Action Alert: NYT's Iran Missile Fizzle

subject: Please dont support the "Bomb, bomb Iran" contingent with unsupported fear -mongering.

To: New York Times Public Editor, Arthur Brisbane

Please, Mr. Brisbane, why was the Times' account about Iranian missile purchases from North Korea so much more definitive than the actual WikiLeaks cable on which it was based, omitting the cable's questions about the U.S. claims and failing to point out that the U.S.'s source was a German newspaper. Why would you not publish the actual cable so a reader could see for him or herself??

We dont need to add any more percussion to the war drums beating.

thanks
margaret copi
Oakland, CA

Arthur Brisbane
New York Times Public Editor

Dear Sir,

I would like to know why you have mislead the American public with an account about alleged Iranian missile purchases. Apparently you have used the Wikileaks as a source when in fact much of your article was based on a German newspaper. You have cherry picked information to make it appear a fact that the missiles were purchased when the facts show that the missiles may not even exist. You have treated as fact allegations made in secret documents while omitting doubts and caveats contained in those same documents. Why did you not publish the actual cable so Americans could make an honest decision based on the facts available?

Sir, many Americans recognize that the US government is a source of deliberate misinformation and sometimes blatant lies, as in the case of WMD's in Iraq. Your newspaper played a critical role in promoting the Cheney/Bush regime's lie about WMD's in Iraq. Your job is not to help with government propaganda, rather it is to expose such.

I do hope that your paper will follow up and inform the American people of this bit of misinformation.

Sincerely

Wayne Beverly
Sgt USMC
Vietnam 1966/67
"To save your world you asked this man to die; Would this man, could he see you now, ask why?" W.H. Auden "Epitaph for an Unknown Soldier"