All of this was being done as part of a “sea change” in the Bush administration’s Middle Eastern policies aimed at rallying friendly Sunni regimes against Shi’ite Iran, as well as Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Syrian government – and launching secret operations to undermine, roll back, or destroy all of the above. Despite the fact that the Bush administration is officially at war with Sunni extremism in Iraq (and in the more general Global War on Terror), despite its support for the largely Shi’ite government, allied to Iran, that it has brought to power in Iraq, and despite its dislike for the Sunni-Shi’ite civil war in that country, some of its top officials may be covertly encouraging a far greater Sunni-Shi’ite rift in the region.
Imagine. All this and much more (including news of U.S. military border-crossings into Iran, new preparations that would allow George W. Bush to order a massive air attack on that land with only 24-hours notice, and a brief window this spring when the staggering power of four U.S. aircraft-carrier battle groups might be available to the president in the Persian Gulf) was revealed, often in remarkable detail, just over a week ago in “The Redirection,” a Seymour Hersh piece in the New Yorker. Hersh, the man who first broke the My Lai story in the Vietnam era, has never been off his game since. In recent years, from the Abu Ghraib scandal on, he has consistently released explosive news about the plans and acts of the Bush administration.
Imagine, in addition, that Hersh went on Democracy Now!, Fresh Air, Hardball with Chris Matthews, and CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer and actually elaborated on these claims and revelations, some of which, on the face of it, seem like potentially illegal and impeachable offenses, if they do indeed reach up to the vice president or president.
Now imagine the response: Front-page headlines; editorials nationwide calling for answers, congressional hearings, or even the appointment of a special prosecutor to look into some of the claims; a raft of op-ed page pieces by the nation’s leading columnists asking questions, demanding answers, reminding us of the history of Iran-Contra; bold reporters from a recently freed media standing up in White House and Defense Department press briefings to demand more information on Hersh’s various charges; calls in Congress for hearings and investigations into why the people’s representatives were left so totally out of this loop.
Uh…
All I can say is: If any of this happened, I haven’t been able to discover it. As far as I can tell, no one in the mainstream even blinked on the Iran-Contra angle or the possibility that a vast, secret Middle Eastern operation is being run, possibly illegally and based on stolen funds and Saudi money, out of the vice president’s office. You can certainly find a few pieces on, or reports about, “The Redirection” – all focused only on the possible buildup to a war with Iran – and the odd wire-service mention of it; but nothing major, nothing Earth-shaking or eye-popping; not, in fact, a single obvious editorial or op-ed piece in the mainstream; no journalistic questions publicly asked of the administration; no congressional cries of horror; no calls anywhere for investigations or hearings on any of Hersh’s revelations, not even an expression of fear somewhere that we might be seeing Iran-Contra, the sequel, in our own moment.
Imagine. All this and much more (including news of U.S. military border-crossings into Iran, new preparations that would allow George W. Bush to order a massive air attack on that land with only 24-hours notice, and a brief window this spring when the staggering power of four U.S. aircraft-carrier battle groups might be available to the president in the Persian Gulf) was revealed, often in remarkable detail, just over a week ago in “The Redirection,” a Seymour Hersh piece in the New Yorker. Hersh, the man who first broke the My Lai story in the Vietnam era, has never been off his game since. In recent years, from the Abu Ghraib scandal on, he has consistently released explosive news about the plans and acts of the Bush administration.
Imagine, in addition, that Hersh went on Democracy Now!, Fresh Air, Hardball with Chris Matthews, and CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer and actually elaborated on these claims and revelations, some of which, on the face of it, seem like potentially illegal and impeachable offenses, if they do indeed reach up to the vice president or president.
Now imagine the response: Front-page headlines; editorials nationwide calling for answers, congressional hearings, or even the appointment of a special prosecutor to look into some of the claims; a raft of op-ed page pieces by the nation’s leading columnists asking questions, demanding answers, reminding us of the history of Iran-Contra; bold reporters from a recently freed media standing up in White House and Defense Department press briefings to demand more information on Hersh’s various charges; calls in Congress for hearings and investigations into why the people’s representatives were left so totally out of this loop.
Uh…
All I can say is: If any of this happened, I haven’t been able to discover it. As far as I can tell, no one in the mainstream even blinked on the Iran-Contra angle or the possibility that a vast, secret Middle Eastern operation is being run, possibly illegally and based on stolen funds and Saudi money, out of the vice president’s office. You can certainly find a few pieces on, or reports about, “The Redirection” – all focused only on the possible buildup to a war with Iran – and the odd wire-service mention of it; but nothing major, nothing Earth-shaking or eye-popping; not, in fact, a single obvious editorial or op-ed piece in the mainstream; no journalistic questions publicly asked of the administration; no congressional cries of horror; no calls anywhere for investigations or hearings on any of Hersh’s revelations, not even an expression of fear somewhere that we might be seeing Iran-Contra, the sequel, in our own moment.