[caption id="attachment_114255" align="alignright" width="224"] "Israel has drawn up plans for a combined air and ground attack on Iranian nuclear installations if diplomacy fails to halt Tehran's atomic program..."
- Toledo Blade, March 14, 2005[/caption]
Last month, amid the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, accomplished lunatic Louie Gohmert, a Republican congressman from Texas, took to the House floor and called for Iran to be attacked.
 After insisting it is "time to cut off every dime of American money going to anyone who has any kind of relationship with Hamas or those killing in the Middle East, and especially in Israel," Gohmert added, "It is time to bomb Iran's nuclear capabilities. It is time for the United States, if we are not going to stop Iran's nukes, then let Israel do it. A friend will not put another friend in this kind of jeopardy."
Never mind that Iran has no "nukes" for anyone to "stop," since it's not actually making any and never has made or acquired any. Never mind that Iran has been consistently complying with the prescriptions of the multilateral deal agreed to last November by Iran and six world powers. Never mind that a number of recent articles in widely-read media outlets have addressed the myriadfalsehoods and myths responsible for the past three decades of fear-mongering and propaganda about Iran's civilian nuclear program.Still, the persistent false narrative that military strikes by either the United States or Israel may follow any potential failure to reach a deal continues to berepeated in the press. Of course, the fact that any such attack would beunequivocally illegal under international law is rarely noted in these assessments. Indeed, even the "threat" of attack is itself expressly prohibitedunder the terms of the United Nations Charter.Pronouncements that Iran is close to having a nuclear bomb, or close to being bombed, are ubiquitous in the media. Threats against Iran - by both theUnited States and Israel - have been made for decades, despite routine Iraniandismissal of such rhetoric as mere bluster.

The frequency of such threats - always reported with fever-pitched alacrity by a dutiful and prostrate press - is alarming.

Not only is an American or Israeli attack on Iran always just around the bend - regardless of the state of diplomacy or intelligence assessments - but the media consistently provides fantasy scenarios by which its audience canimagine, replete with maps and graphics, just how such war crimes wouldtake place.

Over twenty years ago, a report in the Independent (UK) published on June 23, 1994 revealed that the Pentagon had inked a deal to provide Israel with advanced F-15I fighter jets, designed to "enable the Israelis to carry out strikes deep into Iraq and Iran without refuelling."

Three years later, on December 9, 1997, a The Times of London headline screamed, "Israel steps up plans for air attacks on Iran." The article, written by Christopher Walker, reported on the myriad "options" Israel had in confronting what it deemed "Iran's Russian-backed missile and nuclear weapon programme."

Such reports have been published ever since. Of course, neither the United States nor Israel will attack Iran, regardless of the success or failure of negotiations, but such reports (often the result of strategically timed "leaks" by anonymous government officials) serve to not only to intentionally torpedo diplomacy but also mislead the public into believing the absurdly false narrativesurrounding the Iranian nuclear program; that is, either Iran must be bombed or it will acquire a nuclear arsenal. This is nonsense.

Below are some of the constant headlines we've seen over the past dozen years promoting such propaganda. When will this madness - this pathological obsession with the false necessity of dropping bombs and the righteous inevitability of killing people - stop?

The Times of London, November 5, 2002:

AFP, October 11, 2003:

The Scotsman, November 22, 2003:

New York Daily News, November 23, 2003:

The New York Times, August 21, 2004:

Los Angeles Times, October 22, 2004:

The Jerusalem Post, January 21, 2005:

The Independent, January 27, 2005:

Toledo Blade, March 14, 2005:

Associated Press, December 4, 2005:

The Straits Times, December 17, 2005:

Associated Press, January 22, 2006:

Fox News, June 4, 2006:

The Telegraph, February 24, 2007:

Associated Press, March 21, 2007:

Newsweek, December 19, 2007:

The Daily Star (Lebanon), May 30, 2008:

USA Today, June 6, 2008:

The Telegraph, June 7, 2008:

The Age, June 9, 2008:

Fox News, June 20, 2008:

The Telegraph, June 23, 2008:

ABC News, July 1, 2008:

Ha'aretz, July 2, 2008:

AFP, July 30, 2008:

Associated Press, August 7, 2008:

CBS News, August 7, 2008:

Wired, April 2, 2009:

Salon, April 14, 2009:

The Times of London, April 18, 2009:

The Wall Street Journal, June 12, 2009:

The Washington Post, July 2, 2009:

CBS News, July 27, 2009:

Los Angeles Times, August 30, 2009:

Talking Points Memo, August 31, 2009:

Fox News, September 21, 2009:

Huffington Post, September 28, 2009:

Ynet, October 9, 2009:

The Washington Times, October 22, 2009:

Ha'aretz, November 6, 2009:

The New York Times, December 23, 2009:

Newsmax, April 2, 2010:

The Wall Street Journal, April 21, 2010:

AFP, June 12, 2010:

TIME, July 15, 2010:

The Weekly Standard, July 26, 2010:

Christian Science Monitor, August 12, 2010:

The Spectator (UK), August 12, 2010:

Christian Science Monitor, August 13, 2010:

The Weekly Standard, August 14, 2010:

The Week, August 17, 2010:

New York Daily News, August 17, 2010:

The Atlantic, August 18, 2010:

Newsmax, September 2, 2010:

The Atlantic, November 28, 2010:

AFP, November 29, 2010:

The Australian, November 30, 2010:

The Washington Times, December 3, 2010:

The Australian, January 13, 2011:

Associated Press, May 30, 2011:

Ha'aretz, September 28, 2011:

Associated Press, November 2, 2011:

The Daily Beast, November 2, 2011:

The Guardian, November 2, 2011:

The Telegraph, November 6, 2011:

Reuters, November 9, 2011:

Arutz Sheva, November 10, 2011:

Chicago Tribune, November 13, 2011:

Arutz Sheva, December 1, 2011:

The New York Times, January 25, 2012:

Foreign Affairs, January/February 2012:

The Washington Post, February 2, 2012:

Reuters, February 3, 2012:

Foreign Affairs, February 23, 2012:

Congressional Research Service, March 27, 2012:

CNN, March 30, 2012:

Salon/GlobalPost, May 9, 2012:


The Telegraph, May 17, 2012:

CBN News, May 24, 2012:

The Blaze, July 8, 2012:

Reuters, August 10, 2012:

The Times of Israel, August 11, 2012:

The Daily Mail, August 21, 2012:

The Jewish Chronicle, August 27, 2012:

Forbes, September 30, 2012:

National Journal, October 9, 2012:

The Telegraph, October 9, 2012:

Voice of America, December 19, 2012:

The New York Times, January 26, 2013:

The Times of Israel, March 14, 2013:

Newsmax, April 13, 2013:

The Wall Street Journal, May 2, 2013:

Ha'aretz, May 3, 2013:

The Times of Israel, May 9, 2013:

Al Jazeera English, July 17, 2013:

The Atlantic, August 1, 2013:


Washington Examiner, September 18, 2013:

Gatestone Institute, October 7, 2013:

Financial Times, November 17, 2013:

CNN, November 19, 2013:

The Times of London, November 26, 2013:

Defense News, December 4, 2013:


CBS News, December 6, 2013:


ThinkProgress, January 2, 2014:

Foreign Affairs, January 7, 2014:

Ha'aretz, March 19, 2014:

Associated Press, March 21, 2014:

The National Interest, April 16, 2014:

Iran Times, May 16, 2014:


Defense News, June 8, 2014:

Jewish Telegraph Agency (JTA), June 12, 2014:

The Raw Story, July 23, 2014:

*****

UPDATE:

August 30, 2014 - Like clockwork, yet another headline asking the question everyone already knows the answer to.

SPOILER: no.

Al Arabiya, August 29, 2014:



By Wide Asleep In America

 

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