News Media Not Picking Up on Snow's Iraq-South Korea Comparison

Yesterday we posted an entry about Tony Snow's comments at a press briefing comparing Iraq to South Korea and stating that Bubble-Boy sees American troops in Iraq much as they are in South Korea. That is a very significant comparison. We have been in South Korea for over 50 years and we have a mutual defense pact with the South Koreans. If you take the South Korean model to its logical extreme, we end up with thousands of American troops stationed in Iraq and we have a mutual defense pact to protect Iraq from attack by its neighbors, presumably Iran.

All this, of course, without any debate so far in America as to whether the American people want this kind of commitment. The Bush Administration has never told the American people until yesterday, over four years after the overthrow of Hussein, that it sees our role in Iraq as being similar to our role in South Korea. If Bush had told the American people in 2003 that the overthrow of Hussein would cost this country over 3000 American military lives, over 500 billion dollars, and then would be followed by a potential 50 year commitment to Iraq, the American people would have demanded that the war not take place.

One reason why the American people were tricked into supporting this war is because the true nature of the threat was kept from them. One reason why it was kept from them was because the American news media didn't do its job and didn't ask the tough questions of Bush and his administration.

Today, May 31, 2007, a Google search of news media showed only 117 entries for the terms "Tony Snow Iraq South Korea". Now, we realize that these remarks were made less than 24 hours ago. but the fact that there is relatively few media outlets picking up on them is disconcerting. We simply cannot allow this administration to take the United States into such an open-ended commitment without pubic debate.

For an interesting take on the background for Snow's remarks and what it could mean for the future, click on the link in this entry's title.