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IPFS

Media Support for Washington's Destructive Imperial Agenda

Written by Subject: Imperialism

Media Support for Washington's Destructive Imperial Agenda

by Stephen Lendman

Instead of condemning endless US wars of aggression and possible new ones, establishment media support what the  Nuremberg Tribunal's Chief Justice Robert Jackson (a US Supreme Court Justice at the time) called "the supreme international crime against peace."

On November 21, 1945, his opening remarks to the tribunal said the following:

"The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated."

He called aggressive war "the greatest menace of our times" — what the US is guilty of by preemptively attacking one nation after another threatening no one, based on Big Lies and deception.

International law defines crimes against peace as "planning, preparation, initiation, or waging of wars of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing."

All post-WW II US wars fall under this definition. The same goes for other actions aiming to forcefully topple sitting governments, wanting them replaced with pro-Western puppet regimes.

Throughout the past near-75-year period following WW II, US high crimes of war, against humanity, and genocide exceeded and continue to exceed the worst of what Nazi and imperial Japanese war criminals were tried for at Nuremberg and by the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal respectively.

Convicted Nazi and Japanese war criminals were hanged for their crimes. US war criminals are free to rape and destroy one nation after another with impunity — despite being considered hostis humani generis, enemies of mankind. 

War crimes are against the jus gentium, the law of nations — established in the UN Charter and other international law the US repeatedly ignores, operating  by its own rules exclusively.

Will Iran be its next target? Will Trump's reluctance to attack the country yield to hawkish pressure for war?

US media repeatedly fail to support the rule of law. Instead of condemning US wars of aggression, they cheerlead them.

Rage by Trump regime hardliners against Iran is pushing the nation toward possibly attacking the country.

Wars may only be waged in self-defense. Security Council members have sole authorization — not heads of state, legislatures or courts.

Not according to the NYT, its editors falsely saying "attacking Iran is Congress's call," adding:

Bolton, Pompeo, Senator Tom Cotton, (Lindsey Graham and others in Washington) want(ing) a wider military conflict with Iran…first need to persuade Congress and receive its approval."

False! Congress has no authority to supersede the Security Council. Instead of opposing war on nonbelligerent Iran, the Times supports it if Congress goes along, making the broadsheet an accomplice to aggression by providing imperial press agent services.

The same goes for other establishment media. In a neocon/CIA-connected Washington Post opinion piece by Iranophobe Dennis Ross, he said "on Iran, (Trump) needs allies," falsely claiming the following:

"The Islamic republic is practicing its own version of 'maximum pressure' on the United States and its interests in the Middle East (sic), employing proxies and deniable sabotage to attack tankers, petroleum pumping stations and even airports in Saudi Arabia (sic), firing rockets at an oil facility used by ExxonMobil (sic), at bases where US forces are present and near the US Embassy in Baghdad (sic), even as it signals it will incrementally respect fewer of the limits in the nuclear deal (sic)."

All of the above claims are bald-faced Big Lies. Like other neocon hawks in Washington, Ross never met a US war of aggression he didn't wholeheartedly endorse. 

Short of urging war on Iran, he called for forging a coalition supporting the US imperial agenda against the country, "internationaliz(ing) the response to the Iranians," citing nonexistent threats by a nation committed to regional peace, stability, and mutual cooperation.

The Wall Street Journal is militantly hostile to Iran. It published numerous propaganda pieces on the country, including one on fake intelligence, alleging an Iranian threat, falsely claiming its forces "made plans to target US forces in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East…"

No such plans exist, not now or earlier. The US and its imperial partners plan and conduct attacks on targeted countries. Its war on Iran by other means could escalate to hot war the way things are going.

In its latest edition, the Journal twisted reality claiming "Trump wanted a more docile Iran but got the opposite" —  falsely accusing Tehran of "assertive behavior in the Middle East," how the US and its imperial partners operate, not nonbelligerent Iran.

Last week, Journal editors falsely accused Iran of attacking two tankers in the Gulf of Oman not a shred of evidence suggests it had anything to do with, saying:

"It is almost certainly true that Iran is behind the attacks, which makes it all the more important that the West unite in opposition to Iran's aggression."

Comments like the above promote war on a nation threatening no one. The risk of the Trump regime going this far ahead is ominously real.

A major false flag attack could do it, risking possible global war if all-out US aggression on Iran is launched and pushed too far.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman). Contact at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

www.universityofreason.com/a/29887/KWADzukm