Iran war: Western leaders are baying for blood

The West is attempting to manufacture consent for a ground invasion of Iran, just like it did with Iraq before the 2003 invasion.

From supporting Israel’s genocide in Palestine, to funding the arms industry, it is clear that the West has only one goal for the Middle East: unrelenting destabilisation founded on neo-colonialism.

This is no different to Iraq in 2003. At the time, journalists failed to challenge the US government’s narratives about weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein’s links to al-Qaeda. Essentially, this failure is what created public support for the US to invade Iraq.

Iran war: how does the manufacture of consent work?

Manufacturing consent describes how a ‘free media’ – one without government censorship or fear of prison for journalists, and staffed by people who genuinely see themselves as holding power to account – still ends up producing systemic propaganda with a single, consistent message.

This can be inadvertent or intentional, and is usually done by letting the accounts of Western governments go unchallenged.

For example, in Gaza, instead of challenging statements from the Israeli government and military, or the US government, Western journalists just print the statements. They may as well be stenographers for state-run media.

Similarly, outlets like the BBC, Sky News, ITV, and Reuters frame Israeli attacks as ‘Palestinians killed’. They do this without mentioning who or what killed them. Did Darth Vader kill them?

Alternatively, when reporting on Palestinian deaths, they use the line ‘according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry’. This casts doubt on how many Palestinians Israel actually murdered.

Now, Israelis are dying from Iranian attacks. However, Western media do not report the deaths ‘according to the Likud-run Health Ministry’. They are presented as unquestioned facts. The tiny differences in language go a long way in shaping public opinion.

Additionally, the Israeli government has continuously told the world that it only targets Hamas in Gaza, despite carpet bombing the whole strip into oblivion. Western media have not challenged that narrative. This means that now Israel is getting away with the same lines about Hezbollah and the Iranian ‘regime’.

Media monopoly

Three companies control 90% of the UK’s newspaper circulation. These three companies are all owned by the ultra-wealthy.

And one man – Rupert Murdoch – owns around one-third of British newspapers. However, he also owns over 50% of Australian news outlets and some of the biggest news organisations in the US.

Murdoch is a staunch Zionist.

Benjamin Netanyahu once said:

Rupert Murdoch became a close friend to both me and Israel. He was always a staunch supporter of Israel and viewed it as the foundation stone of the free world in the Middle East. Israel has not had a better friend.

So, of course, when a billionaire and friend of Netanyahu, who also happens to be mentioned in the Epstein files, controls so much of the West’s media, how can we expect anything but a system which unequivocally supports the bullshit that comes out of our leaders’ mouths?

Diego Garcia

Now, we have a situation where the Wall Street Journal has published an article stating that Iran fired two intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) at Diego Garcia, a UK/US base in the Indian Ocean.

Of course, it is typical of a corporate, Zionist-owned media outlet to put out that headline and then use a paywall to prevent people from reading who the actual sources are behind the claims.

Importantly, Iranian officials have denied that Iran was behind the attacks. Even NATO has said it “cannot confirm” Israel’s claim that the missiles were Iranian.

Yet, despite this, almost every news outlet between the UK and Mars published the same story, with no additional evidence, verification, or proof.

In the original article, the ‘sources’ are ‘multiple US officials’ – who are, of course, unnamed.

The article then quotes Iran Watch, which is part of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control.

It claims that:

Iran has operational missiles that can reach 2,500 miles. Israel’s Alma Research and Education Centre put the top range for Iranian missiles at around 1,900 miles, but said there are reports of their weapons being developed with longer ranges.

In 2015, Middle East Eye wrote:

WINEP is part of a vibrant “Iran watch” industry. Many of this industry’s players whipped up fear about Saddam Hussein’s non-existent chemical and biological weapons before the invasion of Iraq. Without displaying any signs of embarrassment about their past blunders, they are now posing as experts on the “threat” from neighbouring Iran.

The founder is Gary Milhollin. He is one of the same ‘experts’ who warned about Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

In 2002, he said:

every Western intelligence service believes Saddam Hussein possessed a mass destruction arsenal.

So now, the Wall Street Journal has chosen to repeat the unverified claims of a man who we know lied about weapons of mass destruction. And they’ve done it behind a paywall, knowing most people will not be able to access the whole article. I don’t think I need to say anymore.

Editorial oversight?

The media has learnt no lessons in over 20 years. Outlets on both sides of the Atlantic have spent two and a half years whitewashing Israel’s crimes and ultimately created the exact conditions the terrorist state needed to further its Greater Israel project and invade both Lebanon and Iran.

Is the editorial oversight coming from Israel itself? Were the headlines promised to Israel 3000 years ago? Or are most Western journalists just lazy and publishing information without checking sources?

There is no surprise that in the last 24 hours, Israel has suddenly lifted its media censorship. And there can only be one reason for it – using the destruction in the videos as a tool to manufacture consent for whatever hell they’re planning next.

There is no justification for genocide, and every single time they repeat Israel’s claims, they further obscure and justify Israel’s and the US’s war crimes, and repeat the travesties of the Iraq war.

Featured image via The Independent/YouTube