At the 11th Hour

At the 11th Hour, "Old Europe" Unites to Stop Bush's War
Bob Fertik
February 8, 2003
The entire US media is running a single story line written by Bush
propaganda minister Karl Rove: that a US invasion of Iraq is inevitable,
since Bush will reject whatever comes out of this weekend's meetings between
Iraq and UN inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei - even if Iraq meets
every last one of their conditions.

In the wake of Colin Powell's bellicose presentation to the UN on Wednesday,
the US media's story line has significantly hardened in insisting war is
inevitable. Now it is presented as a matter of days, not even weeks.

From the start of Bush's march to war last September, the US media has
contemptuously dismissed all opposition from "Old Europe" as irrelevant and
certain to collapse under intense and "irresistable" diplomatic and economic
pressure from George Bush and Colin Powell. UN Resolution 1441, which
resulted from weeks of intense negotiations to prevent "automatic" war
following renewed inspections, was falsely presented as a complete
capitulation by Europe to Bush's unstoppable will.

Since Powell spoke, the US media has systematically dismissed all of the
statements by European leaders. According to the US media, the corrupt
French will support Bush after the US makes a side deal to give French oil
companies a small stake in Iraq's oil. Germany, which is hopelessly
controlled by socialists and greens, is now no more important than Libya or
Cuba.

Naturally, Jacques Chirac and Gerhardt Schroeder are not pleased at being
dismissed, and as the week progressed they became ever more emphatic in
their insistence on further inspections. But the US media wants war now, and
doesn't want to hear these tired old objections. So whatever European
leaders say is simply shouted down by US leaders, as evidenced by the latest
dismissive NY Times headline: "Rumsfeld Rebukes U.N. and NATO on Approach to
Baghdad."

http://democrats.com/view.cfm?id976