Eager for World War III on MSNBC
By Eoin Higgins
June
22, 2017 "Information
Clearing House"
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If we’re heading toward World War III, let’s
hope that some episodes of MSNBC‘s
Andrea Mitchell Reports survive the
nuclear winter to provide future
civilizations with some clues as to how we
got there.
Mitchell’s
June 19 show was a typical example of
the current mentality of the US security
state. A short segment in the show featured
Jeremy Bash, currently a military consultant
and formerly the chief of staff for both the
Department of Defense and the CIA under Leon
Panetta in the Obama administration.
In just over four-and-a-half minutes,
Bash recited an alarming number of pro-war
propaganda talking points that went
unchallenged (and were even egged on) by
Mitchell.
Bash and Mitchell began their
conversation by addressing Monday’s
escalation of the Syrian War, when US forces
shot down a Syrian government warplane.
Mitchell wondered if taking the action was
“basically getting us into a conflict with
Russia,” while Bash blamed the whole thing
on the Russians refusing to tell Assad to
stand down.
Presenting military conflict in a way
that shows the US to be the hard-luck victim
of good intentions is of course not unique
to MSNBC, or even cable news. As
FAIR’s Adam Johnson
pointed out on Twitter on Tuesday
afternoon, the US
shooting down an Iranian drone in
southern Syria was blamed on the unmanned
robot’s apparent display of “hostile
intent”— reasoning that was then
uncritically repeated
in the headline of British newspaper the
Independent.
Mitchell asked Bash
if the dispute could result in all-out war. From
there, the conversation devolved into Bash and
Mitchell doing everything short of calling for
war between the US and Russia, countries with
stockpiles of
around 7,000 nuclear weapons each.
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The US hasn’t done “a very good job pushing
Russia out of the way,” said Bash, implying it
would be a good idea to target a country that
only months ago was
reported by
Newsweek to have a bomb that could flatten
Texas. Bash added that “we’ve let Russia have
too free a hand, in my view, in the skies over
Syria.”
That the US should have full control over the
skies in Syria is not a position unique to Bash.
Both
Donald Trump
and
Hillary Clinton
expressed support for no-fly-zones over the
country during the presidential campaign. But to
hear it stated so openly in the context of
“pushing” a major nuclear power “out of the way”
is still startling.
Mitchell replied that “the criticism is that the
president is reluctant to go after Russia.” Of
course, that’s largely in line with the marching
orders from her colleagues at MSNBC, who
see
Russian conspiracies and machinations everywhere,
presenting the imperial rival as an existential
threat.
Bash
agreed, telling Mitchell that “the big issue
here has been an inexplicable lack of resolve
regarding Russia,” lamenting that “we have not
been willing to take them on.”
It
wasn’t all Russia and Syria; other Mideast
conflicts were topics of discussion as well
during the segment. Mitchell and Bash placed
resolving the Israeli/Palestinian “way down the
list” of things for US diplomacy to do in the
region, far below the dispute between Saudi
Arabia and Qatar, and the latter’s perceived
closeness to Iran.
Solving
that crisis, Bash said, was a top priority,
tying all the continuing conflicts in the Middle
East together in one neat package—with Russia in
the middle, naturally.
“If you
look at the regional dynamics,” said Bash,
“Russia has been providing cover for Syria, for
the Assad regime and for their friends in Iran,
and that is a dangerous development.”
“Jeremy
Bash,” Mitchell said as the show cut to
commercial. “Not a reassuring Monday message.”
“A lot
to worry about,” Bash agreed.
A lot
to worry about indeed, if Bash and Mitchell are
indicative of corporate media’s enthusiasm for
going to war with another nuclear-armed nation.
This article was first published by
FAIR
-
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views expressed in this article are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
opinions of Information Clearing House.
