Wednesday, February 16, 2011

The revisionary ground work has been laid by Blair apologists

Oh dear, another liar surfaces in the Iraqi tragedy and, yet again, he doesn't turn out to be Tony Blair. If you haven't yet read the Guardian's sensational disclosure that the Iraqi intelligence source known as Curveball deliberately lied you should read it right away.


If you had any confusion yesterday about how the Guardian was whoring to rewrite history, maybe the above will clue you in. It's from Michael White's "Curveball's confession: another dent in the Iraq conspiracy theory" (Guardian) in which the shrieking White wants you to know that his beloved Tones is innocenct and so must George W. Bush be. In this country, there was outrage that the media wouldn't pick up on the Downing Street Memos. And, possibly because there's a lot of whoring on our left in this country, never in that outrage did your 'brave' 'leaders' point out that the Guardian was refusing to report on the Downing Street Memos. They whored for Tony. They ignored the story consistently. The Guardian is New Labour. As is Tony. It was the Murdoch owned Times of London that broke the story on the Downing Street Memos (which revealed that war was the goal and going to happen long before the public had an inkling). It broke repeated stories on it.

In this country, there was a great deal of: "Why won't the media cover this!!!!" But grasp that in England, it was the tabloids and the Times that covered it. It was not the Guardian.

Of course, informing you of that would have interfered with the (now forgotten) plan to bring the Guardian to US shores. Forever and a day, they were pimping that, Amy Goodman and the others. Remember? And the model the paper operates in? That was going to be the model for here too.

Like so much of that psuedo left paper, those plans fell apart quickly. But for 'funs' go through and check Amy Goodman's many interviews with Guardians staffers and columnists. And notice that when she covers the Downing Street Memos and the silence on them, she never includes the Guardian.

Michael White thinks he can show up and rewrite history. And he may be successful. Certainly few have bothered to call out the Guardian's silence on the DSM. (In this community, it was called out in real time and you can especially check out Ruth's work on this issue.)

The revisionary history that White's promoting -- and the Guardian's encouraging, they've never even considered firing the lying asshole despite his long history of lies in print -- is that Curveball tricked everyone! See! And it's a conspiracy to claim otherwise! That's what we were calling out in yesterday's snapshot because it was the 'reporting' that laid the groundwork for the b.s. spewing out of White's mouth today. For example, White whines that England left Iraq too soon and pins the blame for that everywhere, including: "I suppose I could interpolate the thought too that the anti-war movement's pressure for withdrawal and for delegitimising the invasion also contributed to the desire to scuttle, and emboldened the suicide bombers and sectarians."

It was just a mistake. A liar gave them info that sounded so good. It fit their preconceived notions and they were foolishly swept away.

But Curveball was known to be a liar and the Los Angeles Times was able to refute Collie Powell's testimony in real time. Michael White's revisionary lies depend upon people forgetting or not knowing a great deal. It wasn't a rush to believe that led the US government to steal from a student's paper and pass it off as 'intel,' after all.

Two days after Powell lied to the United Nations, the Institute for Public Accuracy issued "Powell Cited Sham 'Fine Paper'" (February 7, 2003):

"My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we are giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence...

"I would call my colleagues' attention to the fine paper that the United Kingdom distributed yesterday which describes in exquisite detail Iraqi deception activities."

-- Secretary of State Colin Powell to the United Nations Security Council, Feb. 5


GLEN RANGWALA
Rangwala is a lecturer in politics at Cambridge University in Britain. He has written a report: "A First Response to Secretary Colin Powell's Presentation Concerning Iraq" which takes issue with many of Powell's assertions.

In his analysis of Powell's claims, Rangwala found that substantial portions of "the fine paper that the United Kingdom distributed yesterday" referred to by Powell on Wednesday before the Council (entitled "Iraq: Its Infrastructure Of Concealment, Deception And Intimidation") were plagiarized from pre-existing sources including a paper by a postgraduate student, Ibrahim Al-Marashi, in California. Rangwala noted: "It's quite striking that even Al-Marashi's typographical errors and anomalous uses of grammar are incorporated into the Blair government document. Al-Marashi has confirmed to me that his permission was not sought; in fact, he didn't even know about the British document until I mentioned it to him.... None of the sources [in the Blair government document] are acknowledged, leading the reader to believe it is a result of direct investigative work, rather than simply copied from pre-existing Internet sources."
More Information
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WILLIAM RIVERS PITT
Author of the book War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know, Pitt said today: "An analysis of the footnotes for the Al-Marashi essay clearly demonstrates that his work was meant to describe Iraq's intelligence apparatus and military situation in the 1990s. The British dossier was presented as an up-to-date report on the status of Iraq's weapons and terrorist ties.... Between other questionable sources and the unreliable data from the British, it seems all too clear that Powell's presentation was based upon information that is questionable to say the least."
More Information

JOHN QUIGLEY
Professor of international law at Ohio State University, Quigley said today: "The U.S. has presented information to the Security Council on war and peace issues that later turned out to be false...."

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

At some point, when you're played repeatedly, you have to take responsibility. I'm not referring to Colin Powell. He wasn't played. He knowing lied. What did Dick Cheney tell him? Time for him to get some 'skin in the game,' how he was the most popular person in the administration and so he had to make the case to the UN. But a number of people who claim to be against illegal wars continue to hold the Guardian up as some wonderful model of truth. And lament that the US doesn't have the equivalent. It does. It has the American Prospect and many, many other Democratic Party organs. That's all the Guardian is, a party organ for New Labour and if white washing the War Crimes of Colin Powell will help their beloved Tony Blair, then that's what they'll do. They're not in the news business, they're in the New Labour business.

On Curveball, Thomas Buonomo (IVAW) announces Iraq Veterans Against the War are calling for an investigation into the matter:

Tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands of deaths have resulted from the invasion and occupation of Iraq. According to UNHCR, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been internally displaced and hundreds of thousands more are forced to subsist as refugees. Human Rights Watch recently reported that torture in Iraqi prisons continues under the authority of elite military units reporting to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Thousands of American men and women have lost their lives and tens of thousands suffer from the wounds of war. Families and communities across the United States are now suffering from veteran suicides, homelessness, substance abuse and domestic violence. The long-term cost of this war, including the provision of VA support for our returning veterans, is estimated to run into the trillions.

There must be accountability. Mr. Janabi manipulated the United States government in a self-confessed effort to precipitate U.S. military action in Iraq. IVAW calls for the Justice Department to investigate whether he acted alone or in concert with others who now occupy senior positions in the Iraqi government.

Media Inquiries: T.J. Buonomo, tj@ivaw.org



The following community sites -- and NPR -- updated last night:





Two events coming up. To address the realities of Iraq, there is an upcoming Iraq Veterans Against the War event:

February 25, 2011 9:30 - 10:30 am
Busboys & Poets, Langston room
14th & V st NW Washington DC
This report back will be to answer questions from media and the peace movement about the recent trip back to Iraq by members of Iraq Veterans Against the War. The war is not over but it is not the same as it was in years past. What is the humanitarian situation in Iraq?
How can we do reparations and reconciliation work?
Speakers are all returning from this delegation and include:
Geoff Millard (IVAW) Hart Viges (IVAW) Haider Al-Saedy (Iraqi Health Now)
Richard Rowely (Big Noise Films)
To make it clear that continued war is unacceptable, in March A.N.S.W.E.R. and March Forward! and others will be taking part in this action:

March 19 is the 8th anniversary of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Iraq today remains occupied by 50,000 U.S. soldiers and tens of thousands of foreign mercenaries.

The war in Afghanistan is raging. The U.S. is invading and bombing Pakistan. The U.S. is financing endless atrocities against the people of Palestine, relentlessly threatening Iran and bringing Korea to the brink of a new war.

While the United States will spend $1 trillion for war, occupation and weapons in 2011, 30 million people in the United States remain unemployed or severely underemployed, and cuts in education, housing and healthcare are imposing a huge toll on the people.

Actions of civil resistance are spreading.

On Dec. 16, 2010, a veterans-led civil resistance at the White House played an important role in bringing the anti-war movement from protest to resistance. Enduring hours of heavy snow, 131 veterans and other anti-war activists lined the White House fence and were arrested. Some of those arrested will be going to trial, which will be scheduled soon in Washington, D.C.

Saturday, March 19, 2011, the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, will be an international day of action against the war machine.

Protest and resistance actions will take place in cities and towns across the United States. Scores of organizations are coming together. Demonstrations are scheduled for San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and more.

Ryan Endicott is a member of IVAW and March Forward! This is from his "Iraq, Afghanistan veterans' unemployment rates soar above national average" (Party for Socialism and Liberation):


The fact is, the vast majority of jobs in the military do not transfer into the civilian work force. Additionally, when our soldiers return home from the wars, their physical and mental health take a back seat to their preparation for another deployment.

This complete lack of care leads many veterans, especially those with families, with no other option than to reenlist. Facing unemployment, criminally negligent health care services provided by the VA and absolutely no civilian job training, many veterans have no other option than to stay in the military. Many veterans have been redeployed back to the wars for their sixth and seventh tours. Many combat veterans have spent more time in combat in the past eight years than with their families.

This epidemic of unemployment could not have come at a worse time for veterans. Homelessness, drug and alcohol abuse and suicide rates among veterans have increased every year since the beginning of the occupations. In the past two years more active-duty troops lost their lives from suicide than the wars.

It is not the unemployed Iraqi who struggles to feed his family that we should be fighting. It is not the impoverished Afghan farmer who tries to survive without basic necessities that we should be fighting. Veterans have been betrayed by the millionaires who walk the halls of Congress and send us to kill and be killed so that Wall Street can turn a profit.

Our veterans' greatest enemies are not found in Iraq or Afghanistan, but right here in our capital city —the ones responsible for mounting unemployment, rising cost of health care, climbing tuition costs, record foreclosures and evictions, and the gutting of basic and essential social services. They have proven that they do not care about us. We can only rely on each other.




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thomas friedman is a great man






oh boy it never ends
























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