The NYT's David Sanger - along with everyone else in MediaLand - is dutifully reporting the Bush Administration release of old photographs purporting to prove that "the building in Syria that Israel destroyed in an airstrike last year was a nuclear reactor constructed with years of help from North Korea."
Oh, yeah? Question:
Is there any reason at all whatsoever to believe this isn't another hoax cooked up by the Bushies to a) confirm Israel's questionable intelligence and motives for the attack and/or b) get Syria on the list of Enemies to Be Invaded (where Donny Rumsfeld had already put them as early as a press conference in March of '01)?
Answer: Not really.
[A]fter a full day of briefing members of Congress, two senior intelligence officials acknowledged that the evidence had left them with no more than “low confidence” that Syria was preparing to build a nuclear weapon. They said that there was no sign that Syria had built an operation to convert the spent fuel from the plant into weapons-grade plutonium, but that they had told President Bush last year that they could think of no other explanation for the reactor.
(emphasis added)
Electricity, mayhap? In the early stages, at least, there isn't much difference between a reactor to be built to produce electricity and a reactor built to produce weapons-grade plutonium.(1) But the defense guys couldn't think of another reason.
In any case, who's to say the photos are legitimate? Who says they are?
Why, the Bush Administration, that's who. The single least credible government this side of Darfur. The govt who ordered then Sec of State Colin Powell to go to the UN with dramatic photos of supposed weapons labs that turned out to be frauds. Give me one good reason why any of us should take seriously yet another blatant forgery by this untrustworthy president? Hell, give me one good reason why I shouldn't automatically assume this isn't a forgery?
More or less stymied in its drive to Iran, is the Emperor jinning up a new enemy to concentrate on? Or is this merely the beginning of an attempt to justify widening the so-called War On Terror to include every nation in the Middle East unfriendly to Israel (and by extension, the US)? That's something they've been aiming at since before 9/11 gave them the excuse they were looking for.
Ultimately, the "evidence" reached the Bushies through - who else? - Israel, which is anxious for some reason to explain its attack. Juan Cole is way dubious.
This story seems to me fishy. Syria is a poor state. Where would it have gotten the money for a reactor? Why exactly are there doubts that North Korea was involved? How much of the intelligence is from US sources and how much from Israeli? The latter are highly politicized. The head of Mossad in 2002 expressed confidence that Saddam was close to getting nukes.
Moreover, while I am against proliferation of nuclear weapons, the idea that the Israelis can just bomb anyone's innocent research or civilian power reactor any time they like for no good reason is scary. The Israelis rejected the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and broke with international consensus to acquire by hook and crook British, French and US nuclear secrets and built dozens, perhaps hundreds of nuclear bombs, provoking the nuclear weapons race in the region.
The real question is the timing of the announcement, since the bombing happened a long time ago. It is suspicious to me that the announcement was made just after a spy for Israel was arrested in the US who had stolen US nuclear secrets. Is it diversionary?
As good a reason as any, I suppose. It's just like the Rove-trained Bushies to leak a meaningless story guaranteed to get the attention of the usual media nitwits in order to sneak something else by them that's much more important.
Can't we, just this once, assume the story is bogus and ignore it? I mean, how many times does Bush have to lie before we stop believing everything he says? If the Boy Who Cried Wolf got a deal like that, his poor villagers would still be chasing wolfish shadows on the empty Steppes.
(1) Juan Cole noticed this, too: "I have been disappointed that more nuclear engineers in the US do not express themselves publicly on what is likely and unlikely."
Update: Glenn Greenwald, who has been on MediaLand's ass lately, notes that once again, with few exceptions (Sanger being one, however modestly), the major press powers reported the release of the photos with practically ZERO skepticism.
There are multiple reasons why substantial skepticism is warranted concerning the Bush administration's claims that the structure which Israeli jets destroyed inside Syria last September was a nuclear reactor Syria was developing with the aid of North Korea. Such skepticism, however, is difficult to find in most (though not all) American press accounts, which do little other than repeat Government claims without challenge.
Th[e] Associated Press article, for instance, is 32 paragraphs long, yet it contains little other than unchallenged assertions by the Bush administration, using the now-familiar media conventions for disseminating government claims -- i.e., quoting administration accusations without challenge and then granting completely unwarranted anonymity to "intelligence officials" to echo those accusations....
***
There are all sorts of reasons beyond those for extreme skepticism here. After flamboyantly announcing that they had actual video of North Korean nuclear scientists inside the Syrian building, it turned out that the "video" was merely a compilation of rather unrevealing still photographs patched together, in Colin-Powell-at-the-UN fashion, with ominous narration making accusations with a level of certainty completely unmatched by the "evidence" itself. The one "smoking gun" photograph from the video -- the alleged North Korean head of that country's reactor fuel plant standing in Syria (in a sweat suit) posing next to the head of the Syrian Atomic Energy Commission -- seems to raise more questions than it resolves....
IOW, here we go again. Despite years of taking heat for swallowing Bush PR elephants whole while straining mightily at anti-war gnats, and for open, gullible cheerleading during the run-up to the war and ever since, it seems our conservative media machine hasn't learned much of a lesson. It still repeats unfounded administration talking points with NO independent verification and little or no questioning no matter how unbelievable those statements may appear to be.
Is war with Syria next on the Bush docket after Iran? If so, MediaLand will be there to help him sell his lies, misdirections, and manipulations, and to spread his propaganda for him.
"Gullible" doesn't even begin to cover self-destructive behavior like this wholesale media denial and self-administered blindness to Bush's snake oil. I think we need a new Media. This one doesn't seem to be helping us much.
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