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Banned
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Sometimes, when I consider how much of an extremist you actually have to be to have anything invested in the "belief" that the US mainstream news media has a "liberal bias", my head feels like it is going to explode.
The disconnect demonstrated by believing and saying such a thing....the US news media is "too liberal"..... when squared with reality, is truly mind blowing:
Quote:
http://blogsforjohnmccain.com/mccain...petraeus-video
Here is Sen. John McCain on March 24, 2008 asking when Sen. Hillary Clinton will apologize to Gen. David Petraeus for her remarks last year ridiculing the idea that "The Surge" strategy in Iraq was working. McCain also said both Clinton and Obama are advocating a policy of "disaster and defeat" in Iraq.
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Quote:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwa...nts/index.html
....So when Charlie Rose arranges a five-year anniversary discussion of Iraq purportedly <h3>involving American foreign policy experts on "both sides," it completely excludes any Americans who unequivocally opposed the war in the first place -- i.e., it completely excludes those who were right and offers only those who were wrong.</h3> As always, unadorned war opposition is mutually exclusive with Foreign Policy Seriousness, and those who are unequivocal in their opposition to the underlying premises of the war (rather than its tactical execution) are almost never heard from in media discussions -- still.
Critically, then -- and just as one would expect -- there was virtual unanimity among Rose's American foreign policy experts on the question of whether we should set timetables for withdrawal -- the central political question on the war. Despite the fact that unconditional withdrawal happens to be the position of both Democratic presidential nominees and the vast majority of the American public (see this superb new report documenting that fact, by Ruy Teixeira (.pdf)), the entire panel -- war lovers and "war critics" alike -- agreed that timed, unconditional withdrawal is a bad idea....
...I'm not making an anti-Packer point here. Rather, I'm pointing out that there are numerous experts who opposed the Iraq War from the start -- presciently so -- yet who are virtually always excluded from our establishment media's discussions of the Iraq War and foreign policy generally.
<h3>The political and media establishment recognizes only two categories of Serious Foreign Policy "Experts":</h3>
(a) those (like Perle, Kagan and John McCain) who supported the war from the start and still do (the "pro-war" experts), and
(b) those (like Gelb, Packer and O'Hanlon) who, in one way or another, supported the war from the start and then came to criticize its prosecution (the "war critic" experts).
But individuals such as the 33 anti-war scholars who signed that ad, and most other political and academic figures who unequivocally opposed the war from the start, simply don't exist.<h3> That's what makes the current Iraq "debate" almost as stilted and one-sided -- and destructive -- as the pre-invasion "debate" itself was.</h3>
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Quote:
http://namhenderson.wordpress.com/20...-rose-3192008/
Real Iraqis Speak-Ali Fadhil, Sinan Antoon on Charlie Rose 3/19/2008
Published March 21, 2008 Poltical
One of the best segments charlie has had in a while. Mainly because in it he gave the opportunity for both of these Iraqis to speak about the real problems facing the country. They were clear that the key fundamental problem is the fact that we are viewed as an occupying force. They both said we should leave immdeiately. Oru presence is only prolonging the inevitable, with regards to Iraqi’s having to face and confront their own problems.
......ROSE: And obviously, what we want to accomplish on this fifth anniversary of the American invasion, or the coalition invasion of Iraq, is how they see it as Iraqis, five years later.
Give me an assessment.
ALI FADHIL: That's a big question, assessment. Well, basically, probably, I`ll kind of sum it in a few words.
<h3>It's -- we have a country where the government is not functioning after five years.</h3> We have too many internal problems. And we have the violence increasing day after day.
We have a huge crisis of refugees inside and outside Iraq. We have a total failure of the -- of the civilian -- the civilian structure and what's happening inside. We have the sectarian divisions increasing. We didn't have that before. Now we have it.
So, basically, my assessment is we have a whole nation called Iraq, now it's wiped out.
CHARLIE ROSE: And Iraq is worse off because the United States came?
ALI FADHIL: <h3>It's worse off because the United States came to Iraq, definitely, and because the United States did all these mistakes in Iraq.</h3>
And:
CHARLIE ROSE: So where do we go from here? Five years after the invasion of Iraq, what is a wise American policy?
ALI FADHIL: Let me start with telling you what is happening right now, what is the American policy right now in Iraq.
It's so shame to say that America is in Iraq right now, and particularly the State Department and also the Pentagon as well, the U.S. Army in Iraq. <h3>They're going back to Saddam's policies in everything. . . . If you, you know, name it, name the most successful project of the surge -- outcome of the surge, the (INAUDIBLE) councils. You know, these insurgents, the Sunnis, even Shiites.
CHARLIE ROSE: The so-called awakening.
ALI FADHIL: Awakening council, exactly. They're giving them money to protect their own neighborhoods. Isn't that the same what happened under Saddam? . . .</h3>
Anything [Americans] do -- probably even in good intentions -- is bad for us, everything they do, everything. There's nothing they're doing is right.
<h3>And that's what is going to happen. It's just prolonging the diaspora of the Iraqis.</h3> We're suffering more and more every day. We need, you know, to start the salvation (ph). . .
SINAN ANTOON: The president today said something really obscene to my mind. He said Iraq is witnessing the first Arab uprising against al Qaeda.
<h3>We did not have al Qaeda in Iraq before.</h3>We had a ruthless dictatorship.
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Here is more, from the same interview:
http://utdocuments.blogspot.com/2008...an-antoon.html
Last edited by host; 03-26-2008 at 08:05 AM..
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