The Common Ills: Falluja as tragedy, Falluja as distraction

History is mangled in the present.

It doesn't require some future date.

al Qaeda in Iraq -- also known as al Qaeda in Mesopotamia -- was a homegrown group. The battle of Falluja -- battles -- in 2004 were Iraqi fighters/insurgents/rebels.

Unless you're CBS NEWS and Charlie D'Agata, in which case you offer this garbage:

Fallujah became the epicenter of the insurgency against U.S. forces after the 2002 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. It was in Fallujah that al Qaeda in Iraq found its stronghold, and put up a fierce resistance that saw 100 American troops killed in 2004.

Let's just slap al Qaeda on everything so we can all feel better about the way the US government destroyed Falluja, okay?

And this second to the last paragraph?

For some reason,, it provides the headline "Battle begins for city where 100 American troops died."

Let's forget the ongoing birth defects, how many Iraqis died there?

And this did include civilians.

All these years later, have most Americans bothered to learn what really happened in the second battle of Falluja? How children were prevented from leaving?

Again, let's forget the ongoing birth defects for just a minute.

The US government would like to forget it forever. The whole pretense of War Hawks and War Thugs like Hillary Clinton to care about veterans is a sham and you can see that by their refusal to demand assistance for the veterans of Falluja who returned to the US and had children with birth defects because of what they were exposed to.

The Hillarys don't want to acknowledge that, don't want to take legal responsibility (such a Clinton thing to do).

So we have garbage passed off as reporting all these years later.

And you ask for forgiveness
You’re asking too much
I have sheltered my heart in a place you can’t touch
Don’t believe when you tell me your love is real
Because you don’t know much about heaven boy
If you have to hurt to feel
"Forgiveness," written by Sarah McLachlan, first appears on her LAWS OF ILLUSION

The US media should be on its knees begging for forgiveness for the lies they told -- lies that did not stop after they sold the illegal war.

Instead, they're on their knees pleasuring their Christ child Barack.

They gutted investigative journalism and, like Brian Williams, decided they didn't want to probe issues, they wanted to air feel good moments.

They've been feeling up themselves for about seven years now.

Public groping is not reporting.

Ben Wedeman disgraces himself at CNN:

But how long it will take to reach that moment is difficult to say. ISIS has proven to be a formidable foe, and every victory over the group has come at a high cost. To paraphrase that classic line attributed by war correspondent Peter Arnett to an American officer in the Vietnam War: To save cities from ISIS, Iraqi forces have had to destroy them.

That is outrageous what that fool has done.

He's robbed the line of the meaning and context, he's softened up and completely undermined it.

It was an outrageous statement and Wedeman's taking out his tiny penis and watered it down.

From the February 7, 1968 report by Peter Arnett:

"It became necessary to destroy the town to save it," a United States major said today. He was talking about the decision by allied commnaders to bomb and shell the town regardless of civilian casualties, to rout the Vietcong.

The reporting on Ben Tre was actual reporting and it had impact.

The only thing Ben Wedeman's leaving behind is urine stains.

He puts the bombing of Falluja as a recent thing when, in fact, the Iraqi government has been bombing Falluja since January 2014 -- bombing it daily, killing and wounding civilians.

Wedeman has no interest in civilians at all.

REUTERS tells us there are 100,000 civilians still in Iraq and that:

The United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross issued statements Monday evening appealing for the warring parties to protect civilians, who have limited access to food, water and healthcare.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said the armed forces had been "instructed to preserve the lives of citizens in Fallujah and protect public and private property."

But these 100,000 are erased from the story in report after report in an effort to rah-rah what's taking place.

This isn't reporting and it goes far beyond war pornography.

Here's what they're refusing to cover:

‏@moonnor27

PAINFUL from Fallujah Hospital Iraqi Sunni child Victim of #Iraqi army airstrikes #Warcrimes #Iraq #May23

هدهدالــخـ☆ــيرIRAQ#

Retweets 271
Likes 36

11:31 PM - 23 May 2016

The ICRC and the United Nations have expressed concerns for the civilians.

And, if they're lucky, they get a sentence in the 'reports.'

A hard reality about Falluja is that it is a distraction.

It's red meat tossed out by Haider al-Abadi to distract the people.

Years from now, he'll be remembered as the man who sold out his country, who destroyed Iraq, who brought the IMF in.

They're happy to give money because it allows them to alter your financial system, to take control of it.

At CPI FINANCIAL, Matthew Amlot is practically wetting himself as he writes about what the IMF loan means:

A key component of the Staff-Monitored Program that led to this Stand-By Arrangement was that Iraqi authorities agreed to aim to reduce the non-oil primary deficit (i.e., the difference between non-oil revenues and non-oil expenditures excluding net interest payments) by four per cent of non-oil GDP between 2014 and 2016. According to preliminary estimates by the IMF, Iraq has already exceeded this target, reducing that deficit to 52 per cent of non-oil GDP in 2015 from 60 per cent in 2014.
[. . .]
Spending pressures could also be alleviated if the government follows a proposal by international oil companies to switch to production sharing agreements from current services contracts.

What the US government could never force through the Iraqi Parliament will now be forced upon them via 'conditions' of a loan.

Non-oil primary deficit and non-oil expenditures are cut phrases -- what they mean is that services to the public are getting gutted.

Again, the assault on Falluja is intended to distract from this.

There's a reason Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani repeatedly warned against taking money from the IMF.

Yesterday, Wally and Cedric posted: