Our Media, Our Sheltering Parents
By Gabriel Ash
Suppose you were a journalist and there were elections. Suppose that the new government administration decided to wage a war of choice on another country for reasons that the whole world finds perplexing. Suppose that another journalist finds out the decision to start a war was not even reviewed according to standard procedures in the State Department, but was based on Pentagon recommendations alone. What would you do?
Would you perhaps make a list of the top Pentagon people? Would you perhaps look at their biographies, their public statements and affiliations, in order to figure out their world views and motivations?
Suppose you found out that the third-highest ranking officer in the Pentagon was one of a tightly knit group of people with strong connections to a political party in another country? This officer, for example, was a board member of an organization called JINSA, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. Wouldn't you be intrigued? Wouldn't you want to know what obscure connection could possibly exist between Judaism and national security -- perhaps a lost biblical theory of nuclear deterrence?
And wouldn't you want to know who else is in JINSA, what JINSA does, where JINSA's budget comes from? Wouldn't your curiosity be piqued if you knew that JINSA was brimming with senior employees of top military contractors, or that the CEO of JINSA also managed a "charity" that funded Jewish settlements on Syrian territory? Wouldn't you want to know if the Pentagon people also supported blatant violations of Security Council resolutions?
Suppose you discovered that JINSA lobbies on behalf of Israel (not a secret -- it takes a few mouse clicks on JINSA's website to find out). Wouldn't you find it noteworthy that Israel is the only country in the world whose leaders actually want a war against Iraq? Wouldn't you want to know why?
What if you discovered that this officer -- his name, by the way, is Douglas Feith -- while in office, gave Israel advice designed to undermine U.S. influence abroad? Would you publish an article about all these troubling discoveries?
I bet you would.
But the New York Times wouldn't.
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