Today is the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. We all know the toll, in human and material ways, has been horrendous.
Overnight, George W declared that there had been "significant gains" in war-torn Iraq, things were on track to victory and that he had "no regrets" for the War. See the NY Times report here. Mmm!
All too sadly the whole Iraq fiasco is based on a raft of lies - as Middle Eastern expert Juan Cole points out so clearly in this piece in Salon:
"Each year of George W. Bush's war in Iraq has been represented by a thematic falsehood. That Iraq is now calm or more stable is only the latest in a series of such whoppers, which the mainstream press eagerly repeats. The fifth anniversary of Bush's invasion of Iraq will be the last he presides over. Sen. John McCain, in turn, has now taken to dangling the bait of total victory before the American public, and some opinion polls suggest that Americans are swallowing it, hook, line and sinker.
The most famous falsehoods connected to the war were those deployed by the president and his close advisors to justify the invasion. But each of the subsequent years since U.S. troops barreled toward Baghdad in March 2003 has been marked by propaganda campaigns just as mendacious. Here are five big lies from the Bush administration that have shaped perceptions of the Iraq war."
Read those 5 lies here. Meanwhile, Patrick Coburn over at The Independent comes at the topic with much the same thinking as Juan Cole:
"It has been a war of lies from the start. All governments lie in wartime but American and British propaganda in Iraq over the past five years has been more untruthful than in any conflict since the First World War.
The outcome has been an official picture of Iraq akin to fantasy and an inability to learn from mistakes because of a refusal to admit that any occurred. Yet the war began with just such a mistake. Five years ago, on the evening of 19 March 2003, President George Bush appeared on American television to say that military action had started against Iraq."
Overnight, George W declared that there had been "significant gains" in war-torn Iraq, things were on track to victory and that he had "no regrets" for the War. See the NY Times report here. Mmm!
All too sadly the whole Iraq fiasco is based on a raft of lies - as Middle Eastern expert Juan Cole points out so clearly in this piece in Salon:
"Each year of George W. Bush's war in Iraq has been represented by a thematic falsehood. That Iraq is now calm or more stable is only the latest in a series of such whoppers, which the mainstream press eagerly repeats. The fifth anniversary of Bush's invasion of Iraq will be the last he presides over. Sen. John McCain, in turn, has now taken to dangling the bait of total victory before the American public, and some opinion polls suggest that Americans are swallowing it, hook, line and sinker.
The most famous falsehoods connected to the war were those deployed by the president and his close advisors to justify the invasion. But each of the subsequent years since U.S. troops barreled toward Baghdad in March 2003 has been marked by propaganda campaigns just as mendacious. Here are five big lies from the Bush administration that have shaped perceptions of the Iraq war."
Read those 5 lies here. Meanwhile, Patrick Coburn over at The Independent comes at the topic with much the same thinking as Juan Cole:
"It has been a war of lies from the start. All governments lie in wartime but American and British propaganda in Iraq over the past five years has been more untruthful than in any conflict since the First World War.
The outcome has been an official picture of Iraq akin to fantasy and an inability to learn from mistakes because of a refusal to admit that any occurred. Yet the war began with just such a mistake. Five years ago, on the evening of 19 March 2003, President George Bush appeared on American television to say that military action had started against Iraq."
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