Peter Hart on Syria and Sarin, Dilip Hiro on Afghan Corruption

When the White House announced in late April that it suspected the Syrian government of using sarin nerve gas, those suspicions quickly became “facts” for much of corporate media. When on-the-ground reporting emerged casting doubt that chemical weapons had been used in Syria at all, the stories were largely ignored. We’ll discuss rumors of weapons of mass destruction and unlearned media lessons, with CounterSpin’s own Peter Hart.

Also on the show: U.S. media were outraged at the news that Afghan president Hamid Karzai receives cash payments from the CIA. Much of the outrage was directed at Karzai, strangely, though the CIA came in for criticism too. But our guest suggests that brouhaha serves mainly to divert the public from the far bigger and still untold story of the corrupting influence the U.S. “mission” is having in Afghanistan. We’ll talk about that with playwright, journalist and author Dilip Hiro.


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