Conventional media wisdom holds that retired Democratic senator Sam Nunn, the media proclaimed defense and national security guru made a serious mistake in voting against Desert Storm. Of course Nunn's defense and foreign policy credentials are based exclusively on his extreme willingness to pour taxpayer cash into military spending and seek military solutions to problems created by our interventionist foreign policy. It seems that Sam's big mistake was to make a token effort at finding an alternative solution to the problem of Saddam's military aggression; interventionism was just fine with him otherwise.

If only the media were only half as open minded about our severely dysfunctional foreign policy as Sam Nunn was in the early stages of the Desert Storm fiasco. Instead, ALL of the foreign policy critics are automatically categorized as "extreme leftists" if they have to be mentioned at all. Libertarian opposition is scarcely mentioned; their positions on taxes, regulation, and domestic spending - where they can serve to strengthen the Republican voice - are the only libertarian positions that matter to the media. The major criterium for being called a "defense expert" and the ONLY criterium for being labeled a "foreign policy expert" are a politician's willingness to pour taxpayer dollars into more irrelevant weaponry - both for us and our clients [over 70% of arms sales goes to authoritarian regimes].

While over 80% approved of Desert Storm when the media reported it as a huge success, even with the severe media distortion, I would doubt that a poll of support today would yield such a mandate. More is known about how little was actually accomplished and how the number of casualties was really higher than originally reported. The government coverup - aided by a timid press who were loathe to challenge the "experts" - has been so deep, there is little likelihood that we will discover the truth before the next coupla elections. Whatever happened to the lofty concept of "an informed electorate"? The time for an audience network, controlled by citizen taxpayers - rather than corporate sponsors - is long overdue.

12/26/96

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