April 26th, 2008
As I previously posted, last week the NY Times reported that the Pentagon and Bush administration used domestic propaganda, in the form of so-called retired generals with direct ties to the Pentagon and to military contractors, to sell the invasion of Iraq to the American public.
Since then, and it should come as no surprise, the networks have refused to come clean on their use of, and participation in the Pentagon’s domestic propaganda program during the lead up to the war. And when the subject is finally covered by a minor network, PBS, an apologists of domestic propaganda — with ties to the Pentagon and to corporate media — is prominently featured in the segment.
The take away of the segment for me is that the networks refuse to acknowledge their responsibility for the war, and that they will simply ignore the NY Time’s report all together. Thus, again, the vast majority of the public, which still gets their news from the networks, will remain in the dark about this on going manipulation of the public discourse by the Pentagon and by the Bush administration.
For the record, as Judy Woodruff mentions in the segment:
And for the record, we invited Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC and NBC to participate, but they declined our offer or did not respond. [Emphasis added.]
Let’s see how long the networks go on ignoring their complicity in this fiasco that’s the Iraq war. I bet it’ll be a long while before a word is uttered.
April 13th, 2008
Today the NY Times reports:
BAGHDAD — The Iraqi government announced Sunday that it had dismissed 1,300 soldiers and policemen for refusing to fight or performing badly during last month’s offensive against Shiite militias in the southern city of Basra.
[...]
“Some of them were sympathetic with these lawbreakers, some refused to battle for political or national or sectarian or religious reasons,” General Khalaf said in Basra.
Meanwhile, earlier in the week, McSame, er, McCain reminded his audience of the tremendous success of the troop escalation in Iraq, which he advocated for:
But there is no doubt about the basic reality in Iraq: we are no longer staring into the abyss of defeat, and we can now look ahead to the genuine prospect of success. Success in Iraq is the establishment of a generally peaceful, stable, prosperous, democratic state that poses no threat to its neighbors and contributes to the defeat of terrorists. It is the advance of religious tolerance over violent radicalism. It is a level of security that allows the Iraqi authorities to govern, the average person to live a normal life, and international entities to operate. It is a situation in which the rule of law, after decades of tyranny, takes hold. It is an Iraq where Iraqi forces have the responsibility for enforcing security in their country, and where American troops can return home, with the honor of having secured their country’s interests at great personal cost, and helping another people achieve peace and self-determination. [Emphasis added.]
Today these goals are within reach. “Never despair,” Winston Churchill once said. And we did not despair. We were tested, and we rose to the challenge. Some political leaders close their eyes to the progress that the surge has made possible, and want only to argue about the past.
Tellingly, back in Iraq, as McSame, er, McCain was delivering those remarks, his speech was interrupted by mortars landing in the Green Zone:
MSNBC: And speaking of Iraq, we do have breaking news out of Iraq, where at least four mortars have been fired into the heavily-fortified Green Zone today. It’s unclear at this time if there are casualties or any major damage. Now the news comes just a day after five U.S. soldiers were killed in Iraq. Two, again, inside that Green Zone.
April 6th, 2008
This was McCain back then:
The American people want them home…
The criteria should be to bring [troops] home as rapidly as possible…
Date certain is not the criteria… the criteria ought to be immediate and rapid withdrawal…
And if we don’t do that, and other Americans die or are captured because we stayed too long… then I would say that the responsibility for that lies with the Congress of the United States…
The mission has been accomplished…
The American people do not support nation building…
The argument that some how the United States would suffer a loss to our prestige… I think is boloney.
… I tell you what can hurt our prestige… that’s if we enmesh ourselves in a drawn out situation which entails loss of American lives… more debacles… with a failed mission… that then will be what will hurt our prestige…
Of course, that was during a time when a Democratic president occupied the White House.
See the clip in YouTube here, and the Young Turks take on McCain’s hypocrisy here.
September 20th, 2007
Looks like Petraeus’s direct boss doesn’t think much of the General:
WASHINGTON, Sep 12 (IPS) - In sharp contrast to the lionisation of Gen. David Petraeus by members of the U.S. Congress during his testimony this week, Petraeus’s superior, Admiral William Fallon, chief of the Central Command (CENTCOM), derided Petraeus as a sycophant during their first meeting in Baghdad last March, according to Pentagon sources familiar with reports of the meeting.
Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be “an ass-kissing little chickenshit” and added, “I hate people like that”, the sources say. That remark reportedly came after Petraeus began the meeting by making remarks that Fallon interpreted as trying to ingratiate himself with a superior.
[...]
The policy context of Fallon’s extraordinarily abrasive treatment of his subordinate was Petraeus’s agreement in February to serve as front man for the George W. Bush administration’s effort to sell its policy of increasing U.S. troop strength in Iraq to Congress.
In a highly unusual political role for an officer who had not yet taken command of a war, Petraeus was installed in the office of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, in early February just before the Senate debated Bush’s troop increase. According to a report in The Washington Post Feb. 7, senators were then approached on the floor and invited to go McConnell’s office to hear Petraeus make the case for the surge policy.
Fallon was strongly opposed to Petraeus’s role as pitch man for the surge policy in Iraq adopted by Bush in December as putting his own interests ahead of a sound military posture in the Middle East and Southwest Asia — the area for which Fallon’s CENTCOM is responsible.
The CENTCOM commander believed the United States should be withdrawing troops from Iraq urgently, largely because he saw greater dangers elsewhere in the region.
Maybe the ad isn’t far off the mark, after all.
UPDATE: Here’s a great point-by-point take on the whole MoveOn ad and today’s successful Senate resolution against the ad — which passed with too many Democrats voting against their base.
September 11th, 2007
I’m a huge fan of this guy. Here’s his take on Petraeus’s sales job of Bush’s Iraq escalation…. seems about right to me.
