I Hate The War

In a week of big news on Iraq, it was natural the US press might overlook some but, it can be argued, they overlooked pretty much everything.


They did manage to cover the Tikrit prison assualt.  But, unless their names were  Ali A. Nabhan and Sam Dagher (Wall St. Journal), there's really not much that can be pointed to with pride as they all avoided the issue of the death penalty and the amnesty bill despite the fact that the escapees are said to be death row inmates.  

The New York Times and Tim Arango can puff their chests with pride for reporting that the White House is negotiating with Nouri's government to send US troops back into Iraq.   That does pass for pride these days, reporting that in the 15th paragraph of a story.


Once upon a time, say during the Clinton era, they'd be savaged for that.  But we're now in an era where the press is more in the bag than they were immediately after 9-11 so Tim gets credit for it.  Especially when compared to Tom.  Tom Hayden wrote six paragraphs about Tim Arango's 15th paragraph. 


Or rather about one sentence.  The sentence after the one explaining negotiations were taking place.  Tom apparently missed that sentence.  Which is why Nation readers have no idea that there are negotiations taking place to send US troops back into Iraq even as Nouri barnstorms the country insisting he removed all US troops from Iraq.


Then there was Michael R. Gordon and Bernard Trinor's new book The Endgame.  Has a book co-written by Gordon ever been so sparsely covered?


Those foreign policy and national security types who did manage to find the book had high praise for it.   But somehow the media overall wasn't.


How does that happen?  Oh, that's right. Gordon and Trinor mistakenly believed that when writing about foreign policy choices, you could evaluate them, critique them.  Not in the La La Land the media's decided to live in to protect Barack Obama. 


No criticism must ever crease the brow of the Christ-child.  So it was decreed in 2008, so it remains. 


The spinning and whoring for Barack means that Iraq must never be discussed honestly, in that there is US media agreement.




It's over, I'm done writing songs about love
There's a war going on
So I'm holding my gun with a strap and a glove
And I'm writing a song about war
And it goes
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Oh oh oh oh
-- "I Hate The War" (written by Greg Goldberg, on The Ballet's Mattachine!)


The number of US service members the Dept of Defense states died in the Iraq War is [PDF format warning] 4488.



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


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