Since Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been making the rounds at the UN and in the American press this past week, a supposed quote of his - that Israel should be 'wiped off the map' - has been repeated in the media several times over. The problem is that it has been taken out of context and was, from the start mistranslated.
When Ahmadinejad made his speech in which he used that phrase, he was actually quoting something that the Ayatollah Khomeini had said. Yet, if you've tuned into US television stations like CNN the past two days, you'll have heard reporters like Anderson Cooper repeatedly say that it was Ahmadinejad who made that remark. Of course, no one has mentioned the fact that Israel's Shimon Peres, in a very real threat to Iran, said in May that 'the president of Iran should remember that Iran can also be wiped off the map' and that Israel already has the technology to make good on that promise.
Meanwhile, western media have taken great pains to clarify a recent, controversial remark made by the Pope who had quoted Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus' insults about Islam in a speech that has outraged Muslims while blaming them for their supposed cognitive dissonance on the issue. The Pope has apologized for the reactions to his use of that quote and has now called for a meeting of Muslim ambassadors on Monday to address the issue.
So, we are left to wonder why the western media have yet to correct their misuse of the quote used by Ahmadinejad. Some might speculate that they had to move quickly to clean up the misunderstanding caused by the Pope because what he said had caused some violent incidents and that would be understandable but, if that was the reason, why didn't they similarly straighten out the public about the Iranian president's quote as well since it prompted such a major threat from people like Shimon Peres while also being used to promote the case for war against Iran in the western world?
Ahmadinejad may indeed believe that Israel does not have the right to exist but, according to the intelligence collected thus far, he certainly does not possess the military or nuclear power to make that a reality. Israel and the United States, however, do have that capability and constitute a real threat. At the same time, the IAEA recently called a US government report on Iran's supposed nuclear work 'outrageous and dishonest'.
By now, everyone is painfully aware of the role the US media played in the build up to the Iraq war when they accepted, almost unconditionally, the word of the Bush administration on the supposed threat posed by Saddam Hussein. Since they've been proven wrong, many reporters and mainstream publications like the New York Times and the Washington Post have promised that they won't make those mistakes again but, as a matter of fact, they are doing just that. As a result, they are playing right along with an administration that is once again beating the war drums and is, reportedly, already taking steps militarily to attack Iran.
With a rubber-stamp congress still in place that has now all but agreed to allow Bush to rewrite the Geneva Conventions on his own in order to sanction torture while tacitly expanding his executive authority to the point where congress is no longer even relevant to provide oversight, one would think that the media - which had been so badly burned by the horror of the Iraq war - would actually be as cautious as possible to ensure that Americans are never led down the path to an unnecessary war again.
Apparently, that's not so and there is a lingering danger that no matter how much Americans may protest war with Iran, this president will choose to do whatever he pleases at their expense just as he has in Iraq. The US congress won't stand up for Americans. Will the press do it this time?
Update: In a related story about press distortions, Dahr Jamail presents readers with the must read 'AP Propaganda About Iraq'. At the end of the day, who can we trust in the mainstream media anymore?
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