{"id":138883,"date":"2014-09-04T17:41:55","date_gmt":"2014-09-04T17:41:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=138883"},"modified":"2014-09-04T17:41:55","modified_gmt":"2014-09-04T17:41:55","slug":"debating-war-corporate-media-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/media-news\/debating-war-corporate-media-style\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Debating’ War, Corporate Media Style"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peter Hart<\/em><\/p>\n

As the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) has expanded control over territory in Iraq and Syria, a growing chorus\u00a0of politicians and pundits are\u00a0demanding the Obama administration take more forceful military action. ISIS’s gruesome beheadings of two American journalists have only increased those calls,\u00a0leading some<\/a>\u00a0to compare the media frenzy to the run-up to the Iraq War.<\/p>\n

Prominent pro-Iraq pundits continue showing up as experts\u2014for example, discredited war booster William Kristol recently appeared on\u00a0CNN<\/b>\u00a0(9\/3\/14<\/a>)\u2014demonstrating\u00a0once again\u00a0<\/a>that advocating for the invasions that contributed to the present chaos does not seem to affect one’s standing in corporate media.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the discussions about what Obama should do lean heavily towards former military and national security insiders, which\u00a0inevitably produces a “debate” not over the wisdom of military strikes, but over how big a war the United States should be waging.<\/p>\n

On\u00a0ABC<\/strong>‘s\u00a0This Week<\/strong>\u00a0(8\/31\/14<\/a>), anchor\u00a0Martha Raddatz<\/a>\u00a0first convened a discussion between Dick Clarke\u2014who “directed counterterrorism efforts at the highest levels for several administrations”\u2014and former deputy secretary of Homeland Security Jane Holl Lute.<\/p>\n

The next panel was former military officials:<\/p>\n

Col. Steven Ganyard is a former Marine Corps fighter pilot and State Department official. And Adm. Robert Harwood is a former deputy commander of US Central Command that covers all these areas.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

CBS<\/strong>‘s\u00a0Face the Nation,<\/strong>\u00a0unsurprisingly<\/a>, led with an interview with hawkish Sen. John McCain. On\u00a0NBC<\/strong>‘s\u00a0Meet the Press<\/strong>\u00a0(8\/31\/14),\u00a0Andrea Mitchell<\/a>introduced her panel:<\/p>\n

For more on the military options for taking on ISIS, I’m joined by Michael Leiter,\u00a0NBC<\/strong>\u00a0national security analyst, who served as director of the National Counterterrorism Center; Michele Flournoy, who served as under secretary of Defense for policy in President Obama’s first term, and she’s now executive director at the Center for New American Security, and Gen. Anthony Zinni, our former commander-in-chief of US Central Command, and special envoy to the Middle East.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Elsewhere on the show,\u00a0NBC<\/strong>\u00a0correspondent\u00a0Richard Engel<\/a>\u00a0was asked about the White House’s reluctance to bomb Syria:<\/p>\n

Well, I speak to military commanders. I speak to former officials. And they are apoplectic. They think that this is a clear and present danger. They think something needs to be done.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When the range of discussion consists primarily of current and former military officials, along with boosters of the Iraq War,\u00a0it’s impossible to have an actual debate.<\/p>\n

This piece<\/a> was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Peter Hart As the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) has expanded control over territory in Iraq and Syria, a growing chorus\u00a0of politicians and pundits are\u00a0demanding the Obama administration take more forceful military action. ISIS’s gruesome beheadings of two American journalists have only increased those calls,\u00a0leading some\u00a0to compare the media frenzy to the run-up to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":138884,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,7],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-138883","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-media-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}