C-Span Pushes PNAC War Agenda in Syria

C-Span has become an extension of PNAC (The Project for a New American Century).  For instance, Saturday 09/07 their guest was Robert Zarate, the Policy Director of the Foreign Policy Initiative.   The first question Zarate was asked by the host, Pedro was “who is the Foreign Policy Initiative and who funds it”.  That was a very important question for me because I had never heard of the Foreign Policy Initiative.   

The answer:  The Foreign Policy Initiative is a non-partisan, not for profit 501C3 (tax exempt) organization founded by William Kristol of the Weekly Standard, Robert Kagan of the Brooking Institution, Dan Senor Bush Administration Official and Erik Gettleman, former ambassador to Turkey.  Funding is from a variety of donors.

There you have it, The Foreign Policy Initiative is founded by PNAC to push for more wars, and Kristol, Kagan, Senor and Gettleman were all signatories to the recent letter sent to President Obama pushing for war against Syria.

The Sunday, 09/08 the program started with an open phones segment with the question of whether or not you support a war in Syria.  Normally, the phones are divided up by Democrats, Republicans and Independents to make sure the country remains sharply divided.   When C-Span was started, the phones were divided by region of the US so you could get an idea of where the country stood on issues.  But today, C-Span played its favorite parlor game.

The phones were divided by, a) support the war in Syria, b) Oppose the war in Syria, or c) undecided.  You see, this is the tactic they used for the war in Iraq.  By their own admission, more than 70% of the country is opposed to war in Syria.  But, by dividing the phones this way, you create the illusion that the country is split 50-50.  But, even that was not skewed enough for PNAC supported C-Span.  During the segment, they took 9 calls from supporters of war, 4 calls from opposition to war and 3 calls from undecided.

C-Span proceeded to read articles and show graphic photos of those killed in Syria.  The graphic photos were approved by the United States Senate to drum up support for war.  The photos showed bodies wrapped in white cloth.  It proved nothing.  During the reading of articles, a Weekly Standard opinion piece by William Kristol supporting the war was read.

If C-Span wants to be a mouthpiece for PNAC they should fess up to it and stop touting how independent they are, because they are not.  They pushed the idea that Assad had killed 400+ children and had to be punished.  At the end of the program, they showed a Facebook poll showing growing support for the war in Syria.  Seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

By Patricia Baeten