Washington Post Expert Linked to Defense Companies Hypes North Korea
Missile Threat
The Post has a long and sordid history of relying on think tanks funded by
weapons makers and other dark money interests to push for war.
by Alan Macleod
Mint Press News
January 20th, 2021
By Alan Macleod
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An alarming report published Monday in the Washington Post claimed that
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un could fire an intercontinental ballistic
missile right as Joe Biden is inaugurated.
North Korea appears to be taking steps toward a new test of a powerful
submarine-launched missile, U.S. weapons experts said, as it steadily dials
up the pressure on President-elect Joe Biden, it wrote, suggesting that the
Supreme Leader is, planning a very different fireworks display to greet the
incoming U.S. president.
One of the weapons experts the story relies upon is Michael Elleman, a
director at the hawkish and secretive think tank, the International
Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), who told the Post that the Korean
missiles might have a range of around 1,900 miles and have the ability to
hit U.S. targets in the Pacific.
Washington Post experts
The Post warned that North Korea could be planning to target Bidens
inauguration
Presented as a neutral authority, the Washington Post did not inform its
readers that the IISS is largely funded and overseen by the weapons
industry, with five of its six most generous contributors Airbus, BAE
Systems, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon major defense
manufacturers, each donating six-figure sums. The IISS council includes a
former NATO Secretary General and previously included the CEO of Lockheed
Martin. As such, many of the organizations key funders and players have a
clear financial incentive to push for war or heightened tensions with enemy
countries, making any of their proclamations on the subject immediately
suspect. (The IISS also secretly accepted £25 million around U.S.$34
million from the government of Bahrain).
Unfortunately, the Washington Post is a repeat offender in failing to
divulge its sources massive conflicts of interest while sharing a pro-war
opinion. In a 2017 article about weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, the Post
allowed senior vice-president of the Middle East Institute Gerald M.
Feierstein to frame the debate, arguing that the U.S. should sell more of
its high tech weaponry to Riyadh, claiming that smart, precision-guided
bombs are preferable to the Saudis using unguided explosives. We should
provide more help, more support, to get them to stop doing stupid things
We
should not cut off all the tools that would enable them to do this the right
way, he said.
Leaving aside the fact that the Saudis have targeted Yemeni medical, sewage,
and water facilities to the rate of one airstrike every ten days for the
entire duration of the six-year war, left undisclosed is the fact that the
Middle East Institute is generously funded by both Saudi Arabia and weapons
manufacturers like Raytheon, BAE Systems and Northrop Grumman. It is exactly
these parties who wish to see the war continued, making their spokesperson a
highly dubious actor. However, this was not revealed to readers, thus,
artificially bolstering the pro-war sides credibility.
Part of the reason governments or big weapons companies donate millions to
high-profile think tanks every year is to subsidize a steady flow of reports
or op-eds in major outlets that will help convince their audiences and the
public at large that war is the way to go. It is just good business sense.
Of late, the U.S. prime adversary has been China, with a slew of Western
writers or think tanks demanding that we halt their strategy of world
domination (Claudia Rosett, Hudson Institute/Dallas Morning News). Writing
in the influential journal Foreign Policy last month, Edward Lucas, senior
vice-president at the Center for European Foreign Policy Analysis, called
for a massive, well-resourced global alliance to curb the Chinese
Communist Partys influence and halt its aggression. He did not
specifically characterize it as a military one, but did praise NATO,
suggesting war was on his mind. Again undisclosed, however, is that
donations from NATO itself, as well as a myriad of arms manufacturers,
including Lockheed Martin, Bell Helicopter, and Raytheon, pay his wages.
Meanwhile, Twitter announced its decision to ban over 170,000 accounts it
claimed were suspiciously favorable to the Chinese Communist Party was made
after consultation with the supposedly neutral Australian Strategic Policy
Institute (ASPI). Yet ASPI itself is the driving force behind the attempt
to shift Australias loyalties from Asia and towards the United States. And,
of course, ASPI is funded by the U.S. State Department, as well as a whos
who of weapons merchants.
This is how the game works and the think tank industrial complex is
sustained. Weapons manufacturers put aside a small amount of their vast
profits to invest in think tanks, knowing that these organizations will
help create the intellectual justification and climate for more war, and,
therefore, more profits.
It should be up to mainstream media outlets to highlight and alert the
public to this dangerous practice that puts literally the entire planets
population at risk. Unfortunately, corporate media outlets are financed by
the same or similar sources to the think tank world, meaning that scrutiny
of these questionably-funded organizations is off the table. It is therefore
left to small alternative media sites to raise the alarm and provide an
anti-war message. Sadly, their reach is far less than even the most
rudimentary North Korean rocket.
