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Time magazine offers unbelievably biased ‘guide’ to help parents explain Soleimani killing to kids

January 8, 2020 | | Print Article
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Time magazine drew criticism earlier this week when it published a guide for parents on “how to talk to your kids about the situation with Iran.”

The guide contains seven questions and seven sets of answers. And in almost all cases, the answers seem to read like Iranian-written propaganda, the critics have alleged.

Take the question “Who was Qasem Soleimani?” Time recommends parents reply by saying, “Qasem Soleimani was a top military leader in Iran, a country in the Middle East.”

While the answer is factually accurate, it contains nothing about the deceased Iranian general’s history of terrorism. Even Wikipedia, of all sources, lists Soleimani as a man “long designated a terrorist” and notes he’s been “personally sanctioned by the United Nations and the European Union.”

Plus, talking about Soleimani’s role in the Iranian government wasn’t even necessary, some critics have maintained, as there are far simpler explanations for who he was and what happened to him.

Case in point:

Now take the question “Why did the U.S. take action against Soleimani?” The three-paragraph answer that follows begins with this statement: “President Donald Trump has called Soleimani a terrorist.”

Again, while the answer is factually accurate, it seems to portray Soleimani’s designation as a terrorist as just a mere opinion held by the president.

While the Trump administration is responsible for formally designating the deceased general and the organization for which he worked, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as terrorist entities, Soleimani’s links to terrorism have been known for decades.

In a press release published in 2007, the U.S. Department of Treasury attempted to “counter Iran’s bid for nuclear capabilities and support for terrorism by exposing Iranian banks, companies and individuals that have been involved in these dangerous activities and by cutting them off from the U.S. financial system.”

Listed in the presser was Soleimani.

Time’s answer continues with the following: “Trump says Soleimani ordered attacks on American military and diplomats and was planning attacks against Americans in the Middle East. For this reason, Trump ordered the U.S. military to kill Soleimani. The drone attack took place at an airport in Baghdad, in Iraq. An Iraqi leader was also killed.”

Again, while it’s true the president had said “Soleimani ordered attacks on American military and diplomats and was planning attacks against Americans in the Middle East,” the magazine again makes it sound as if it was just the president’s opinion.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the same:

So did the Department of Defense.

“General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region,” the department said in a statement late last week:

Now take the question “Why don’t the U.S. and Iran get along?” The two-paragraph answer doesn’t mention Iran’s refusal to accept Israel as a sovereign state but does talk briefly about the Iran hostage crisis and more wordily about the Iran nuclear deal.

“In 1979, Iran took 52 American diplomats and citizens hostage,” it reads. “They were released after 444 days. In 2018, tensions increased again after President Trump said the U.S. would no longer participate in a 2015 deal with Iran.”

“This international agreement set strict limits for 15 years on Iran’s ability to create nuclear weapons. In return, the U.S. and countries in the European Union agreed to end trade restrictions. When Trump pulled out of the agreement, the U.S. put trade restrictions back in place. This has hurt Iran’s economy.”

So to hear Time magazine tell it, the United States and Iran were practically best buds from 1979 up until the moment the president withdrew America from former President Barack Hussein Obama’s nuclear agreement with the rogue nation.

Fact-check: FALSE.

“With the possible exception of North Korea, no country in the post–Cold War era has sought to challenge the United States as much as Iran,” The National Interest notes. “From the Middle East to Central Asia to Latin America, Tehran has never missed an opportunity to antagonize the U.S. and limit its influence.”

And this antagonization has often involved it using proxies such as Hezbollah to commit terror attacks that have killed scores of people.

Of course, nothing about the proxies was mentioned in Time’s report …

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Vivek Saxena
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