Happy Fifth Anniversary!
Yay, our little Iraq War is getting so BIG! Just LOOK how it's grown! I remember when it was just a little liberation that was only gonna cost us a mere pittance and people were freaking out that it MIGHT cost $50-60 billion (oh how the White House tried to downplay that!). And look how it's doing! Over $500 billion!!
Does anyone recall when the USA was in debt for like $6 trillion and how astronomical that was?
Salon did an article about the biggest lies from each of those 5 years. Cutting to the chase:
Year 1: NOTHING TO SEE HERE. Year 1's big lie was that the rising violence in Iraq was nothing out of the ordinary. The social turmoil kicked off by the invasion was repeatedly denied by Bush officials...The first year of the war saw the rise of a Sunni Arab guerrilla movement that repeatedly struck at U.S. troops and at members and leaders of the Shiite-dominated Interim Governing Council appointed by the American government.
Year 2: FAKE DEMOCRACY. In Year 2 the falsehood was that Iraq was becoming a shining model of democracy under America's caring ministrations. In actuality, Bush had planned to impose on Iraq what he called "caucus-based" elections, in which the electorate would be restricted to the provincial and some municipal council members backed by Bush-related institutions. That plan was thwarted by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who demanded one-person, one-vote open elections, and brought tens of thousands of protesters out onto the streets of Baghdad and Basra.
Year 3: BLAME al-ZARQAWI. In Year 3, the Bush administration blamed almost everything that was going wrong on one shadowy figure: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi... To attribute so many attacks [90%! -mox] all over central, western and northern Iraq to a single entity suggested an enormous, centrally directed organization in Iraq called "al-Qaida." But there was never any evidence for such a conclusion, and when Zarqawi was killed by a U.S. airstrike in May of 2006, the insurgent violence continued without any change in pattern.
Year 4: MORE NOTHING TO SEE HERE. In Year 4, as major sectors of Iraq descended into hell, Bush's big lie consisted of denying that the country had fallen into civil war. ... After May 2006, the death toll of victims of sectarian violence rose at times to an official figure of 2,500 or more per month, and it fluctuated around that level for the subsequent year. The Baghdad police had to form a new unit, the Corpse Patrol, to collect dozens of bodies every morning in the streets of the capital.
Year 5: "SURGE" IS WORKING! Year 5, the past year, has been one of troop escalation, or the "surge." (Calling the policy a "surge" rather than an "escalation" is emblematic of the administration's propganda.) The big lie is that Iraq is now calm, that the surge has worked, and that victory is within reach.
This is my closing statement for this post.
Does anyone recall when the USA was in debt for like $6 trillion and how astronomical that was?
Salon did an article about the biggest lies from each of those 5 years. Cutting to the chase:
Year 1: NOTHING TO SEE HERE. Year 1's big lie was that the rising violence in Iraq was nothing out of the ordinary. The social turmoil kicked off by the invasion was repeatedly denied by Bush officials...The first year of the war saw the rise of a Sunni Arab guerrilla movement that repeatedly struck at U.S. troops and at members and leaders of the Shiite-dominated Interim Governing Council appointed by the American government.
Year 2: FAKE DEMOCRACY. In Year 2 the falsehood was that Iraq was becoming a shining model of democracy under America's caring ministrations. In actuality, Bush had planned to impose on Iraq what he called "caucus-based" elections, in which the electorate would be restricted to the provincial and some municipal council members backed by Bush-related institutions. That plan was thwarted by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who demanded one-person, one-vote open elections, and brought tens of thousands of protesters out onto the streets of Baghdad and Basra.
Year 3: BLAME al-ZARQAWI. In Year 3, the Bush administration blamed almost everything that was going wrong on one shadowy figure: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi... To attribute so many attacks [90%! -mox] all over central, western and northern Iraq to a single entity suggested an enormous, centrally directed organization in Iraq called "al-Qaida." But there was never any evidence for such a conclusion, and when Zarqawi was killed by a U.S. airstrike in May of 2006, the insurgent violence continued without any change in pattern.
Year 4: MORE NOTHING TO SEE HERE. In Year 4, as major sectors of Iraq descended into hell, Bush's big lie consisted of denying that the country had fallen into civil war. ... After May 2006, the death toll of victims of sectarian violence rose at times to an official figure of 2,500 or more per month, and it fluctuated around that level for the subsequent year. The Baghdad police had to form a new unit, the Corpse Patrol, to collect dozens of bodies every morning in the streets of the capital.
Year 5: "SURGE" IS WORKING! Year 5, the past year, has been one of troop escalation, or the "surge." (Calling the policy a "surge" rather than an "escalation" is emblematic of the administration's propganda.) The big lie is that Iraq is now calm, that the surge has worked, and that victory is within reach.
This is my closing statement for this post.
by MG at 6:42 AM
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