Thursday, April 10, 2008: startling news from the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) revealed that its two year independent investigation illustrated how George W. Bush had manipulated the media to keep the electorate from knowing what his administration was doing. Over the course of the Bush presidency, countless revelations came out that should have been disturbing to the press and the public. Yet, the misdeeds of the Bush administration were met with feigned disgust, only to then be dropped in the dust and forgotten about (until the next time). At the apex of the Information Age, George W. Bush had used the media, and the media had failed miserably at its role as the 'fourth estate'. The BBC was highly critical of the misconduct that had gone on, unabated, for years as the Bush paranoia proved to be greater than that in the Nixon era. Bush's list of "enemies" pretty much included every American citizen. His handlers didn't want anyone knowing anything, it seemed. Some of the more infamous examples, of course, had made headlines:
For more than 18 hours, the Bush administration didn't release news about Vice-President Dick Cheney's tragic hunting trip, where he shot a friend in the face. The news that the CIA maintained secret prisons where it held "detainees" was not revealed until the middle of Bush's second term, and only then because someone inadvertently found out about it. The media learned that the Bush administration actually paid a newspaper columnist to write articles favorable to the Bush legacy. And, of course, the most appalling revelation was the physical, emotional, verbal and sexual abuse that went on in Guantanamo Prison ("Gitmo") in Cuba. The BBC, however, dug deeper, and found evidence of even more incredulous manipulation - and, even intimidation - of the press.
A research library at George Washington University, the National Security Archives, had reported twenty-two months ago that Bush was "blacking out" information dating back to the early 1950's. Apparently, Bush didn't think it was necessary for the public to know anything about what went on in those days of the Cold War. Thus, information about the Minuteman missile program, which had been public for decades, was now classified as "top secret"! The BBC investigation dug deeper, and discovered that the Bush obsession with secrecy was almost maniacal. Contempt for the public's right to know was obvious.
Perhaps there was no better example then in 2006, when the New York Times published stories about how the Bush administration monitored financial accounts of suspected terrorists through bank records around the world. Bush publicly denounced the newspaper as irresponsible, claiming its story endangered national securty. Bush overlooked the fact that he, himself, had acknowledged such clandestine activities months before in a public speech. He also neglected to mention how the federal government routinely distributed video press releases, disguised as "TV news", which many networks broadcast verbatim without question or skepticism. It was proof positive that a lethargic American media, more concerned with profits than with integrity and accuracy, played into the hands of the worst administration to ever occupy the Oval Office.
The BBC investigation also confirmed a private meeting between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bush on January 31, 2003. Bush admitted to Blair that he was going to use "weapons of mass destruction" as his rationale for invading Iraq, even though he was certain Saddam Hussein had no such weapons. Other strategies were discussed at the meeting, including a plot to paint a U.S. surveilance plane in United Nations colors, and with UN markings. It would be flown over Iraq in anticipation of Hussein shooting it down, thereby giving Bush and Blair good reason for attacking Iraq! Other, even more outlandish ideas were thrashed about, but ultimately the two world leaders decided to stick with the "weapons of mass destruction" lie. Less than two months later, Bush announced to the American people that Saddam Hussein, indeed, had weapons of mass destruction stockpiled, and we had to invade his country in order to destroy those inventories and bring democracy to a land that had too long been ruled by an evil despot. No mention was made of the Bush family's personal vendetta against Hussein, who had "humiliated" George H.W. Bush during Desert Storm by avoiding capture and forcing the U.S. to "cut and run". No mention was made of Vice-President Dick Cheney's coveting all that oil swimming underneath Iraq's sands, which could make him and his friends at companies like Exxon-Mobil richer and richer and richer. No mention was made of an official U.S. document advising that no such weapons of mass destruction existed in Iraq. George W. Bush wanted to play cowboy...and no such thing as morality, human decency, or international law would stop him! The costs be damned - George W. Bush was going to war, regardless of how many trillions of dollars in debt he put American taxpayers, regardless of how many innocent Iraqi citizens he had to kill, and regardless of how many U.S. soldiers would die for his fanatical folly.
Bush lied to the U.S. Congress, deceived the American people, manipulated the media, and brushed aside concerns of the global community. He was thirsty for blood, as long as it wasn't his own that had to be spilled!
Comprehensive and critical, the BBC report was a stunning piece of investigative journalism - something the American media would have done to its credit forty years ago. But a lethargic, apathetic 'fourth estate' was far too lazy and uninterested in serving as America's watchdog over government ineptness and corruption; it was far more concerned with maintaining a 38% profit margin for its corporate properties.
In conclusion, the BBC made one more note: through its continued passion for secrecy and manipulation of the press, those Bush administration officials who had engineered the Iraqi invasion had duplicated the effort and invaded Iran in 2007. All with the same arrogance and wickedness; all for the very same reason: OIL.
Now America was involved in two major middle-east "wars". The Iran conflict was being fought pretty much by the U.S.A. and France. The U.S.A., of course, had its own interests in mind: OIL. France, of course, still harbored a long-time resentment against Iran from decades ago. No other nation really had any strong motive for sending military resources to Iran, but that didn't deter George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
O.U.T.R.A.G.E. members were working hard behind the scenes to end the Iran "war" before it built up any steam and became the full-blown ongoing war that America was saddled with in Iraq. Even George W. Bush, a year before he was killed, had admitted that Americans would be in Iraq long after was out of office. An early prediction had been that troops might begin to be withdrawn in 2009; later predictions pointed to 2016. Judging from the new embassy that had just been constructed in Baghdad, it seemed clear that the Bush administration expected to occupy Iraq for decades to come. From a standpoint of pure reason and practicality, O.U.T.R.A.G.E. members recognized this kind of long-range occupation of Iran was financially, militarily, and politically, impossible. The fire in Iran that Bush had just recently begun had to be extinguished before it became a full-fledged holocaust.