Don’t Look For ‘The Facts’

On TV News

To the Editor:

The reason so many Americans mistakenly believe we did the right thing by invading Iraq is simply because the media has been silent on the facts that led up to this assault. When the majority of the public get their information from our TV outlets they are getting a censored, propagandized slant on the world’s news because the media is owned by corporations, namely GE (they make bombs, too), Disney, Murdoch (Fox News), Viacom, Time-Warner, NBC, etc. They have no incentive to present balanced news because it conflicts with the position of the corporation. And it’s always good to keep a Republican administration in office. It’s good for business.

On the subject of Iraq, the public was first lulled into believing we went after terrorists. If that’s the case, then why didn’t we bomb Saudi Arabia, the country where the hijackers originated? It wasn’t Iraqis who flew those 9/11 planes. Then we moved onto Resolution 1441; when the United Nations didn’t move fast enough, Powell whined that the Iraqis were jerking us around, using the inspections as a way to gain more time to create more weapons of mass destruction. By the way, Israel is in violation of more security council resolutions than Iraq, but we have no quarrel with them. And, finally, it became a matter of a regime change. This administration couldn’t wait another day to get this invasion started. So they kept changing the pretense of why we had to invade.

Still unanswered questions: “Where are those weapons of mass destruction?” “Where are the happy Iraqis?” “Why did we really go to Iraq?”

Go back in history to the Reagan administration. 1983. The Secretary of Defense George Schultz (a past CEO of Bechtel) sent Rumsfeld twice to solicit Hussein to talk him into letting Bechtel build an oil pipeline from Iraq to Jordan. A concern of Hussein’s was an Israeli attack. Rumsfeld wrote back to Schultz, “I said I could understand that there would need to be some sort of arrangements that would give those involved confidence that it would not be easily vulnerable.” In the end, Hussein decided to award the contract for the pipeline to Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Even though the pipeline proposal was rejected, Bechtel did sign contracts in 1988 to build a dual-use chemical plant outside Baghdad. These contracts were signed, in spite of the fact that the United States knew of the gassing of thousands of Kurds. In fact, Hussein named Bechtel as one of the corporate suppliers of technology for chemical weapons in their UN declaration last year. It’s funny that nobody cared too much about the Kurds at that point. As you can imagine, Rumsfeld has been seething since losing the oil deal and watching lucrative oil contracts go to other countries. It was just a matter of time until this administration decided to “liberate” Iraq.

At any rate, when people write editorials that antiwar protestors should get their facts straight, my response is that most people don’t even have a clue what the real facts are. We aren’t supposed to know. Otherwise, shouldn’t we hear that corporations such as Bechtel, Halliburton, The Parsons Group, The Carlyle Group, etc,. are given lucrative, noncompetitive awards to rebuild Iraq? Is this our new foreign policy? Destroy countries (particularly ones that have oil) so that this administration’s corporate friends can line their pockets with taxpayer dollars? Now that the United States is in “occupation mode” I will continue to protest. I refuse to see the world through red, white, and blue-colored glasses. Until this country once again stands for justice and not for corporate profit I will protest. Meanwhile, don’t believe everything you hear on the six o’clock news.

Geraldine Carley

66 Currituck Road, Newtown                                      April 15, 2003