The Common Ills: From root to tip, lies and more lies

Thursday, October 01, 2015

From root to tip, lies and more lies

Glenn Greenwald (Intercept) has some questions and a reminder:

How do you know when you’re an out-of-control empire? When you keep bombing and deploying soldiers in places where you boast that you’ve ended wars. How do you know you have a hackish propagandist for a president? When you celebrate him for “ending two wars” in the very same places that he keeps bombing.
All of this, just by the way, is being done without any Congressional approval, at least with regard to Iraq and Syria. As my colleague Cora Currier noted when reporting on the Airwars report in August, these civilian deaths are “a reminder of the extent to which the United States’ air war in Syria and Iraq has rolled ahead with little public debate over its effectiveness. Congress has still not passed a specific legal authorization for the war.”

The never-ending Iraq War continues.

On my side (the left), when Iraq is remembered, it's usually with the lie that Barack Obama ended the war.

Or that democracy 'sprung up' in Iraq.

Or that Haider al-Abadi is anything other than the latest puppet.

He's in the US and making ridiculous statements.

Haider and the band of thieves.

There's John Kerry readying for his post-State Dept botox ads, there's Samantha Power sketching out her plans for the next war -- she hopes it's nuclear! -- there's Susan Rice realizing that her vanity doomed her to destiny of private citizen -- maybe she can go on all five networks this Sunday and talk about that? -- and there, next to Haider, is Barack practicing his autograph -- "Hugs and kisses, Barry :)" -- but most of all, there's Haider.

Where's the western press?

You know those guardians of truth and freedom.

The ones who have spent a year praising Haider and presenting him as the answer to ending corruption?

Strange though, in Arabic social media, they note Haider's long history which includes multiple allegations of corruption.

And these charges weren't just printed in Arabic language publications.

For example, this AFP article from November 2003 is among the English language ones being noted:

The Financial Times reported last week that two Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) officials and interim Telecommunications Minister Haidar al-Abbadi, were under investigations over allegations of bribery regarding the Orascom contract.
Orascom and partners deny paying any bribes as does Abbadi.

And with his history, this is who the US installed last fall.

It's a history that everyone's buried -- even AFP.

The illegal war started on lies and lies remain at the foundation.