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       AMERICAN JOURNALISTS: REDEEM YOURSELVES! 

Face it - you were snookered and misled into supporting this disastrous 
misadventure into Iraq. The rest of the world saw through it and opposed 
it, but you were blind, and went along. 

And now, thanks largely to your docile acquiescence, we are stuck in what 
might become our biggest, stupidist, worst-thought-out disaster of all 
time. If you had awakened the comatose Congress, they could have stopped 
it in its tracks, by refusing to authorize it or fund it in any way. All 
they needed were some good solid reasons not to support the impending war. 
Plenty of good reasons were there, but you did not dig to find them. If 
you had done your homework and challenged the underlying rationale, you 
could have exposed it as nonsense before before it matured into tragedy. 
Everyone else in the world (except Israel) recognized that it never made 
any sense at all. Why couldn't you? 

Were you afraid to lose your place in the White House Press Corps? Were 
you afraid to oppose the desires of Israel? Were you afraid of being 
called a traitor by those who are themselves traitors? Were you too lazy 
to dig for the truth? Were you fearful of being politically incorrect on 
the job, resisting the pro-Israeli pressure from your peers and from those 
who pay your salaries? Even if you are Jewish, and somehow feel morally 
obligated to support Israel in all things right or wrong, you still have a 
professional responsibility to seek the truth and expose falsehood! You 
are supposed to be journalists, not press agents - truth seekers, not 
flacks. 

In a very real sense, it's all your fault. You dropped the ball. You 
failed in your moral responsibility to seek and report the truth. You fell 
for some half-baked nonsense because you would not challenge it. You had a 
clear opportunity to stop it, but you stood immobile, like deer in 
headlights. 

But now you can redeem yourselves! 

You can start today, this minute, by turning over a new page and 
rededicating yourselves to your profession as Journalists. Seek the truth, 
no matter where it leads. Proclaim the truth as loudly and as clearly as 
you can. Fear nothing. Do your job! 

Expose the lies that led us to attack Iraq. Look hard at the 
Feith-Armitage-Perle-Rumsfeld- Wolfowitz-neocon-Israeli link. It wasn't 
"bad intelligence" that got us here, it was deliberate suppression of 
intelligence by those who had already made up their minds what they were 
going to do. Look hard at the scandal of dual citizenship and divided 
loyalty, which leads some American policy makers to support the interests 
of Israel over those of the USA. Explore the idea that Bush made a 
political decision to support Israel, right or wrong, in order to take the 
votes of American Jews away from the Democrats; and that this political 
decision locked him into the war in Iraq, because Israel desperately 
wanted the war to happen. 

Challenge the bald assertion that "the world is a better place without 
Saddam." Is that really true? On what basis is it true? Stability of the 
region? No. Peace in the Middle East? No. Happiness for the people of 
Iraq? No. The place was under control. All the crazies were held in check. 
Now they are all loose! This is good? Even if the world is a better place 
without Saddam, is that a reason to start a war? The world might be a 
better place without many leaders. Should we go to war against them all? 

Challenge the self-serving claim that we are obligated to "support our 
troops" by continuing this immoral, illegal, unjustified-in-any-way war. 
The best way to support our troops is to bring them home now, just like 
the Soviets did in Afghanistan. We should cut our losses, get out now, not 
later, when things are even worse. 

Expose the phony doctrine of "pre-emptive self-defense." Here's how this 
doctrine originated: They were looking for a theoretical justification to 
start a war with Iraq. Voila! "Pre-emptive self-defense!" To any 
clear-minded observer, this doctrine is absurd, leading only to chaos 
wherever it is applied. In its simplest form, it asserts that anyone is 
justified to attack anyone else, purely on suspicion of impending danger. 
Does this make any sense to you? What if everyone did it? 

Investigate the way that the pro-Israeli forces in the USA work together 
to suppress any anti-Israeli commentary which may arise. A clear case in 
point: Congressman Jim Moran (D, Northern Virginia) will be facing 
organized opposition in a Democratic primary for the first time since he 
was elected many years ago, simply because dared to question, publicly, 
why local Jewish leaders seemed to be so much in favor of going to war 
against Iraq. I don't think he even knew the real reason why, but he did 
correctly observe the fact. The uproar was immediate and strong. 
"Anti-Semite!," they screamed, vowing revenge. So now they have found an 
opponent to challenge him in the primary; and if he survives the primary, 
you can be sure they will support whatever Republican runs against him in 
the fall. Moran is on the Israeli hit list, simply because he was properly 
doing his job as a U.S. Congressman, questioning the basis of support for 
this stupid war. 

You get the idea. Now go to it. 

Blessings to you. May the one God Who created all things guide you and 
protect you in everything you do. 


        Rev. Bill McGinnis  bmcgin@patriot.net

        Former employee of the Chicago Tribune (1965-67)
        and the Washington Evening Star (1967-73)

          http://LoveAllPeople.org

   Also see  http://patriot.net/users/bmcgin/iftheycallyouantisemite.txt



By Rev. Bill McGinnis, Public Domain.
Published on the Internet, Nov 6, 2003