Saturday, April 07, 2018

Pretending the Iraq War ended certainly limits one understanding its true costs

THE DAYTONA BEACH NEWS-JOURNAL notes, "In operations related to Iraq, a total of 4,544 members of the U.S. military have died. Another 32,317 U.S. service personnel have been wounded in action."  The Iraq War continues.

Today, the US Defense Dept announced:

Strikes in Iraq
Yesterday in Iraq, coalition military forces conducted a strike consisting of one engagement against ISIS targets near Qaim. The strike destroyed an ISIS supply route.
On April 4, coalition military forces conducted a strike consisting of one engagement against ISIS targets near Baghdad. The strike destroyed an ISIS cave.
There were no reported strikes in Iraq on April 3.
On April 2, coalition military forces conducted two strikes consisting of two engagements against ISIS targets:
-- Near Beiji, a strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit.
-- A strike was conducted near Qayyarah.
On April 1, coalition military forces conducted a strike consisting of one engagement against ISIS targets near Beiji. The strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed an ISIS-held building.
On March 31, coalition military forces conducted a strike consisting of one engagement against ISIS targets near Rutbah. The strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed an ISIS vehicle.
There were no reported strikes in Iraq on March 30.

The Iraq War continues.

Last month, we noted the poll that found 43% of respondents felt the Iraq War was 'worth it.'  CJ Werleman has stumbled upon the poll at MIDDLE EAST EYE and wants you to know this is the result of movies and educators.

The typical b.s. that people blame that has nothing to do with anything.

You're never going to get a losing war taught well in public education.  That's reality.

Also reality, more people see an episode of a middling TV show than see you're basic 'hit' movie.  Movie tickets cost money.  Broadcast TV is free.

This is a cute little fancy where everyone's responsible except for the people responsible.

The people responsible for that poll?

That would be the news media and, yes, the American people.

The news media for long ago burying the Iraq War -- they withdrew at the end of 2008.  The American people for allowing that to happen.

As such -- and this has nothing to do with a film or with school -- the Iraq War appears to have ended when Barack Obama was elected to his first term.

A lie the media wanted to ensure they had their Camelot moment that they can spend the rest of their lifetime measuring everything else as coming up short when compared.

It wasn't Camelot.  It wasn't even Spamlot.  It was a period of robber barons and War Crimes and Barack presided over it.  Not all the hagiography in the world will ever paper over that.

By refusing to acknowledge the ongoing Iraq War, the American media and the American people have wrongly put an end to the costs of war.  But the costs continue just like the war.

When you pretend that the costs have ended and/or the war, you will get false results in polling.  But neither have ended and it's a real shame that Ava and I can note that reality over and over at THIRD but no one else wants to belly up to the bar and put their own money down.  From Ava and my most recent piece:


Take the pretense that the US media gives a damn about the Iraq War.  It doesn't.  Where are the guests calling for the end of the Iraq War?  Where are the reports from Basra and Baghdad?

As we noted last week in "TV: 60 MINUTES of gossip," the media couldn't even be bothered with covering the 15th anniversary of the Iraq War.

If you didn't get how bad it was, Saturday saw the funeral for one of the seven service members killed in Iraq in a helicopter crash in March.  The British press could carry stories -- and did -- about the funeral of Christopher Raguso and NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio could attend the funeral but the NYC press was largely unable to cover it?


We find it interesting and telling that NYC's NBC and CBS stations elected to 'cover' the funeral by running AP stories.   We get it, we do.  It's 51 miles to travel from NYC to Long Island, you gotta go clear down I-495, it's just too much trouble and expense for the purveyors of nothingness.  They chatter, they babble, they just don't reflect the world around us.





The following community sites -- plus Jody Watley -- updated:










  • Some Tweets from Margaret Kimberley

    Some Tweets from journalist Margaret Kimberley:




    1. I was present at the . conference where Ray was speaking. Very important words about the impact of white supremacy on U.S. foreign policy.
    2. Thanks to for sharing my work.
    3.   Retweeted
      As so often, the 'fearlessly independent' steps up to defend UK govt The making wholly false claims is 'trivial', while the highlighting of UK govt inconsistencies and asking awkward questions or for evidence is 'Russia propaganda'
    4. “I can say with nearly 100% certainty that if Skripal and his daughter are taken off of life support, they will die, although they are now only technically alive,” said Uglev” Oh well. So much for that.
    5.   Retweeted
      The most definitive work on the novichok nerve agent scandal that I have seen is by Paul McKeigue and coworkers posted by cc
    6.   Retweeted
      Please support Mark's valuable anti-war work. Just sitting in his class for a bit yesterday, I got a glimpse of how he is opening minds and powerfully giving students the tools to challenge MSM propaganda.
    7.   Retweeted
      Lovely to meet & in person yesterday. Mnar gave a compelling talk about how she came to found . Wish I had been a student in Mark's inspiring class, which he invited us to speak to.
       
    8.   Retweeted
      When you ask questions like that Putin wins. In fact Putin always wins. He wanted to make the UK and its allies look ridiculous so he deliberately botched an assassination attempt in the UK and made sure UK jumped to blame him in a comically inept manner. Crafty bastard.
    9.   Retweeted
      The Consortium for Independent Journalism’s Board of Directors is pleased to announce that Joe Lauria has taken the reins this week as ’s Editor-in-Chief.
    10. Good news. Joe Lauria is now Editor in Chief of . .
    11.   Retweeted
      Terrible terrible history and Hussein worked for the CIA since he was 21 and he and Rumsfeld organised the chemical attack upon the Iranians using American made chemical weapons during the Iran Iraq war
    12. Interesting analysis of case. This is the first expert analysis I’ve seen. Media repeated government assertions like scribes.
    13.   Retweeted
      The British government is today obliged to admit that Sergei Skripal is thankfully getting better, only after the news was outed in the phone call between Viktoria and Yulia. Which UK establishment trolls all attempted to call fake. Denial of visa to Viktoria a disgrace.
    14. Did the Russian Government poison ? It is highly likely. Extremely likely. Really very very very likely.
    15.   Retweeted
      Replying to 
      Is this the one? Hell, Ms. K -- CounterPunch, MintPress, every Left news outlet and their cat was on that g**damn list. "Erode faith in US Democracy"? Oh, how I laughed.
    16. I’m just seeing this article from January. tied to Democratic Party and Ukrainian interests. Jeff Bezos tied to them all. Would not have appeared in Washington Post otherwise.
    17.   Retweeted
      The election interference that actually impacted the 2016 election was DNC & corporate media collusion to elevate Trump & sabotage progressives. This Russia hysteria is designed to cover up DNC corruption, attack political opposition, feed war machine & censor independent voices.
    18.   Retweeted
      You can do this already with a ZIP code.
    19.   Retweeted
      My interview with on Israel-Palestine was blocked by YouTube in 28 countries. I explain how this isn’t the first time YouTube has suppressed my work on Israel, and how it’s partnered with the anti-Palestinian ADL to “flag” videos:
    20.   Retweeted
      I wasn't equating Williamson's views on abortion with Goldberg's. That wasn't remotely my point. My point is that nothing the Atlantic does should surprise anyone; Goldberg's **Impact** on the world has been much worse; and journalists are rarely accountable for their bad acts.
    21.   Retweeted
      Yesterday was BAP's first anniversary and . We wrote about those things, our dear sister and mother Winnie Mandela, plus Gaza. Check it 👉🏿
    22. Saudi killer prince Muhammad bin Salman got his PR money's worth by re-opening Saudi theaters with . The head chopping genocidaire of Yemen knows how to play to westerners. Women driving, #1 movie in the world. Hopefully he'll be overthrown anyway.
    23. I would have told not to criticize Obama by name and not on . But I agree with his remarks. Dems have nothing to show for Obama presidency. Lost presidency, congress and state legislatures. HRC raises $1 billion and loses. So many reasons for a .