Monday, February 16, 2009

Iraq

Next month, the Iraq War hits the six year mark. The illegal war has not ended, Barack Obama is not planning to end it, US broadcast networks are pulling their correspondents, but no one's supposed to notice and the reality is no one notices or no one cares.

We called out the nonsense of 'Mother Of All Bombers' in real time. Of course, it ends up being the only thing that interests some sites online. Why not? It can't be verified but it's the kind of topic perfect for Trash TV and that's really all we have online, mental midgets who can't wrap their tiny minds around anything more complex than a Lifetime woman-in-danger tele-flick.

So they post this nonsense that requires you believe the Iraqi police can capture the women on January 21st and hold for all that time without trumpeting their 'victory.' You have to believe that no one is tortured in Iraq and that confessions are 'pure' and 'honest.' To believe that, you have no grasp of reality and have missed all the reporting by Ned Parker (Los Angeles Times) to cite only one example. You have to believe that the only reason a woman would become a bomber is because she was raped and that there is this team of rapists -- controlled by the Mother Of All Bombers -- watching and profiling potential victims to select just the perfect one. That Mother Of All is able to control every move and every movement in a country where mobility for all is severly restricted but even more so for women.

You have to ignore all of that and just be titilated by the lurid claims.

And you have to be historically ignorant, unaware that women have always risen up against occupations. You have to see this natural instinct in humans (one that also exists in the animal kingdom) as 'unnatural' when it surfaces in women.

Most of all you have to be a natural patsy for propaganda.

Which is why that garbage traveled around the web (and I'm not speaking of right-wing sites -- I have no idea what they do -- I'm talking about left-wing ones) and became the only Iraq 'news' most sites offered this month. Or this year.

Some of the losers thought they were doing something by 'remembering' the day Collie Powell lied to the United Nations.

Oh, how wonderful. How very brave. It must take a lot of guts to call out testimony that was discredited mere minutes after it was given.

How wonderful that their Iraq War 'work' is in noting a speech that took place . . . before the illegal war even began.

Dahr Jamail is back in Iraq. That may be the only link in this entry, this is a talking entry. But Dahr's back and I don't imagine he'll be there for long. I could be wrong, but I assume he'll be there for a few months tops. So you'd think it would be something that all the allegedly left websites would note.


And when Dahr's back in Iraq --- whether you personally like him or not -- it is news for the left and it is something to highlight. Maybe they don't link to Truthout? We don't link to that site. It is not pro-democracy as it demonstrated. You're more than able to advocate for someone to run but when you tell someone not to run or to drop out, you're not about democracy. So we link to Dahr's reports via his website. The reports are reposted in other places as well (Dissident Voice, to name but one).

For some online, Iraq doesn't matter because they're too vested in (still) pimping the lie that Barack will end the Iraq War. He won't. Not in his first term and if he can't do it in his first term, why does he deserve a second one? The only thing that will change that is huge pressure from the American people. But we're talking about a public that's been repeatedly and deliberately lied to. And has bought it.

Recently the Congressional flunkie posing as a journalist David Sirota pulled a trick and no one caught what went down. It's not that unfamiliar.

When the Iraq War went to pieces early on, Judith Miller provided a handy scapegoat for the bulk of the media spectrum. They were able to keep their heads down and allow her to take the fall for their own actions. Some of them have 'restyled' themselves as 'opponents' to the war (these 'opponents' make their 'opposition' about the way the illegal war was fought and not about the fact that it was started -- and started with lies -- in the first place). They're able to get linkage-love from around the web these days and no one holds them accountable.

David Sirota is only one of many who attempted to lie throughout the primaries. It is obvious that Barack's presidency is a disaster. (It is a disaster. And it will only get worse with more fawning.) Sirota's trying to reposition himself. It's the same trick many in the MSM pulled with Iraq. And some of them were called out for that (not many, again Judith Miller became the scapegoat for everyone) but they didn't bicker or argue, they just ignored it and managed to sail back into 'respectable' gas baggery.

Sirota's doesn't have the brains or tempermant to lay low. This is the man who endorses lying. This is th eman who praised a governor's campaign for tricking voters. Sirota's not about honesty, he's never been about honesty. He's a Congressional flunkie and not a journalist. He doesn't have a journalist's ethics or temperment. He's still the suck up on The Hill that he started out as and that he will end as.

Open government requires honesty. A democracy does not thrive on lies. When Sirota found a candidate lying and tricking people into voting for him to be a good thing, that really was it for him. It made clear he was not 'a friend of the people' or embracing democracy. Anyone who applauds lying to the public can't say, "Oh, but it was for our side!" No, that's not how it works. The ends do not justify the means.

And it appears that's really going to be the lesson of Barack's presidency.

His enablers and cheerleaders can attempt to hide the truth from the people but it's not going to work. And Barack campaigned -- in people's minds -- on ending the illegal war. He did that by using weasel words and by having a bunch of LYING WEASELS (Laura Flanders, Tom Hayden, CODESTINK, etc.) lie for him.

The lies are already hurting Panhandle Media. People are walking away from Pacifica and from various 'opinion journals,' refusing to donate for that crap after the stunt they all pulled. The ends do not justify the means but they do discredit liars and they do run off supporters.

America's going to awaken to the fact that Barack LIED about ending the illegal war. The refusal to call him out now on it and to force him to take the action people believe they voted for just means he has a very strong chance of being a one term president.

Republicans are not stupid. Already they're demonstrating they know how to act as an opposition party.

And here's the campaign they may try to run in 2012.

1) George W. Bush provided the framework to get us out of Iraq but Barack has kept us there despite campaigning on the promise to end the Iraq War.

2) Billions of American dollars have been wasted on the war in the last four year while Americans struggled to make ends meet.

3) For our nation's security -- national and economic -- I am calling for an end to the Iraq War and, if you vote for me, that is what you will get.

Barack used weasel words. He lied repeatedly. And a huge bulk of Americans honestly believe he promised them he would end the Iraq War and that this meant all the US service members would come home. When that hasn't happened by 2012, Barack's a liar. And the public turns on him. There will be no economic recovery in 2009. It's doubtful there will be one in 2010. Serious measures -- ones Barack is thus far unwilling to pursue -- need to be taken and, even if they are, most Americans won't feel any real improvement until 2011 at the earliest.

So with Barack's incredibly weak stimulus package (and the reality that most Americans are not going to look kindly when he comes back to beg again this year), he's really begging for the economic ills to continue through 2012. If so, that ought to make for a wondeful position to run on: "I told you I'd end the Iraq War and didn't and, four years later, the economy's still in the tank. But believe me, if elected to four more years, I will end the Iraq War this time and get to work on improving the economy. I'll pose for less magazine covers and require far less fawning."

But the Iraq War that he ran on will be the Iraq War that harms him more than anything else. Do people really think that in July of 2012, Americans aren't going to notice that US service members are still in Iraq?

"I was right! I was right!" he crowed about his sparsely attended speech before the illegal war started. That was never reality -- it was about as much 'reality' as the lie that he had to recreate an audio version because no record of it existed (video of it can be found online and we've linked to it before -- it was a poorly delivered speech) -- and when you make assertions on your behalf, when you ego-stroke in public repeatedly, don't whine when people expect you to live up to it.

What the liars for Barack never seemed to grasp was that the bill would come due.

The lies could not continue through eternity. That's George W. thinking and a sign of just how much lunacy exists among Barack's cheerleaders.

And the press can pack up and insist that the story is over but every time they attempt to tie a pretty box around it, they get slapped in the face with reality.

There's an action calling for an end to the illegal war next month. For information, you can refer to Iraq Veterans Against the War, A.N.S.W.E.R., Pentagon March and World Can't Wait.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.





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