America's Blinders, by Howard Zinn

Now that most Americans no longer believe in the war, now that they no longer trust Bush and his Administration, now that the evidence of deception has become overwhelming (so overwhelming that even the major media, always late, have begun to register indignation), we might ask: How come so many people were so easily fooled?

The question is important because it might help us understand why Americans—members of the media as well as the ordinary citizen—rushed to declare their support as the President was sending troops halfway around the world to Iraq.

A small example of the innocence (or obsequiousness, to be more exact) of the press is the way it reacted to Colin Powell’s presentation in February 2003 to the Security Council, a month before the invasion, a speech which may have set a record for the number of falsehoods told in one talk. In it, Powell confidently rattled off his “evidence”: satellite photographs, audio records, reports from informants, with precise statistics on how many gallons of this and that existed for chemical warfare. The New York Times was breathless with admiration. The Washington Post editorial was titled “Irrefutable” and declared that after Powell’s talk “it is hard to imagine how anyone could doubt that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction.”

This is a very good article. Click on the title to read it at source.

This is one of the stories that I think will only ever be explored on the blogs. Lets face it, the press aren't going to be honest about the fact that they acted as no more than a Xerox machine for the White House before the Iraq war, unquestioningly disseminating the lies and distortions and cherrypickings handed down to them from Rumsfeld's Office of Special Plans that has led to the deaths of more than two thousand Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis.

These guys have blood on their hands. They were so frightened of the charge of lacking patriotism, that they failed to do their jobs. Which is to investigate, not to repeat what's told to them parrot fashion.