Hate Inc.: Why Today's Media Makes Us Despise One Another

by Matt Taibbi

None walked back the rest of the propaganda, which is why even as the case for invading Iraq fell apart, our presence in the Mideast expanded. While Judith Miller became a national punchline, the “continuing exertion of American influence” became conventional wisdom. Defense budgets exploded. NATO expanded. The concept of a “peace dividend” faded to the point where few remember it. We built and now maintain a vast global archipelago of secret prisons, routinely cross borders using drones in violation of international law, and today have military bases in eighty countries, to support active combat operations in at least seven nations (most Americans don’t even know which ones). The WMD episode is remembered as a grotesque journalistic failure, one that led to disastrous war that spawned ISIS. But nobody’s sorry about the revolutionary new policies that error willed into being. They are specifically not regretful about helping create a continually expanding Fortress America with bases everywhere that topples regimes left and right, with or without congressional or UN approval.