who says he “raised the issue not as a news story” and in general making the case that regardless of whether or not the story is true, Iran is evil/needs to be bombed/needs to be invaded/etc.

Michelle Malkin also posted about the story, although she has since qualified the story with a link that says it “may not be true” [emphasis mine]. Malkin is popular among conservatives, and her post alerted numerous conservative bloggers who proceeded to feature the story. Not all of them have informed their readers that the story is false. Here is a sampling:

Iran might as well put different colored bullseyes on Jews and Christians backs instead.

When will the Ayatollah come out with a small mustache and goose step to Wagner?

Westerners have no clue of the barbarity that followers of Islam have toward their fellow man.

No one took Hitler seriously back in the 30’s.

Iran Needs To Be Taken Out

In the comments on Right Voices, we’ve got: “We shoud put bullseyes on muslims…”; “Mohammed was no saint. He was a pedophile, plain and simple.”; “Islam is evil on earth, mohammed mass murdered millions of people”; and more cheerful musings.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad IS a madman, whether you want to admit it or not. As many others have mentioned, the parallels between this lunatic and Adolph Hitler are very similar.

I agree there are parallels between Nazi Germany and today. Parallels such as aggressive nationalism, patriotic jingoism, and rigid right-wing ideology. Plus, a vast propaganda apparatus, with one remarkable difference between then and now: then, the apparatus was operated by the state. Today, the state merely needs to give a little shove in the right direction, and legions of amateur propagandists take over.

[tags]right-wing propaganda, Iran, Amir Taheri, Islam, Iranian colour-coded badge story[/tags]

The [tag]Competitive Enterprise Institute[/tag] (CEI), a conservative Washington-based organization funded in part by Exxon Mobil, Ford, the American Petroleum Institute, and other major American corporations, and that exists to fight environmental legislation and regulation, has released two new commercials.

The commercials, which coincide with the release of An Inconvenient Truth, the Al Gore-inspired film about global warming, portray carbon dioxide as “life” with hilarious results. You can watch them on the CEI website.

[tags]An Inconvenient Truth, global warming, climate change, CEI commercials[/tags]

On December 17, 2005, President Bush responded to reports that he had authorized the [tag]National Security Agency[/tag] of the United States ([tag]NSA[/tag]) to eavesdrop on the communications of people in the United States, including Americans, without the legally required court orders to do so:

In the weeks following the terrorist attacks on our nation, I authorized the National Security Agency, consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution, to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations. Before we intercept these communications, the government must have information that establishes a clear link to these terrorist networks.

In fact, this was not consistent with US law or the Constitution, but many people bought this explanation anyway. The invocation of September 11 still trumps everything else.

Fast-forward 6 months to May 11, 2006, when USA Today reported that the NSA has been recording data on the phone calls of millions of Americans:

The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.

The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans – most of whom aren’t suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate interviews.

The “largest database ever assembled in the world”, according to an individual familiar with the NSA’s secret program, may not include recordings of the conversations, but it does include the time, duration, and phone numbers of each call. This is more than enough to gain intimate insight into private lives.

The information was helpfully provided to the NSA – without warrants – by some of America’s biggest telecommunications companies: AT & T, Verizon, and BellSouth, who provide phone service to more than 200 million US customers.

Dana Perino, deputy White House press secretary, responded to the renewed controversy over NSA surveillance activities by saying they are “lawful, necessary and required to protect Americans from terrorist attacks”.

Meanwhile, the FBI is seeking the phone records of journalists involved in leaks of secret information – like the one that revealed the existence of the NSA’s phone record mining operation – in order to identify their sources.

Given the close cooperation between agencies like the [tag]FBI[/tag], the CIA and the NSA, how long will it be before the FBI has access to this massive database of telephone calls, if they don’t have it already?

From tracking down al-Qaeda operatives to prosecuting journalists who are critical of the administration, and their sources, in just six months. What’s next?

[tags]NSA surveillance program, journalism[/tags]

[tag]Stephen Colbert[/tag] was the last speaker at the annual [tag]White House Correspondents Dinner[/tag] on Saturday evening. Colbert is best known for the [tag]Colbert Report[/tag], a comedy show that is supposedly “fake news” but that features some of the toughest interview questioning I’ve ever seen on television.

Colbert’s performance Saturday night is a must-see. With [tag]George Bush[/tag] sitting only a few feet from him, he shocks the crowd with satire so scathing that Bush’s discomfort – and that of most of the guests – is palpable. (Watch it for yourself – Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – these open in new windows). If you’re unable to watch these, you can read a transcript.

The speech has become an Internet sensation but has gained little attention in traditional media outlets, as Peter Daou highlights in Ignoring Colbert: A Small Taste of the Media’s Power to Choose the News:

Colbert’s performance is sidestepped and marginalized while Bush is treated as light-hearted, humble, and funny. Expect nothing less from the cowardly American media. The story could just as well have been Bush and Laura’s discomfort and the crowd’s semi-hostile reaction to Colbert’s razor-sharp barbs. In fact, I would guess that from the perspective of newsworthiness and public interest, Bush-the-playful-president is far less compelling than a comedy sketch gone awry, a pissed-off prez, and a shell-shocked audience.

This is the power of the media to choose the news, to decide when and how to shield Bush from negative publicity.

Conservative commenters responded by saying the media has a pronounced liberal bias – hence Colbert’s invitation to the press corps dinner – but that the speech was so rude, tasteless, and not funny that not even the liberal media would touch it.

They’re right about this much: Colbert was rude to Bush, who was a guest at the dinner and was made visibly uncomfortable. This is enough reason for many editors to skip covering it on the grounds of good taste. If there’s anything the “liberal” media are afraid of, it’s being labelled as liberal media, and publishing gleeful descriptions of the president getting roasted is asking for it.

But the real problem is that the media are too close to those in power, regardless of their political positions (Clinton got a free ride too). Colbert makes editors and commentators uncomfortable because he does what they ought to do: he takes those in power to task right to their faces. No one should cringe at making Bush uncomfortable. Would an Iraqi widow have sympathy for him? A veteran amputee?

Political persuasion does equal a willingness to speak truth to power. The Washington Post may be identifiable as a “left-leaning” paper, but they are also very clearly a power-leaning paper, one that is frequently unwilling to challenge the Bush administration. The Post frequently quotes anonymous government sources who remain anonymous not because they need protection from the government, but because they are feeding the government’s version of events to the public.

Colbert is so jarring because his courage is so rare. He forgoes pleasing his audience – hard to do for any public speaker, let alone with the president in the audience – in favour of breaking out of the symbiotic relationship between Washington press and Washington power. It’s a point he makes clear to the press as well as the president:

Here’s how it works: the president makes decisions. He’s the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down.

Make, announce, type. Just put ’em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know – fiction!

Colbert reminds us that it is still possible to tell those in power, no matter how likeable they may seem, precisely what they don’t want to hear.

Bush’s new [tag]press secretary[/tag] [tag]Tony Snow[/tag] is aptly named for the job. Snow is a former FOX News commentator and until now, had his own radio show, where he had this to say last week:

People like Jesse Jackson who have committed themselves to a view that blacks are constantly victims, have succeeded in creating in the United States the most dangerous thing that we’ve encountered in our lifetime; which is, an underclass that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.

Going on to criticize “the idiotic culture of [tag]hip-hop[/tag]”, he said:

You have people glorifying failure. You have a bunch of gold-toothed hot dogs become millionaires by running around and telling everybody else that they oughtta be miserable failures and if they’re really lucky maybe they can get gunned down in a diner sometime, like Eminem’s old running mate.

(Hear Snow for yourself on Democracy Now!)

I wasn’t sure if Bush could find anyone worse than the perpetually obtuse and obfuscating Scott McClellan, but it sounds like he might have succeeded.