Wicked Leaks 0
On the Media takes a look at government use of leaks and the effects of mendacious government leaks on persons’ lives. From the website:
Brooke takes us on a walk down bad memory lane when it comes to the media and inaccurate sources.
Follow the link above to listen or read the transcript or listen here (MP3):
A snippet:
BROOKE GLADSTONE: The stakes can even be higher than that. Yellowcake uranium from Niger, aluminum tubes for centrifuges, hidden biological weapons labs in the Iraqi desert, all sanctioned leaks or official statements, all policy-driven, all wrong, formed the pretext for going to war. And it has been forever thus.
CLIP: PRESIDENT LYNDON JOHNSON: My fellow Americans, as President and Commander-in-Chief, it is my duty to the American people to report that renewed hostile actions against United States ships on the high seas in the Gulf of Tonkin have today required me to order the military forces of the United States to take action in reply.
[END CLIP]
BROOKE GLADSTONE: The Gulf of Tonkin – epically bad official information. It’s exactly like bad food, sometimes deliberately poisoned, sometimes spoiled by accident or happenstance. And it should be treated like food, with some knowledge of its provenance and nutritional value, consumed only after judicious prodding and a good long sniff, because you need it to live but the bad stuff can kill you.
I remember Johnson’s lie statement about the Gulf of Tonkin attack and I remember my teen-aged boy reaction:
The U. S. Marines will show them!
Well, the U. S. Marines and Army and Navy and Air Force did not show them, and in the process of not showing them hundreds of thousands of persons died and were maimed. Friends of mine were scarred irreparably.
I no longer believe that solutions invariably lie with the fist.
Nor do I believe that politicians are necessarily truthful, though some are more truthful than others.
What happened?
I grew up.
On the topic of the military, our national leadership on either side of the aisle still thinks like teen-aged boys.
