Heads up: the issue spinners are at work
It is bad enough that the issues facing America are complex,
the decisions consequential to our security or to the lives of citizens, but
when advocates for one side or the other tell untruths, mislead, or leave out
important details, it becomes difficult for citizens to form rational opinions
based on facts. Issues with highly
technical components are especially vulnerable to abuse by false advertising.
There are two issues hot on the burner these days which are
rife with spin doctors plying their trade. One concerns the Iran nuclear deal
and the other, defunding Planned Parenthood. Whatever your position on either
issue, heads up. Media fact checkers are
blowing the whistle.
Much of the Iran nuclear deal is very technical. You may
have seen the commercial claiming the Iran nuclear deal is a bad deal, ending
with “we need a better deal”. There is
very little in the ad that is not misleading.
The ad claims that there will be no inspection of 50 military sites. In Arizona,
television station ABC15 ‘s fact checker
consulted experts and found there will indeed
be inspection of military sites that are nuclear development capable. Other heavyweight experts
agree. Not all military sites are appropriate for inspection. If the inspection
request is refused, sanctions would be re- imposed. Touts the ad, Iran can build a nuclear weapon
in two months because Iran keeps nuclear facilities. Experts looking at the deal say because the centrifuges
needed to build a bomb are mothballed and enriched uranium is limited or
destroyed, it would take at least a year.
The ad is paid for by Citizens for a Nuclear Free Iran, an
ironic name because the result would be a nuclear Iran sooner than much later,
if at all. The ad purports to support negotiating a better deal. We note while we reinstate sanctions and try
to reassemble any willing negotiators, Iran could build their bomb within
months, and no inspectors would be there to detect it. Threat of sanctions is not the only enforcer.
If Iran breaks the deal, nothing in the agreement prohibits a military strike,
per Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter.
Selective editing of undercover video is a technique as old
as video. Such is the case of the film
used to convince lawmakers and the public that Planned Parenthood sells fetal
tissue for a profit. Factcheck.org, an
independent non- partisan fact checking group, looked at the original video of
an “interview” of a Planned Parenthood official and compared it to the version
widely circulated in the media used as a pretext by anti- abortion activists to
motivate Congress to defund the organization. Left out of the version often
repeated on news reports is the part in which the official carefully explains
that the fetal tissue is used for research and that there is no profit. Factcheck.org cites experts who calculate that
Planned Parenthood’s charges probably do not even cover expenses. That Planned
Parenthood makes a profit on donated fetal tissue is not true. Of course, federal money by law cannot be used
for abortions and the federal money now goes only for cancer screening and
other women’s health services, which would be defunded.
A version of this was run as a column in the www.skyhidailynews.com August 6, 7 2015
A version of this was run as a column in the www.skyhidailynews.com August 6, 7 2015
http://www.bloombergview.com/quicktake/irans-uranium-enrichment (destroys 2/3 centrifuges and limits all but 3.67% enriched
uranium stores; limit refining metal to 5% over 15 years; after 10 years can
build some centrifuges)
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/03/31/carter-says-iran-nuclear-deal-would-not-limit-us-military-option.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/07/15/how-the-nuclear-deal-can-keep-iran-from-cheating-according-to-a-former-u-n-inspector/
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