September 04, 2003

Will the Trickle Become A Flood...?

All it takes is a small volte-face (I choose the French term with a wry smile) and suddenly the Emperor has no clothes. Are the little media men suddenly remembering why they wanted to be journos in the first place? Or have I just been drinking too much coffee?

Most explosively today, a document leaked to the Washington Times shows that the Joint Chiefs Of Staffs (old-time buddies of Colin Powell) have blamed the current Iraqi crisis on "a flawed and rushed war-planning process." The briefing claims that "Insufficient U.S. government assets existed to accomplish the mission." It also shows that "President Bush approved the overall war strategy for Iraq in August 2002, eight months before the first bomb was dropped and six months before he asked the U.N. Security Council for a war mandate that he never received."

The document shows Powell's military buddies making a stand against the "civvies" who have been taking control since 9/11. But could it also be a sign of a wider media shift?

From the Boston Globe: "The Bush administration's hubristic foreign policy has been efficiently exposed as based on nothing more than hallucination... No one could have predicted a year ago that the fall from the Bush high horse of American Empire would come so hard and so quickly. "

From the International Herald Tribune: "The Bush administration's recent willingness to consider a greater United Nations role on the ground is the first sign that it is aware of how vastly mistaken its assertions about the occupation were..."

And from the Guardian: "Resolution is defeat for US hawks."

There is a smell of blood on the ground. Will the media hounds go after it, or will their corporate master rein them in as usual?

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