Few Big Lies: Not Handling Iraq Truth
By Nat Parry
March 26, 2008

With the Iraq War entering its sixth year and the U.S. death toll now surpassing 4,000, it has become fashionable – and rather convenient – to claim that no one prior to the invasion five years ago could have foreseen what a bloody disaster the war would turn out to be.

Typical is a recent article by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter John Burns, published in the New York Times a few days before the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion.

“Back in 2003,” he wrote, “only the most prescient could have guessed that … the toll would include tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed, as well as nearly 4,000 American troops.”

Burns goes on to marvel over the fact that there are now “a million or more Iraqis living as refugees in neighboring Arab countries,” suggesting that this too, was utterly unpredictable.

But while it may now be conventional wisdom to claim that the war’s bloody and tragic toll was unforeseen, it is not, in fact, true.
In the months leading up to the invasion, independent journalists and international organizations tried to highlight the potential human costs, while tens of millions of ordinary people marched in cities across the world in a desperate attempt to stop the war before it started.

Central to the pleas for peace was the argument that any attack on Iraq would necessarily involve needless deaths of Iraqi civilians and that the Bush administration’s primary argument for invading – Iraq’s alleged possession of WMD – was unsubstantiated and possibly unfounded.

International organizations and well-respected NGOs also highlighted the likely human costs of a war, including its inevitable civilian casualties and the potential displacement of countless Iraqis.

Warnings Ignored

Continued at the link.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/Print/2008/032608b.html

It’s a Number
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Columnist
Excerpts from..

You can always hear the people who are willing to sacrifice somebody else’s life. They’re plenty loud and they talk all the time. You can find them in churches and schools and newspapers and legislatures and congress. That’s their business. They sound wonderful. Death before dishonor. This ground sanctified by blood. These men who died so gloriously. They shall not have died in vain. Our noble dead. Hmmmm. But what do the dead say?
- Dalton Trumbo, “Johnny Got His Gun”

White House press secretary Tony Snow, the third man to hold that post in the Bush administration since 2001, began the June 15, 2006, noon press briefing with a few prepared remarks before opening the floor to questions from the assembled crowd of reporters. The first to speak noted, “American deaths in Iraq have reached 2,500,” before asking, “Is there any response or reaction from the president on that?”

“It’s a number,” replied Snow, “and every time there’s one of these 500 benchmarks people want something.”

As of that June day in 2006, the number of American soldiers killed in Iraq had reached “one of these 500 benchmarks” for a fifth time since the 2003 invasion. Snow’s unabashed dismissal of the grim reality that number represented was as vile as it was predictable, a perfect illustration of the administration’s cold indifference and demented priorities. It’s a number. It’s a benchmark. People want something. Next question.

On Monday, that benchmark was reached for an eighth time. Four US soldiers were killed late Sunday when their vehicle was bombed in south Baghdad, bringing the total number of American troops lost in Iraq to 4,000. It’s a number. It’s a benchmark. People want something. Next question.

“The Surge” was going to lead us out of Iraq, at first, kinda, until “The Surge” became the main argument for why we had to stay in Iraq for now, until a date to be determined later, or maybe not for another hundred years, give or take, according to a war hero who survived unimaginable torture so he could become the GOP’s presidential standard-bearer and be for the torture of anyone, anywhere, under any circumstances and in the name of America, before he was against it, as far as anyone knows, or something.

“The Surge” was keeping American soldiers safe, sort of, except for those four American soldiers who died on Monday, except for those 600 American soldiers who died during “The Surge,"…

Leave off the fact that a married couple and their three sons died when either a rocket or a mortar hit their central Baghdad home, that two people died and seven were wounded by mortars in central Baghdad, that another person died in an attack in eastern Baghdad, that six dead bodies were discovered all across Baghdad, that four Iraqi soldiers were killed while on patrol near Kirkuk, that gunmen killed a police lieutenant and wounded two other police officers in central Baquba, that a suicide car bomber killed six or more people and wounded ten in northwestern Baghdad, that a suicide truck bomber attacked an Iraqi army base and killed 13 soldiers while wounding 42 others in Mosul, that a suicide car bomber killed one soldier and wounded eight others in Mosul, that gunmen killed seven people and wounded 16 others in southern Baghdad, that a roadside bomb wounded two people in central Baghdad, that a Katyusha rocket was fired into the Green Zone, killed five people and wounde d eight in eastern Baghdad, that gunmen murdered Colonel Akram Awad al-Omairi, commander of a rapid reaction unit outside his home in the town of Abu Saida, and that a suicide car bomb killed five people and wounded 11 north of Baghdad.

That was Sunday.

Entire piece here

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/032508A.shtml

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ina2FBFZkNM

Suicides and attempted suicides in the thousands. 

She was Army specialist Alyssa Peterson, 27, a Flagstaff, Az., native serving with C Company, 311th Military Intelligence BN, 101st Airborne.  Alyssa was an Arabic-speaking translator.  A beautiful well educated all American girl.  She died September 15th, 2003 from what the lying-pig Bush administration called a “non hostile weapons discharge.”

A local reporter from Alyssa’s community, Kevin Elston, smelled something very rotten so he filed a FOIA request trying to get the facts.

As it came out the good soul of Alyssa was too good for Bush’s profoundly evil rules of warfare.  She objected to the methods used to interrogate the people.  In fact she, as we all have been, was horrified by the techniques the Neocon psychopaths in the Bush administration required.  She thought the service to her country was honorable and dignified reflecting the best of our values.  She didn’t know the scum that would take over control of the government at the time she signed up.

Army spokespersons for her unit (called “The Cage) have refused to describe the interrogation techniques Alyssa objected to. They say all records of those techniques have now been destroyed(isn’t it illegal to destroy such records?)

About one third of the 103,788 veterans returning from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, according to a Time mag article circa march 2007, seen at Veterans Affairs facilities between September 30, 2001 and September 30, 2005 were diagnosed with mental illness or a psycho-social disorder, such as homelessness and marital problems, including domestic violence. More than half of those diagnosed, 56%, were suffering from more than one disorder. The most common combination was post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.

In January 2008 the U.S. Army reported that the rate of suicide among soldiers in 2007 was the highest since the Army started counting in 1980. There were 121 suicides in 2007, a 20% jump over the prior year. Also, there were around 2100 attempted suicides and self-injuries in 2007.  Many suicides occur after returning home which go uncounted.

I must first commend you on your spots on Countdown. Thanks for all You say (Same for Racheal and most the others who contribute greatly to the show- Except the Newsweek guy, can’t seem to shake the ‘conventional wisedom’ at times -defending Hillary’s Lies? “Misspoke’ My Ass- LYING!)
But I have been Put off by MSNBC on numerous occasions- the ‘Democratic’ Debates- False Advertising! And Not even Keith is able to hold the Can’s feet to the Fire about undue Corp interests and the Demand for Criminal Charges to be levied, in varying Sectors of our Society. Honestly I’ve come to find most Media to be PUSSIES!
Frontline’s “Bush’s War” should be the entire Media’s War Cry- It is for most of US. Which way do you ride Horseman? The Masses Are Your Bread & Butter. Choose Carefully!
Cave Adsum, my friend!