The neoconservative Washington Post was back in full belligerency mode with a lead editorial urging a stern response against North Korea. Unlike the Times, which at least acknowledged the South Korean provocation, the Post saw only a black-and-white scenario, with South Korea wearing the white hat and the North the black hat.
The Post's editorial-page editors behaved much the same during the run-up to war with Iraq, stating as undisputed fact the existence of Iraq's non-existent WMD programs. After the invasion and the failure to find the WMD Post's editorial page editor Fred Hiatt noted in an interview with the Columbia Journalism Review in 2004:
"If you look at the editorials we write running up [to the war], we state as flat fact that he [Saddam Hussein] has weapons of mass destruction. If that's not true, it would have been better not to say it."
But Hiatt, who remains in the same job more than six years later, was back doing the same thing on Wednesday in connection with another country from George W. Bush's "axis of evil."
"North Korea's artillery attack against a South Korean island Tuesday was the latest and arguably most reckless in a series of provocations by its Stalinist regime," the Post editors wrote, also citing as flat fact that the North had "torpedoed a South Korean warship, killing 46 sailors" earlier this year, a charge North Korea denies.
The Post continued: "Now comes the shelling of an area populated by civilians as well as South Korean troops, two of whom were killed. This blatantly criminal act will have the probably intended effect of forcing the Obama administration to pay attention to a regime it has mostly ignored. But it should not lead to the economic and political bribes dictator Kim Jong Il has extracted in the past.
"It's hard to know what is motivating Pyongyang's behavior; experts offer varying explanations even while conceding they don't know much.
"Some say Mr. Kim is creating an atmosphere of crisis to help smooth a transition of power to his son. Others contend the regime is hoping to force the lifting of U.S. sanctions and the resumption of international aid, which has dwindled since Mr. Kim failed to fulfill a nuclear disarmament agreement."
The Post makes no reference to the possibility that North Korea simply overreacted to what it saw as an attack from the South. Nor has the Post ever acknowledged that President George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq -- endorsed by the Post and causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis -- was a "blatantly criminal act."
A Hard Line
While urging the Obama administration to take an especially hard line today, the Post criticized prior administrations for granting North Korea "political and economic concessions in exchange for promises of disarmament. In each case, Mr. Kim pocketed the benefits but refused either to fully disclose or to irreversibly dismantle his nuclear weapons and missiles."
The Post, however, has never been known to criticize Israel for pocketing billions of dollars in U.S. aid and counting on unwavering U.S. political support without ever disclosing or dismantling its array of nuclear weapons and delivery systems, which are far more sophisticated than North Korea's.
Instead, the Post was again applying double standards, again beating the war drums. It called on the Obama administration to "make clear" that the United States is prepared to help South Korea defend itself from attack."
The Post also demanded more sanctions on North Korea and more pressure on China. "The United States and its allies should hold Beijing responsible for putting a stop to Mr. Kim's dangerous behavior," the Post declared.
However, before the war rhetoric gets completely out of control again and creates another political dynamic that leads toward a bloody escalation perhaps the U.S. news media should reflect for a moment on all the other times the American press corps has let itself and the country be stampeded into a dangerous misunderstanding of an international incident.
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