The NIE Report — Another Example of How The Media Cannot Be Trusted To Report The Truth To The American People

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The NIE Report — Another Example of How The Media Cannot Be Trusted To Report The Truth To The American People — by Catherine Morgan

This National Intelligence Estimate (released this week and written by the nation’s top intelligence officers) is intended as a best guess of our biggest worries. … It warns that a tribal area in Pakistan has become a safe haven for terrorists. … It suggests that Hezbollah may be more likely to consider attacking the United States. And that violent Islamic extremists inside the USA may become ’sufficiently radicalized that they will view the use of violence here as legitimate.’ — read more

The NIE report that came out earlier this week, is more evidence that Bush has failed in his attempt to keep America safe from terrorism by fighting in Iraq. The war in Iraq has proven to have increased the terror threat that we face at home, not reduce it.

However grim these reports are, they paint not the worst- case scenario but the best, put out not by an independent body but by an administration where editors and redactors with black Sharpies work a double-shift to control everyone and every word said. — read full article

Because our national media has gotten so use to simply regurgitating White House talking points as facts, the actual facts are getting lost in translation. Unfortunately, the American public can no longer depend on getting the facts from the media. Anyone who wants to know the facts, must not be trusting in any of the major media outlets, the truth can no longer be found there. We must become vigilant and do our own investigations into what we are being told by the media. This takes more time, but with the Internet we all have access to much more information then ever before. Maybe once news organizations realize they are no longer being trusted, they will get back to the business of investigative journalism, and bring the public the facts, instead of complicated half-truths.

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From Arianna Huffington at The Huffington Post

Media Clouds The Reality of Terror Report

There are such things as facts. There is such a thing as reality. And refusing to see those facts and report that reality — undiluted by an “on the other hand” mixer — isn’t a sign of objectivity, it’s a sign of intellectual laziness and journalistic muddled thinking.

The NIE report represents the consensus view of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies and is a stark and unambiguous repudiation of the Bush administration’s counterterrorism strategy and its contention that the war in Iraq has made us safer.

Indeed, the report suggests that it’s just the opposite — that the war in Iraq has fueled a growing hatred of America, spread Islamic extremism, and spawned an expanding crop of newly inspired jihadists around the globe. And it eviscerates the Bushies’ bedrock notion that we are fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here. It turns out that the odds of us having to fight them over here have greatly increased precisely because we are fighting them over there.

The report also highlights the “regenerated” strength of al-Qaeda. So not only have we failed to capture bin Laden and destroy those that attacked us on 9/11 — we have, thanks to Bush’s tragic actions, actually helped keep al-Qaeda strong and deadly.

If this NIE assessment was a Keeping Us Safe report card, Bush would get an F.

There are times when there aren’t two sides to an issue — when there is no “other hand.” This is one of those times.

The president vowed to keep us safer and, according to 16 intelligence agencies, he has failed. Period. End of story.

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Also See:

Wake Up and Smell the Propaganda

Journalist Means Never Having To Say You’re Sorry

Constant Scholar: A Teachable Moment

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