Foreign Affairs

• Passages are quoted from Obama's address to the 67th UN General Assembly alongside passages from  Martin Luther King's world shocking sermon Beyond Vietnam - a Time to Break Silence. From the sour feeling in one's own gut while listening to the absurdities, one assumes that the President himself must have a strong stomach to be able to speak such preposterous untruth with a straight and stern face. Obama's falsifications noted.
• Obama’s Double-Speak at the DNC

Jay Janson, Countercurrents.org

If you like reading this article, consider contributing a cafe latte to all reader-supported Evergreene Digest--using the donation button above—so we can bring you more just like it.


September 26, 2012 | Martin Luther King Jr.: "The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today is my own government. US Wars and violence overseas are all meant to maintain unjust predatory investments." 



President Barack Obama: "We intervened in Libya alongside a broad coalition, and with the mandate of the U.N. Security Council, because we had the ability to stop the slaughter of innocents; and because we believed that the aspirations of the people were more powerful than a tyrant."

Full story...

Related:

Obama’s Double-Speak at the DNC, Daniel Kovalik, Counterpunch
Sounding very much like his predecessor, George W. Bush, President Obama engaged in a very calculated act of misdirection and obfuscation at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) to continue justifying his unprovoked acts of war abroad.
 

Tell Meet the Press to challenge their guests when they make false statements on Iran.

Just Foreign Policy

If you like reading this article, consider contributing a cafe latte to all-reader supported Evergreene Digest--using the donation button in the above right-hand corner—so we can bring you more just like it.

September 19, 2012 | On Sunday (September 16), Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared on US Sunday talk shows, scaremongering about Iran's nuclear program. Meet the Press allowed Netanyahu to give a completely false picture of the Iran nuclear issue, without challenging his scaremongering through reference to known facts.

Tell Meet the Press this is not acceptable: real journalism requires challenging false statements from politicians, particularly when these statements could provide a pretext for war.

In response to the pervasiveness of false information on Iran in the mainstream media, Just Foreign Policy and the National Iranian American Council have launched a new initiative, the Iran Media Fact Check, with a new website at IranFact.org. Our first joint campaign is to pressure Meet the Press to correct misinformation on Iran.

Here's what Netanyahu told Meet the Press on Sunday:

"So I think that as they get closer and closer and closer to the achievement of the weapons-grade material, and they’re very close, they’re six months away from being about 90 percent of having the enriched uranium for an atom bomb, I think that you have to place that red line before them now, before it’s—it’s too late." [1]

Netanyahu was clearly trying to create the impression that he believed Iran was 6 months away from being "on the brink" of acquiring a nuclear weapon, and therefore urgent action is needed within the next six months—in particular, setting a "red line," i.e. threatening the use of military force. Indeed, Reuters reported Netanyahu's remarks with the headline, "Iran on brink of nuclear bomb in 6-7 months: Netanyahu." [2] But that impression is demonstrably false; Iran is not six months from being "on the brink" of acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Here's what journalists on Meet the Press should have pointed out:

The most highly enriched uranium that Iran is currently known to be producing—and the sort which Netanyahu was referring to in his statement—is "medium-enriched" uranium, not weapons-grade uranium. [3] That enrichment is currently under UN inspection, so to convert it to weapons-grade uranium, Iran would have to first expel UN inspectors. A recent bipartisan experts' report, signed by former senior military and political officials from both Republican and Democratic Administrations, noted that UN inspections "would almost certainly reveal any Iranian efforts to begin enriching uranium beyond 20% at declared sites." [4] Furthermore, the IAEA's most recent report stated that Iran's stockpile of 20% enriched uranium actually decreased in the three months period proceeding the report, since Iran converted a portion of the stockpile into fuel plates for use in their medical research reactor. [5]

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta recently said that the United States would have at least a year to take action if Iran decided to build nuclear weapons and that the US is well-prepared to act if Iran were to make such a decision. [6] The bipartisan report of former officials said, "Conservatively, it would take Iran a year or more to build a military-grade weapon, with at least two years or more required to create a nuclear warhead that would be reliably deliverable by a missile." [7]

Israeli leaders have a long track record of scaremongering about Iran's nuclear program. [8] To give them a media platform without challenging their false assertions is to dangerously mislead the public.

Tell Meet the Press that it has an obligation to challenge the false statements of Israeli leaders it invites on its program.

Thank you for all you do to help bring about a more just foreign policy,

References:

1. "September 16: Benjamin Netanyahu, Susan Rice, Keith Ellison, Peter King, Bob Woodward, Jeffrey Goldberg, Andrea Mitchell," Transcript, Meet the Press, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49051097/ns/meet_the_press-transcripts/t/sep...
2. "Iran on brink of nuclear bomb in 6-7 months: Netanyahu," Matt Spetalnick and Dan Williams, Reuters, Mon, Sep 17, 2012, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/17/us-iran-nuclear-netanyahu-idUS...
3. "Israeli Leader Makes Case Against Iran on U.S. TV," Steven Lee Myers, New York Times, September 16, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/17/world/middleeast/netanyahu-says-iran-i...
4. "Weighing Benefits and Costs of Military Action Against Iran," The Iran Project, http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/IranReport_091112_FINAL.pdf
5. “IAEA Report Shows Iran Reduced Its Breakout Capacity,” Gareth Porter, Inter Press Service, September 1, 2012, http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/09/iaea-report-shows-iran-reduced-its-breako...
6. "If Iran builds bomb, US has a year to act: Panetta," AFP, 1 September 2012, http://www.france24.com/en/20120911-iran-builds-bomb-us-has-year-act-pan...
7. "Weighing Benefits and Costs of Military Action Against Iran," The Iran Project, http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/IranReport_091112_FINAL.pdf
8. "Imminent Iran nuclear threat? A timeline of warnings since 1979," Scott Peterson, Christian Science Monitor, November 8, 2011, http://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/print/content/view/print/422252