Thom Hartmann: How the Media Fueled the War in Iraq

Bill O'Reilly, a Fox News television host and author, at his studio at Fox News

 in New York, Dec. 18, 2012. (Photo: Robert Wright/The New York Times)
 

By The Daily Take, The Thom Hartmann Show 
 

Yesterday, the U.S. marked the 10th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War. And, over the course of the past ten years, we've learned more and more about how the war with Iraq actually started.

It's incredibly easy to blame the Bush administration for its lies that led us into Iraq. But Cheney, Rumsfeld and company weren't the only ones who played an integral role in convincing this nation that Saddam Hussein was a threat, and that WMD's were a forgone conclusion.

In the days and weeks leading up to the invasion of Iraq, corporate media – and even NPR and PBS - were abuzz with the talking points of the Bush Administration, echoing claims that Iraq had its hands on "yellow cake uranium" and that it had a massive arsenal of "weapons of mass destruction."

Thanks to the media's repeated claims that Iraq and Saddam Hussein were immediate threats to our nation, in the weeks leading up to the invasion, nearly three-quarters of Americans believed the lie promoted by Donald Rumsfeld that Saddam Hussein was somehow involved in the attacks of 9/11......

Ten years after going to a war based on intentional lies, and after thousands of American lives have been lost, the majority of the media has yet to offer any semblance of an apology for being so wrong, and for not playing the real role of journalism and questioning the Bush administration hard.

The media failed us leading up to the Iraq War, and its cost hundreds of thousands of human beings their lives and the United States has lost both trillions of dollars and our standing in the world as a moral force.

It's time for our media to offer us – and the people of Iraq – an apology. And make sure this sort of thing never happens again.

Like it's getting ready to with Iran...

For the full article, please go here: http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/15234-how-the-media-fueled-the-war-in-iraq

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 During times of universal deceit, telling the truth is revolutionary. 

- George Orwell

 I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity,

 but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity. 

- Oliver Wendell Holmes