NYT Editors Front for Power

By Stephen Lendman
3-27-14

The New York Times is an establishment broadsheet. It's the leading one. It dates from September 18, 1851. Its feature stories get worldwide coverage.

Its editors are notorious. They support wealth, power and privilege. They're on the wrong site of history. They defend the indefensible.

They're in lockstep with Western imperial lawlessness. They endorse US global dominance.

They turn a blind eye to homeland police state repression. They're mindless about disappearing freedoms.

They ignore monied interests running America. They support what demands condemnation.

The so-called newspaper of record is the closest thing to an official US ministry of misinformation and propaganda.

Reports, editorials, commentaries and op-eds are biased. They're one-way. They ignore what readers most need to know.

Vital truths are buried. Managed news misinformation substitutes. Rare exceptions prove the rule.

Outrageous contributors get feature op-ed space. Previous articles explained. Saudi Arabia is one of the world's most ruthless regimes. It mocks legitimacy.

It's a terror state. Democracy is verboten. Fundamental freedoms are denied. Authority rests solely with King Abdullah and royal family members.

Dissenters face arbitrary arrest and imprisonment. Political critics, independent journalists, academics, foreign nationals, and human rights activists are especially vulnerable.

Fundamentalist Sunni Islam Wahhabism is official state religion. Fanaticism defines it. Majority Shia nations are considered enemies. So are secular Arab ones.

Saudi despots want Syria's Assad ousted. They're heavily involved in recruiting, funding and arming terrorist invaders.

They were caught red-handed supplying them with chemical weapons. New York Times editors buried what demanded headlines.

They turn a blind eye to US/Saudi-backed death squad atrocities. Doing so supports horrendous crimes too grave to ignore.

Royal family member Mohammed bin Nawaf bin Abdulaziz al Saud is Saudi Arabia’s UK ambassador.

Last December, Times editors gave him feature op-ed space. Imagine publishing what no legitimate editors would touch. His op-ed was vicious. It was outrageous. It was polar opposite truth.

It repeated one Big Lie after another. It endorsed toppling Syria's sovereign government.

It outrageous called Saudi despots "champions of moderation." He blamed victims for crimes committed against them. Times editors embraced his rubbish. It's longstanding editorial policy.

On March 19, convicted Russian embezzler Alexey Navalny got feature op-ed space. He masquerades as an anti-corruption activist.

He's a Western darling. He ludicrously calls himself a "patriot." He's no democrat. He's ideologically driven. He's way over-the-top. He gets generous State Department funding.

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) provides it. Doing so advances US interests.

NED, its National Democratic Institute (NDI) arm, the International Republican Institute (IRI), and similar organizations are destabilizing US foreign policy tools.

They support pro-Western and/or regime change initiatives worldwide. They're CIA alter egos. They covertly fund opposition groups. They're actively anti-Putin.

Navalny and likeminded ideologues are convenient US imperial stooges. Don't expect Times editors to explain. Don't expect apologies for featuring them.

His op-ed featured Russia bashing. Pile on punishment, he urged. A litany of lies followed.

Times editors didn't challenged his misinformation. They featured it. They highlighted it. They match it with their own vitriol.

At the same time, neocon Washington Post editors gave Garry Kasparov got feature op-ed space. He's another convenient US stooge. He's a former world chess champion turned hard right politician.

He gets generous National Endowment for Democracy funding like Navalny and likeminded ideologues. His diatribe said Putin must go.

Lies substituted for truth. Kasparov is connected to some of the most extremist neocon ideologues.

They deplore peace. They endorse war. They want one country after another ravaged. They want them plundered. They want monied interests alone benefitting.

They want ordinary people exploited. They want despots they control replacing democrats. Their agenda risks global war.

Imagine featuring ideology this extreme. It's longstanding Times and WaPo policy. On March 25, neocon extremist Zalmay Khalilzad got featured NYT op-ed space. More on this below.

He's an Afghanistan native. He studied under Albert Wohlstetter (1913 - 1997). He was a controversial Cold War nuclear strategist.

He was a RAND Corporation senior policy analyst. In 1985, Reagan awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He endorsed suppressing it.

He heavily influenced neocon thinking. He chaired dissertation committees for Wolfowitz and Khalilzad.

Both figures are notorious neocon extremists. Their rap sheets are long and loathsome. Khalilzad is a former Bush administration ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq and the UN.

He's a Project for the New American Century (PNAC) founding member. It's now called the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI). It deplores peace. It endorses war.

Khalilzad is a Republican party hardliner. In the 1980s, Wolfowitz recruited him. He was a Reagan administration State Department policy planning staff member.

He was involved in Washington providing anti-Soviet mujahideen fighters with military, logistical, and related support. He advised on US Iraq/Iran war policy.

Under GHW Bush, he helped draft post-Cold War military strategy. He, Wolfowitz and I. Lewis Libby produced the 1992 Draft Defense Planning Guidance (DPG) policy paper. It was militantly over-the-top.

At the time, Dick Cheney was defense secretary. Richard Perle and Wohlstetter were involved. So was Pentagon Office of Net Assessment Andrew Marshall.

They called for massive defense spending increases. They urged assuring America sole superpower status. They endorsed preemptive wars. They promted global ones.

DPG said Washington must "show the leadership necessary to establish and protect a new order that holds the promise of convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests."

"Our first objective is to prevent the reemergence of a new rival. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power. These regions include Western Europe, East Asia, the territory of the former Soviet Union, and Southwest Asia."

"There are three additional aspects to this objective: First the United States must show the leadership necessary to establish and protect a new order that holds the promise of convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests."

"Second, in the non-defense areas, we must account sufficiently for the interests of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from challenging our leadership or seeking to overturn the established political and economic order."

"Finally, we must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role."

Their extremist draft document was initially rejected. It later became National Security Strategy policy. Post-9/11 wars followed.

They continue ruthlessly under Obama. All sovereign independent governments are targeted. Eliminating US rivals is prioritized. Ongoing Russia bashing reflects it. Whether confrontation erupts belligerently remains to be seen.

Author James Mann called Khalilzad one of a handful of extremist Wolfowitz acolytes. For over two decades, he and likeminded ideologues comprised "the heart of a new neoconservative network within the foreign policy bureaucracy," said Mann.

Zbigniew Brzezinski once called him a "broad-minded and insightful strategist." In 2002, foreign policy analyst Anatol Lieven said "(i)f he was in private business rather than government, he would have been sacked long ago."

In 2000, he headed the Bush/Cheney defense issues transition team. He served as their presidential foreign policy team member.

He's a right-wing Center for Strategic and International Studies counselor. He heads his own international consulting firm - Khalizad Associates. Likeminded ideologues staff it.

He's a RAND Corporation Middle East Studies Center and National Endowment for Democracy board member.

In 2001, he co-authored with Straussian acolyte Abram Shulsky the Pentagon policy paper titled "The United States and Asia: New US Strategy and Force Posture."

He's connected to Big Oil. He was a Unocal adviser. While at Cambridge Energy Research Associates, he conducted risk analyses in doing business with repressive oil-rich nations.

He's fiercely militant. He endorsed war on Afghanistan and Iraq. He believes first-strike nuclear weapons policy is essential for what others like him call "permanent peace."

He supports US imperial wars to achieve it. Unchallenged US dominance defines it. He opposes sovereign independent governments. He urges toppling them. He wants subservient pro-Western regimes replacing them.

He warns of a nonexistent Iranian threat. He urges "immediate" US "leadership" to counter it.

On March 25, he headlined "Stand Up to Russia Now." Its Security Council veto provides "leverage against Western interests," he said.

"On issues that the West is intent on handling through the United Nations, Russian obstructionism in the Security Council could impose tradeoffs that the West is unwilling to make for the sake of punishing Moscow."

"In the wake of the Ukraine crisis, Russia is most likely to retaliate on issues like Iran, Syria and Afghanistan - three fronts where American strategy has relied on understandings with Russia to enforce nonproliferation standards…"

Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Moscow might "raise the stakes." It may retaliate diplomatically,  economically and other ways in response to irresponsible Western bashing.

Klalilzad expressed concern. Putin could enhance Iranian air defenses and other capabilities, he said.

He could "double down on his backing of Bashar al-Assad’s regime despite having brokered a Security Council agreement to disarm Syria of chemical weapons."

"Russian intransigence" shouldn't deter Western Ukrainian policy, he urged. He endorsed illegitimate Kiev putschists.

He wants them sent military support. He wants stiffened anti-Russian policy. He urged "American missile defense commitments and the movement of NATO forces into Eastern Europe."

He wants "arm(ed) forces willing to resist a Russian occupation of Eastern Ukraine."

He lied claiming Moscow is "emboldened to pursue absolute hegemony in the region…"

He ludicrously claimed nations near Russia's borders are threatened. He urged "heightened American engagement in Iran, Syria and Afghanistan."

He supports Washington confronting Russia. Perhaps belligerently. He endorsed bypassing Security Council authority. It's longstanding US policy.

"Russia has much to lose if the United States relies on alternatives to the United Nations - including the prerogative to check Western interventions," he said.

He barely stopped short of urging all-out war. He's ideologically driven to endorse it. Times editors embraced his militant over-the-top rant.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book is titled "Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity."

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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