Truemors
An excellent article by Antony Loewenstein on the state of the Iraq war at this point in time. It is important to note that Loewenstein makes a clear distinction between "real journalism" and "Green Zone reporting". I think it is safe to say that most of us have been dished up a variety of "Green Zone reporting". It is this type of reporting that may have given us an unreal picture of the Iraq war.
Antony Loewenstein is a Sydney-based freelance journalist, author and blogger. He has written for the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Haaretz, The Australian, The Guardian, Sydney’s Sun-Herald, The Bulletin, The Washington Post, The Big Issue, Crikey, Znet, Counterpunch and others. Melbourne University Publishing published his book on the Israel/Palestine conflict, My Israel Question
(2006), which was short-listed for the 2007 NSW Premier’s Literary
Award. It is now re-released in an updated edition. His website is antonyloewenstein.com.
How delightful it must be to walk in Bolt’s shoes. A shameless booster of the Iraq War, tireless defender of George W Bush and his policies, and brave fighter against Islamofascism, the Murdoch columnist was recently as excited as a cadet — confident that the ‘surge’ had finally vindicated the War Party’s tactics.For a man who’s spent a few hours in Baghdad’s Green Zone with Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and who’s seen first hand the brilliance of US military strategy, Washington’s approved spin was terribly comforting. The price has been worth it, after all. The estimated million civilian deaths since 2003, four million refugees dispersed across the Middle East and the nearly one million internal refugees could be ignored. American ‘prestige’ was intact.
But Bolt is an irrelevance. The reality on the ground makes his ignorant pronouncements obscene. Iraq, even as a barely functioning entity, no longer exists. Whole communities are being ethnically cleansed. Sunni and Shi’ite death squads — supported variously by the US, Iran and a host of other nations — have recognised the most important fact of all: that America no longer controls the situation, its power drained after years of inept planning and criminal negligence.
Ironically, US defeat in Iraq, already a foregone conclusion by the beginning of 2004, has resulted in a Middle East that can finally release itself from decades of divide-and-conquer rule.
Image: newmatilda.com
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