The New York Times offers two stories filed from Iraq. Both hide inside the paper (one of the least read -- true of every Memorial Day) and the front page is left to splashy gossip. No, I'm not referring to the Donna Reed story. That's historical and past time Reed got some credit for something. Yesterday the Sunday chat & chews featured an assortment of gas bags.
The only news came from ABC: Adm Mike Mullens appeared on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos (transcript here). So, of course, it's ignored. And if you doubt that interview was news, you should cruise the public e-mail account where NOT ONE but FIVE US officers from the publicity department at CENTCOM have e-mailed to gripe and to complain and to whine over last night's entry. One seemed somewhat sincere and the Maj got a reply. The others? Not even bothering with that crap.
But let's register that. Five Centcom officers e-mailing regarding the SOFA and what's been said about it publicly (by Mullens and Odierno) and the Times can't even tell their readers about what was said on ABC. It appears here and suddenly it's time for the military to launch a wave of Operation Happy Talk on a semi-private beach.
Instead of addressing a topic that matters, news, something that has real implications on the US and on Iraq and on the world, Adam Nagourney offers Rona Barrett on Pajama Blogging Duty about the latest cat fight between Collie The Blot Powell and former President of Vice Dick Cheney.
Their little cat fight is not news. For one thing, Dick's nuts but he's honest. He's not trying to rewrite history to make himself look good. That's all Collie the White Washer of Vietnam, the Homophobe who is why the US is stuck with Don't Ask, Don't Tell presently, ever does. Lie. Recut the truth. Call for another take. Edit out reality. Manufacture an image. Collie's a natural born liar and he's lied in public for decades now. Apparently the only American who will ever be offended enough to really call him out is Ron Kovic.
Instead, a known liar, a man who lied to the United Nation (his "blot") is being treated as a trusted source (because the press loves fondling his balls in public).
And we're all supposed to be enthralled with the cat fight/bitchfest that Collie and Dickie are engaged in. At least Alexis and Krystal threw some punches. Please.
The bitchfest makes the front page because it is NOT NEWS. It's focused on because it's a bunch of rubbage tossed out to simps to keep them uninformed.
What a load of trash.
Speaking of . . . Yesterday Lay-Lay was telling us that April was the most violent and leaving out qualifiers, remember? Rod Norland's "22 Are Killed By Insurgents In 8 Attacks In Iraqi Cities" opens with:
On the same day that military spokesmen gave a rare briefing in Baghdad to announce a continued rop in overall violence, insurgents killed at least 22 people in eight attacks in Mosul and Falluja on Sunday, using roadside bombs, drive-by shootings, suicide bombers and execution-style killings, police officials said.
Reality can be a real Dick Cheney.
Timothy Williams and Suadad al-Salhy offer "Fate of Iraqis Gone Missing Haunts Those Left Behind." There's the link and that's not intended as an insult. I wasn't expecting the paper to offer anything on Iraq. So I made a point to have a 'topic' for this morning. I'm not going to spend all day online. The next entry will probably take about a half hour (longer if I check it with more friends before posting) and, at that point (after it posts), I will look to see what the news out of Iraq is. If it's what it is right now, there's nothing that can't wait for tomorrow. If there's an increase in violence or a US death announced by the time I'm looking, I'll do a snapshot.
I'm providing a link to Williams and al-Salhy, but I stopped reading after 'sectarian violence.' I don't believe that's what it was and I made a point pick a topic before going to sleep last night and made a point to use dream time to recall (we're making historical comparisons and contrasts between Vietnam and Iraq for the next entry). I assigned my dream time, on a rare day off (from speaking), to review the history of Vietnam. That's our next entry. I've spent three hours this morning on the phone with friends who reported on and from Vietnam to make sure I was remembering events correctly. I believe Williams and al-Salhy are terming a phase of the war incorrectly and I'm not interested in reading the article in full until after the next entry goes up. (And they've got a link. I'm not insulting them. If I wanted to, I'd make time to. But they're using a label that appears wrong -- and they're not the only ones. It's the label the US military gave to it. It never reflected reality.)
Oh, one more thing. The Courier-Journal's flurry of day after garbage is being noted in e-mails to the public account. I'm not interested in their crap. I'm not interested in their factual b.s. I'll put a correction to an entry on Saturday shortly. I refer to a photo cited in e-mails on Saturday. The photo is said to be Abeer. It is not Abeer. I'm waiting to find out how to credit in the correction (I've offered to do so by name or to give the person anonymity). But that photo is Abeer's sister and the person who put it out there wrongly, the reason people are calling it Abeer? Andrew Wolfson of the Courier-Journal. The Courier-Journal needs to take a look at their facts which have been in short supply throughout the Green coverage. We're not interested in their garbage. And shame on Wolfson for taking a photo introduced in the court as evidence as being Abeer's sister and putting it into print as Abeer. That's so offensive. There's no excuse for it. And unlike the person who brought the error to my attention, I don't believe Wolfson made an honest mistake. An honest mistake? Wolfson wrote of things taking place in the court -- when he wasn't even present, a fact forgot to share -- that couldn't have taken place because the judge had barred them from happening. If the Courier-Journal actually gave a damn about the story, they should have Wolfson in the court room every day. They didn't. And the result is a lot of factually incorrect garbage being printed by the Courier-Journal. They should be ashamed. By the way, here's where Andrew wrongly calls the photo of Hadeel Qassim Hamza one of "Abeer" (bottom, right hand side of the page).
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
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