The Common Ills: Oh the nonsense from Press TV

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Oh the nonsense from Press TV

I guess Richard Becker's the last person to expect integrity from. In the midst of the illegal war on Libya, A.N.S.W.E.R.'s Richard Becker showed up on KPFA (March 19, 2011) to talk about how dreamy Barack was and how he made little Dick Becker cream his shorts?

Oh, that's not what he said? It might as well have been as he gave excuses and refused to call out Barack. What spooked the radical Communist?

I have no idea but A.N.S.W.E.R. has largely spent the last four years making excuses for Barack Obama. Richard Becker should be ashamed of himself for that alone.

Pathetic was their April 13th 'protest' against The Drone War.

We didn't promote it. And it seemed like every Communist I know in the Bay Area attempted to plead the case for A.N.S.W.E.R. I was told how unfair I was being, how we cover The Drone War here so I should be supporting A.N.S.W.E.R.'s 'efforts.'

I don't support cowards.

Click here and read their embarrassing announcement about their faux-test.

Now I will agree that drones are unmanned flying objects. I will not, however, pretend that The Drone War itself is unmanned.

In the days of Bully Boy Bush, A.N.S.W.E.R. wasn't afraid to call him out by name.

But they launched a faux-test against The Drone War that doesn't even mention Barack Obama. That's his war. It's not Hillary Clinton's. It's not even Bully Boy Bush's. He's been gone for four years. At what point do you hold Barack accountable?

"Never" must be the answer for A.N.S.W.E.R.

And for Richard Becker.

Becker adds the flavor 'tacky' to his cowardice today. He does that by appearing on Press TV where he basically indicts the country (the US) while refusing to hold Barack accountable.

I really do question that, by the way. Unless you are CIA, why are you going on Iranian airwaves? And what is it with all these Americans putting down the US on Press TV?

If you're CIA, it makes sense. You're giving a false impression to mislead a country -- in this case, Iran.

Iranians don't know that not even 30% of Americans could tell you who Richard Becker is. They see him on their TV sets and think, "Oh, he must be really big in America and we are hearing what is taking place in America."

Again, if you're working for the CIA, Richard, great job in misleading.

But if you're an American activist, I don't know why you would be part of a misleading chorus on Press TV?

But should war break out with Iran (which I do not hope for), the Richard Beckers who have been presented as the voices of America may have to admit their part in it because they've misled the people of Iran into thinking that this is the norm and that these attitudes -- Richard's ridiculous critique of the US which fails to hold anyone in power accountable -- are prevalent among the masses.

I don't know why you would go on with Press TV to begin with. They are such liars. We use them as a resource sparingly. They're forever working a grudge against the Kurds. (Needless to say, we're only interested in Press TV with regards to Iraq.) They're forever whoring for Nouri al-Maliki. And they can't stop lying.

Short of being CIA, I don't know why anyone would bother to associate with them.

Let's deal with one of the lies from the interview: "Looking at the situation in Iraq right now, it is very interesting to note that we are seeing the assassination of certain candidates that are standing up in the country's provincial elections. Specifically those that are showing leanings toward the government which is currently in power in Baghdad."

That's the opening of the interview. The lies start right at the top.

15 candidates have been killed in Iraq in the lead up to the April 20th provincial elections (in only 12 of Iraq's 18 provinces). They're all Sunnis. Most are related to Iraqiya.

It's exactly what was seen in 2010. If people paid attention. The death toll is higher this time (already) but maybe the failure of the US government to call it out in 2010 gave Nouri and his thugs the go ahead to shoot for a larger number of kills this time?

The ones being killed are now "showing leanings toward the government which is currently in power in Baghdad." That phrase is meant to infer that these are Nouri's supporters and candidates. Press TV lies all the time. Thus far, not one candidate with Nouri's State of Law has been killed.

The Shi'ite dominant government that controls Press TV ensures that people are misled. That is appalling and I don't know why anyone outside of Iran would choose to participate with this network?

Richard babbles in one response about how the US set one part of the country against another. Even uses "each." What an idiot.

It's not a Sunni and Shi'ite country. After ten years, do you not grasp that? Do you also not grasp that asking "Sunni or Shia?" may have reinforced divisions but the US choice to put thugs in charge created the ongoing conflict.

They ran off the military and went with the most fundamentalist militias. Which is why the population has been terrorized ever since.

This is why every minority group in Iraq has been targeted. This week in Kirkuk, we saw another act of violence against a medical doctor. These thugs are responsible for the country's brain drain. They are responsible because they didn't believe in science or anything to do with modernity so they terrorized the country forces many in Iraq's educated classes to flee the country. That happened before the refugee crisis.

They have targeted not only the minority Sunni population, but every minority religious population. The Yezidis, the Jews, the Christians, the Mandeans, go down the list. They have targeted women. They have targeted labor unions.

None of this was by accident.

To get what the US government wanted, the population had to be facing an onslaught. Otherwise, they could fight back in strong numbers. (It's a credit to the Iraqi people and their strength that even in the face of this onslaught, they did fight back.)

Thugs with fundamentalist militias were allowed to 'impose order.' The hope was that this would leave the people so scared -- or shocked (think the shock doctrine) -- that they wouldn't be able to fight back.

Apparently since most of the militias were Shi'ite and Press TV only embraces Shi'ites, Richard Becker couldn't mention these things. Unless he wanted to risk being kicked off Press TV. For some reason, his Press TV face time is more important than accurate and true remarks.

When we on the left were alive -- oh, so briefly before the Democrats won control of both houses of Congress in the 2006 mid-terms -- we had a healthy media criticism going.

Look at the Press TV article and see if you can still critique.

What's the most obvious problem with it?

If you can't stream, just so you know, the transcript is word for word, nothing is missing.

"The United States fails to install a puppet govt. in Iraq: Richard Becker."

That's what most people will see. Most will not stream. Most will not read the transcript.

Nowhere in the interview does Becker use the term "puppet." But Press TV is about whoring for Nouri. So they've headlined the interview with the dubious claim that the US didn't install a puppet.

Of course, it did.

Bully Boy Bush installed Nouri in 2006. In 2010, the Iraqi people voted for Iraqiya and Barack Obama insisted upon The Erbil Agreement to go around the will of the Iraqi people, the Iraqi Constitution and democracy to give Nouri a second term. He is the US puppet.

It's why the new budget is asking for so many more billions for Iraq. It's why Barack has sent in counter-terrorism teams over and over in the last months beginning in September 2012. Without the US to prop up Nouri, he falls.

From April 4, 2010, that's Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "These days, puppets pull the string."
Barack's inability to control the US puppets doesn't insist that they aren't puppets, just that Barack's incompetent.

The following community sites -- plus Black Agenda Report, Pacifica Evening News, Adam Kokesh, Antiwar.com and Iraq Veterans Against the War -- updated last night and this morning: