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ari fleischer
Has Nothing Been Learned Since 2003? Corporate Media Welcome Back Iraq War Hawks To Make Case for Iran
"No voices calling for peace. No voices critical of empire. Just establishment media and current and former Pentagon officials who feed off the trillion dollar war machine."
Jan 08, 2020
As President Donald Trump spent the early days of 2020 instigating and then backing down from a potentially catastrophic confrontation with Iran, corporate media in the U.S. turned to the very same people who promoted the country's worst foreign policy disaster in a generation to advocate for repeating the mistakes of two decades ago.
The decision of networks and cable news outlets like CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News to bring on a stream of past advocates for and architects of the 2003 invasion of Iraq was panned by progressives who watched in horror and frustration as the same arguments were deployed in service of all-out war with Iran.
"It's War Inc. all over again," tweeted The Nation's Dave Zirin.
\u201cIt\u2019s War Inc. all over again. No voices calling for peace. No voices critical of empire. Just establishment media and current and former pentagon officials who feed off the trillion dollar war machine.\u201d— Dave Zirin (@Dave Zirin) 1578022989
Trump's ordered assassination of Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani on January 3 proved the catalyst for escalated tensions between the U.S. and Iran. It also opened the door for news outlets to welcome back some of the key Bush-era war cheerleaders.
"In a sane and just society, the architects of the nearly 17-year-old war in Iraq--which is still ongoing and has left an estimated half-million people dead--would face war crimes charges and those who cheered them on would be thoroughly discredited."
--Jessica Schulberg, HuffPost
The more things change, the more they stay the same, wroteRolling Stone's Tim Dickinson.
"The Trump administration's sudden, violent confrontation with Iran stands in contrast to the methodical march to war with Iraq under George W. Bush and his neoconservative cabinet in 2003," Dickinson wrote. "But the rhetoric around the two conflicts has been strikingly similar--as has the reliance on 'razor thin' evidence of an imminent threat to establish a cause for war."
Soleimani's death by drone strike was celebrated in real time by former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer, who spent the run-up to the Iraq War selling the public on the necessity of the conflict.
"I think it is entirely possible that this is going to be a catalyst inside Iran where the people celebrate this killing of Soleimani," Fleischer told Fox in the hours after Soleimani's killing, flanked by Bush administration advisor Karl Rove.
\u201cAri Fleischer: "I think it is entirely possible that this is going to be a catalyst inside Iran where the people celebrate this killing of Soleimani"\u201d— Jason Campbell (@Jason Campbell) 1578020173
In contrast to Fleischer's prediction, Soleimani's funeral and remembrance ceremonies over the weekend turned out mourners enraged at the assassination across Iran in the millions. Former Vice President Dick Cheney's similar claim in 2002 that U.S. troops in Iraq would be "welcomed as liberators" was equally true.
Fleischer was nonetheless welcomed back to Fox on Tuesday and Wednesday to give his thoughts on the conflict and attack Democrats for questioning the rush to war.
"It's concerning, to say the least, to see some of the biggest backers of the Iraq War--an abject failure that, coupled with the ongoing war in Afghanistan, has cost the United States trillions of dollars and thousands of lives--are publicly (and in some instances, gleefully) opining about the potential impact of war with Iran, in some cases even using the same rhetorical stylings to do so," saidVox's Jane Coaston of the similarity in rhetoric.
On MSNBC, which bills itself as a liberal alternative to right-wing behemoth Fox, host Ari Melber on January 7 in the wake of Iranian retaliation for the assassination spoke to former General Barry McCaffrey, who called for a devastating response against Iran.
"Our only good response at this point is an overwhelming dominance of air and naval power that can be employed against the Iranian homeland," said McCaffrey.
\u201c"Liberal" MSNBC guest Gen. McCaffery: "Our only good response at this point is an overwhelming dominance of air and naval power that can be employed against the Iranian homeland"\u201d— Andrew Lawrence (@Andrew Lawrence) 1578442020
Unmentioned in the segment was McCaffrey's position on the board of Raytheon, a major U.S. weapons suppplier.
The next day, Melber hosted former Sen. Joe Lieberman, a one-time Democrat whose embrace of the Bush administration's push for war across the Middle East led to an unofficial expulsion from the Democratic Party in 2006, though Lieberman was re-elected as an independent.
Not disclosed by Melber to his audience? The fact that Lieberman works for Israel Aerospace Industries, a defense company with $1 billion in sales in the U.S.
Melber did not respond to a request for comment at press time.
As Popular Information's Judd Legum reported Thursday morning, Lieberman and McCaffrey are hardly alone in advocating for war in the media without revealing their financial interests in the conflict. Legum lists nine former government officials with ties to the defense industry who are being presented to the American people as experts without noting their connections to the military industrial complex.
One of the people profiled by Legum is Michael Chertoff, the former Bush-era secretary of Homeland Security. On CNN, Chertoff claimed Trump has unilateral power to attack Iran and start a war.
But, Legum pointed out, there was some context for those remarks conveniently left out of the coverage:
Neither Chertoff nor CNN disclosed that Chertoff is chairman of the board of the American subsidiary of BAE Systems, the fourth largest weapons manufacturer in the world.
Print media was not immune to the lack of accountability shown by tv. On January 5, the Washington Post ran a piece by former Bush administration national security advisor Stephen Hadley saluting the assassination of Soleimani and calling for war if necessary.
That Hadley is on the board of Raytheon alongside MSNBC's McCaffrey did not receive a mention.
The onus for disclosure, wroteEyes on the Ties reporter Rob Galbraith, is on the Post's editor Fred Hiatt:
Running another hawkish column by Hadley without noting his enormous financial incentive to stoke the engines of war shows that the Post in general, and Hiatt in particular, has failed to learn anything from Syria, Iraq, or any of the other times that war profiteers have used their pages to clamor for missile strikes and invasions. This is made all the more egregious since, however dismissively, Hiatt acknowledged Hadley's conflict of interest in 2013, and yet still went ahead and printed his op-ed today without disclosing this conflict--again.
"It's not 2003, but it sure feels like it," wroteHuffPost's Jessica Schulberg in a piece detailing a number of the Bush administration officials and varied Iraq War boosters brought on by the corporate media to discuss the push for war.
"In a sane and just society, the architects of the nearly 17-year-old war in Iraq--which is still ongoing and has left an estimated half-million people dead--would face war crimes charges and those who cheered them on would be thoroughly discredited," Schulberg continued. "Instead, they are the 'experts' praising President Donald Trump's decision to assassinate top Iranian military commander Gen. Qasem Soleimani and offering the public insight on the way forward with Iran."
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Corporate Media Turns to Warhawks, Including Former Bush Officials, to Beat Drums of War on Iran
"Nothing's been learned from 2003. Nothing."
Jan 02, 2020
Trump critics and peace advocates watched in horror Thursday night and Friday morning as some of the top architects of the Iraq War took to the corporate media to spin a narrative aimed at retroactively convincing Americans that the killing of Iranian military official Qasem Soleimani was essential to the safety of the U.S.--a replica of the run-up to the Iraq War nearly two decades ago.
Following reports that President Donald Trump ordered the airstrike that killed Soleimani, the major general of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, former George W. Bush administration officials were among those who media outlets called on to make a case for the act.
"CNN is allowing a parade of Republican lawmakers to go on air and cheerlead for war with Iran, and barely bothering to ask any of them how the U.S. keeps the region safe or what the plan is. We've learned much less since 2003 than we should have."
--Matthew Chapman, Raw StoryFormer White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer suggested, as conservatives did in 2003 regarding Iraqi civilians, that Iranians would likely celebrate the killing of Soleimani--presuming to speak for demonstrators who have decried economic hardships in the face of U.S. sanctions and government mismanagement in recent weeks.
"The Iranian people have been leading a revolution, a rebellion against their government, knowing what a dictatorship it is," Fleischer told Fox News. "So I think it is entirely possible this is going to be a catalyst inside Iran where the people celebrate the killing of Soleimani."
Journalist Judd Legum wrote that Fox is "getting the band back together" as right-wingers rework their 2003 claims to apply to Iran, joined by Trump administration officials like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Pompeo appeared on CNNFriday to claim that Iranian civilians "will view the American action last night as giving them freedom"--even as thousands of people took to the streets in Tehran and other cities in Iran to protest the Trump administration's actions.
A number of observers denounced cable news networks for offering a platform to pro-war extremists while ignoring the voices of peace advocates and critics.
"Former Bush appointees who thought the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a good idea?" tweeted journalism professor and Guardian columnist Christian Christensen. "Maybe not be the most objective commentators on US interests in the region."
\u201cWhat international news consumers do NOT need right now are guys who ran the US neo-colonial disaster in Iraq that killed hundreds of thousands being interviewed as \u201cexperts\u201d on the region. #Iran #Iraq\u201d— Christian Christensen (@Christian Christensen) 1578023049
\u201cCNN is allowing a parade of Republican lawmakers to go on air and cheerlead for war with Iran, and barely bothering to ask any of them how the U.S. keeps the region safe or what the plan is.\n\nWe've learned much less since 2003 than we should have.\u201d— Matthew Chapman (@Matthew Chapman) 1578062544
\u201cI don\u2019t mean to be alarming and I haven\u2019t been briefed but Ari Fleischer and Karl Rove are on TV and that alone makes me think no one has thought this through.\u201d— Brian Schatz (@Brian Schatz) 1578021908
"It's War Inc. all over again," wrote Dave Zirin, sports editor for The Nation. "No voices calling for peace. No voices critical of empire. Just establishment media and current and former Pentagon officials who feed off the trillion-dollar war machine."
\u201cThe MSM is failing the test of this moment at warp speed. Nothing\u2019s been learned from 2003. Nothing.\u201d— Dave Zirin (@Dave Zirin) 1578022989
News networks demonstrated their eagerness to present an uncritical view of the Trump administration's reasoning for the airstrike, which came days after the president, without evidence, accused Iran of orchestrating an attack at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.
CNBC's declaration that the U.S. had "just [taken] out the world's number one bad guy" was condemned as "journalistic malpractice" by writer Kelsey Atherton.
\u201cThis is journalistic malpractice, a naked and unquestioning endorsement of military escalation that obliterates context or understanding. It would make more sense in a Verhoeven satire than the real world, but here we are, in hell.\u201d— Kelsey D. Atherton (@Kelsey D. Atherton) 1578029385
Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch wrote about the contrast between the Trump administration's sudden escalation in Iran and the run-up to George W. Bush's 2003 invasion of iraq--prior to which the president, his top advisers, and other conservative commentators spent more than a year insisting the U.S. military should defeat Saddam Hussein.
Trump ordered the airstrike that killed Soleimani before "99 percent" of Americans had even heard of the official, wrote Bunch.
"Within minutes, the same people who brought us the endless wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere suddenly showed up on TV to declare [Soleimani] was the worst person in the world," he tweeted.
\u201c3. I can't tell you how many times I've read in the last 10 hours that "Suleimani is behind the deaths of hundreds of Americans." Not once has anyone, at least on TV, said any specifics of who or how, let alone explain how either the U.S. and the world is safer with him gone.\u201d— Will Bunch (@Will Bunch) 1578054851
"Where is the speech to the American people that lays out to the everyday citizen 1) who was Soleimani 2) what are his crimes against the U.S. 3) how does killing him make us safer 4) what is our plan for the messy aftermath?" Bunch asked, calling the administration's unilateral move without lawmakers' knowledge--much less congressional approval--"imperialistic and authoritarian."
\u201c8. That's not democracy. It's not what the United States of America was supposed to be. It's imperialistic and authoritarian -- an autocratic ruler quite possibly starting a regional war without the informed consent of the people\u201d— Will Bunch (@Will Bunch) 1578054851
Filmmaker and activist Michael Moore added that with a steady stream of commentary from Fleischer, Rove, Pompeo, and other conservatives clamoring to move ahead with war in Iran, Americans will be "trained to hate" Soleimani by the end of the week--even if they had never heard of him before Thursday night.
\u201cHello fellow Americans. Do you know this man? Did you know he was your enemy? What? Never heard of him? By the end of today you will be trained to hate him. You will be glad Trump had him assassinated. You will do as you are told. Get ready to send your sons &daughters off 2 war\u201d— Michael Moore (@Michael Moore) 1578056888
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Ari & I: July 14, 2003
Russell Mokhiber questions White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer (July 14)
Jul 14, 2003
Note from Russell Mokhiber:
On July 14, 2003, Ari Fleischer held his last White House press briefing. He left the White House to start a consulting firm that will advise corporate executives on how to handle the news media. The new White House Press Secretary is Scott McClellan. I'll continue this feature under the headline: "Scottie & Me."
Russell Mokhiber: Ari, in the 2002 election campaign, the Republican Party took in $7.2 million from convicted criminals. Is the President okay with his party taking millions of dollars from convicted criminals? Ari
Ari Fleischer: I have no idea what you are referring to -
Mokhiber: I'm referring to, let me tell you -
Fleischer: Obviously, if money is received - both parties from people who are later found out to be people who shouldn't be giving money - then it gets returned.
Mokhiber: These are actually major corporations convicted of crimes. ADM gave $1.7 million, Pfizer $1.1 million, Chevron $875,000. Is the President okay with those companies giving direct contributions to the Republican Party after being convicted of crimes?
Fleischer: Russell, as you know, the Presidential campaign takes no money from corporations.
Mokhiber: I'm talking about the party.
Fleischer: Well, you'll have to address your questions to the party.
Mokhiber: Well, as the titular head of the party, is he okay with the party taking money from convicted criminals?
Fleischer: I don't know what information you have where you can that this corporation is a criminal.
Mokhiber: Convicted - they pled guilty to crimes.
Fleischer: Were the crimes of such a nature that they are no longer in existence?
Mokhiber: ADM pled guilty to one of the most massive antitrust crimes and paid a $100 million fine.
Fleischer: I think you need to address any questions about specific companies with the specifics in mind, and if that company is still doing business and is still in operation, that means it is still in operation with the law, and every case is individual, and the party decides about whether the money needs to be returned or not. But I don't have specifics.
Mokhiber: One follow-up.
Fleischer: Go ahead, Russell.
Mokhiber: One follow up. It's actually a broad philosophical question. Is the President okay with taking money from convicted criminals?
Fleischer: I informed you that the President does not take money from corporations.
Mokhiber: No, I'm talking about - as titular head of the party, is he okay with the party taking money from convicted criminals. For example, in Enron -
Fleischer: I just have to differ with your notion that because a company has been fined -
Mokhiber: No, they pled guilty to crimes. They pled guilty to crimes.
Fleischer: Even so - I don't know what specifics you are referring to - that that company is a convicted criminal.
Mokhiber: If you plead guilty to a crime, you are a criminal.
Fleischer: Does that mean that they need to go out of business?
Mokhiber: I'm asking - should the Republican Party take money from convicted criminals?
Fleischer: You need to address your question to the Republican Party.
Mokhiber: But he's the titular head of the party.
Fleischer: And the titular head of the party refers you to the party.
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