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An Open Letter to Chris MatthewsMr. Matthews,
There are a dozen journalists I could have addressed this to and hit the mark, but I chose you as an example who I believe is overwhelmingly deserving of redress from someone concerned, informed, and willing to convey the message.
You increasingly appear to present yourself as an "I told you so " Iraq war skeptic these days. I believe it 's warranted that someone re-revise your actual history as an enabler of those agitating for that war as you now move on to enable the same people to start the next war (Iran) under false pretenses again-.
You call your show "Hard Ball ", but let 's face it, with only one exception I can recall (Michell Malkin), I seldom see you actually directly confront and counter false factual claims being made by your guests. Such passivity was repeatedly on display by you during the lead-up to the war on Iraq, it continued following the failure to find the WMD, and to this day one of the key evidences of Bush administration criminal intent to "cherry pick " intelligence, has never once to my knowledge been mentioned by you on your program: The deliberate removal of a highly exculpatory statement from the NIE (National Intelligence Estimate); "Those weapons were all destroyed in 1991 " Hussein Camel, ex-Son in law of Saddam Hussein, Iraqi defector, and star witness in the record of interrogation record materials submitted to the UN Security Council by Colin Powell. That omission by Powell was in fact a crime against the court. There were also 12,000 pages of document records of compliance by Iraq which mysteriously "disappeared " after they were submitted.
But now you style yourself as a "harsh critic " of this war after batting down a few of your own strawmen. Now that 's it 's clearly unpopular, and obviously lost, there 's not much risk is there. But when it really mattered during the run up-, all of us amateur bloggers not only seemed able to read the declassified portions of the NIE, we wrote of them voluminously. Yet nothing was ever apparently noticed by you. While I could stack this up to an assumption that your abilities as a journalist are easily eclipsed by many concerned citizens with no professional standing as journalists whatsoever, a pattern of omissions by the so-called main stream media has emerged which is too obvious to ignore, especially in the light of what appears to be the next war; the war on Iran.
I 'm going to set forward not just facts here, but facts which are central to the issue of Iran, and once again show that there appears to be a series of deliberate omissions from your so-called reporting; a series of omissions which are enabling once again, a criminal administration to lie wholesale through it 's teeth to the American people without accountability.
Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). It was signed in 1968 and ratified in 1970. Iran remains a signatory to the NPT today. Here is what Iran is lawfully entitled to do under the terms of that treaty:
1. Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with Articles I and II of this Treaty.
2. All the Parties to the Treaty undertake to facilitate, and have the right to participate in, the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Parties to the Treaty in a position to do so shall also co-operate in contributing alone or together with other States or international organizations to the further development of the applications of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, especially in the territories of non-nuclear-weapon States Party to the Treaty, with due consideration for the needs of the developing areas of the world.
Mr. Matthews; the American people do not know this. You know they don 't know it. And apparently, as with the testimony of Hussein Camel, you are intent on making sure they do not know it. What I want to know is this: Do these omissions result from your personal decisions, or do they result in top-down directives from the world 's largest defense contractor who happens to own the network which owns your show?
The "Nuclear crisis " with Iran, doesn 't exist. I know it, and unless you are a fool of epic proportions, I have to assume that you also know it. But who have you had on your show, and what have you "asked " that the "right " answer would be forth coming?
Matthews: "Let me ask you --Bob, thanks for coming on tonight and good luck with your book. Let me ask you about the hot story of the day, that 's Condi Rice 's discussions at what are the new ground rules. Are we issuing a soft, let 's say a fuse, a long-burning fuse, to say to Iran, if you don 't play ball with us and stop your nuclear weapons program, we 're going to attack. Is that the message really from today? "
"Weapons program "? What "weapons program " Mr. Matthews? The materials undergoing enrichment by Iran, are not weapons grade. Iran has no current capacity to refine weapons grade materials, and their capacity should they choose to pursue the goal, would require upwards of a decade of centrifuge investment to achieve. So here we have you, enabling a former CIA operative, Robert Baer, to continue to propagandize the American people using your show as a platform.
I 'd like to ask you Mr. Matthews, have you no shame? Is your unmitigated audacity so great, your conscience so lacking, that you 're willing to play round two of this insane game of brinkmanship for the Bush administration?
I allege here that you, and indeed, others in your field at major networks, are in fact receiving top-down directives to omit this critical information which would enlighten the American people and which would obviously interfere with the administration's repeated and demonstrably false pretenses for war. To assume otherwise, would be to assume that there isn 't a one of you smart enough to go online, read the NPT, and provide it to the American people. If it isn 't what I allege, then you 're unbelievably incompetent, and if it is what I allege, it makes you a political whore of the lowest order.
I don 't know what you 'll do with this accusation if anything. But that it now exists hopefully serves some good purpose, even if that purpose is only my own conveyance of the facts of this matter.
