Reports of Al-Qaeda linked fighters taking over the Iraqi city of Fallujah have prompted a lot of media coverage about the US sacrifice there. In the process, the history of the war is being dramatically rewritten.
ABC World News anchor Diane Sawyer (1/6/14) announced:
There is a worrying new sign that Al-Qaeda is on the March in two countries cracked by war. One of them Iraq, where so many brave American troops fought to create a future.
So that‘s what the Iraq War was about–creating a future? ABC correspondent Terry Moran continued that theme, explaining that “after a decade of US-led war to plant democracy in Iraq, much of Fallujah has now fallen to Al-Qaeda.”
So the war was a democracy-planting mission, and one that’s apparently gone awry. Moran went on:
Al-Qaeda’s takeover of Fallujah brings back bitter memories for Americans. It was here in 2004 that US Marines fought a ferocious, house-to-house battle against Iraqi insurgents. More than 100 Marines gave their lives to pacify the city and hundreds more were injured.
Fallujah in December 2004, after the second US assault (cc photo: Idaho Sagebrush)
As I’ve noted elsewhere (FAIR Blog, 1/6/14), this memory of Fallujah as a place where mostly Americans suffered does serious damage to the historical record. Fallujah was the site of two massive attacks by the US military, where an untold number of civilians–hundreds if not thousands–were killed. That record–which included the use of cluster bombs and white phosphorus chemicals–is not one media are keen to remember.
It’s not just ABC; Time magazine’s Aryn Baker (1/20/14) explained that it was Fallujah where
US forces redeemed the possibility of a peaceful Iraq, fighting house to house, up close and personal, in a costly but successful effort to clear the city of insurgents and make it safe for handover to Iraqi government forces.
So at the 10-year mark, some reporters recall Fallujah as a place where US forces “redeemed the possibility of peaceful Iraq,” and the Iraq War as a noble effort to “plant democracy.” It boggles the mind what they’ll be telling us about the Iraq War in 2024.
And Wounded Knee was a vital and valiant effort to combat “domestic terrorism” …
Might be because your recollection of the “facts” is nonsense. Were some civilians killed during the offensive sure. However every resident was provided ample time to leave Fallujah, those that stayed had ties to terrorists.
Nice try
Actually, Dan, fighting age men who tried to leave Fallujah were turned back, and in many cases, their wives and families stayed with them rather than desert them. I suppose they had ample time to leave Fallujah before the invasion of Iraq though, but I doubt that’s what you mean. Your argument makes no sense. Do you seriously think that the military would say: “Umm, yeah, we’re going to bomb this city to rubble, so if any insurgent wants to leave, feel free to do so.” Giving people advance warning would have defeated the purpose. Secondly, you have not a single shred of evidence that those that stayed had ties to terrorists. And what exactly is a tie to a terrorist? If, say, someone’s distant uncle is a terrorist, it’s a tie to a terrorist, but it has no bearing on how one lives their lives. Isn’t it contradictory to, on the one hand begrudgedly admit that civilians were killed there, and on the other, to say that those who stayed had ties to terrorists? Last but not least, your equating terrorist with insurgent is simply inaccurate: they are two categories with some overlap, but they are not one and the same.
So Dan, anyone who chose to stay in their home’s in Fallujah had “ties” to terrorists. They didn’t stay for other reasons, like protectign their possessions or to look after neighbors or that they had family members too old/young to move?
Must be nice living in your world. No thinking required.
Hey Dan to me thinking out of the box isn’t a bad thing.
So these Iraq patriots protecting their home land aka terrorist to dan, gave their lives to protect what they had!
Just like we would do if China/Russia would come to our home land and you didn’t just go to the concentration camp which is doubtful with your previous comments you’d be the first one there.
Think it’s not that hard.
The American soldiers just following orders where the real terrorist here;(
Sad I know but the bloods on our hands and if we don’t own it we repeat the mistakes over and over.
Dan,”The US soldiers fought bravely and admirably trying to insure that Afgani’s could keep their democracy, something they lost when mooslim terrorists over ran their country and enslaved their men and women.”. Are you serious? When did they have anything resembling a democracy? Facts please. When were they overrun by foreign “mooslim” terrorists and where did these “mooselims” come from? Why didn’t or couldn’t the afghan’s defend their own country from these “mooslims”?
And all this time I thought it was all about yellowcake. Well, that and a great no bid contract for the VP’s company.
The depleted uranium in the American weaponry so poisoned the ground that women in the area are warned not to ever have children. It will be like that for thousands of years into the future. Thank you America.
I recall Fallujah as a city destroyed in revenge for the killing and public display of the bodies of four Blackwater USA mercenaries. The killing of the mercenaries was itself in revenge for the assassination of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. All this is much too complicated for U.S. mainstream media who have to simplify matters so that all U.S. motivations appear good and all motivations of U.S. enemies appear bad. Truth has to be suppressed.when it conflicts with a useful image.
I think it would be interesting to trace the earliest commentary of the variety we have here: Iraqis, like a battered wife, are simply ingrates, having no appreciation for all that “we” sacrificed and did for them. My recollection is that by about 2005 the first such murmurs were being heard among the hawks, but I don’t have the citations collected.
Not sure which planet Dan lives on, but I suspect that Sparky the Penguin would be able to classify it. Too bad, trolls should be guarding their bridge, not out running around loose.
Donald Runsfeld stated , during an interview with NPR’s MarketPlace that :”He says President Bush’s decision to enter Iraq is “something that over time will be better understood.”
We would like to know like , now!
http://www.marketplace.org/topics/economy/big-book/three-life-rules-donald-rumsfeld
Senator McCain during a recent visit to Afghanistan -or rather to the US embassy in Kabul, which US politicians increasinlgy seem to mistake for the real thing- warned against the consequences of Karzai not signing the treacherous Bilateral Security Agreement:
“We don’t want to see a repeat of what happened in Iraq where we won the war but lost the peace because of a complete withdrawal.”
http://www.afghanistantimes.af/news_details.php?id=5106&&cid=1
Let’s set the record straight for Dan. Prior to 2003 there was no such thing as “Al-Qaida in Iraq”. Al-Qaida did not enter the picture as an organized entity until we invaded. Saddam Hussein hated Al-Qaida. They were a threat to his dictatorship. Early on the troops were fighting locals. In WW II they were called partisans. The Congress made a huge mistake by giving bush the authority to start that war. As a matter of political fact, like it or not, Hussein was a buffer against Iran. Go figure.
According to one commentator who visits Iraq every few years, it is not al-Qaeda that is trying to take over Fallujah, but Sunni rebels responding to Pres. Malaki’s attempt to marginalize Sunnis. As in other places in the Middle East and North Africa where the U.S. has intervened, we have destabilized the existing order without putting anything in its place. Power is up for grabs in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya. In Egypt our longtime ally, Mubarak, fell, but a military coup cut short the “Arab Spring”, and its brief experiment with democratic elections.
Ha ha dan, you’re a funny guy. “The Talban and Al Quada invaded Afghanistan and were foreign fighters who came there to establish an Islamic state.” Er no. The Taliban are Afghan through and through and were the government of Afghanistan before the US invasion. Not foreign at all. As for Al Qaeda, they were sent into Afghanistan by the USA in collaboration with the Saudi government in order to rid the country of the Russians back in the 70s. As for your line about cocaine production, this really shows your ignorance. They grow opium in Afghanistan. Cocaine comes from South America. Maybe time you paid attention to some facts.
Dan is delusional and ignorant, as unfortunately are so many of our co-citizens. In their defense, our corporate news media make every effort to keep them so.
I’m sorry to have to say that Dan is ignorant and delusional, as are so many of his co-citizens. But in their defense, this is what the corporate media intends them to be.
Why did the Bush administration invade Iraq?
After it became apparent that the Bush administration was preparing to attack Iraq, We decided to research the hawks promoting the invasion of Iraq. At this point we were interested in uncovering the motivation since it was obvious that any threat that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq posed to the United States was clearly exaggerated to the point of deception. In 1981 Israeli destroyed Saddam Hussein’s nuclear plant at Osiraq and the Americans again obliterated the site in 1991. In 1998, the IAEA concluded: “There were no indications that there remains in Iraq any physical capability for the production of amounts of weapons-usable nuclear material of any practical significance.”
http://www.iaea.org.worldatomProgrammesActionTeamnwp2.html#weapon (link should still be good after all these years)
In researching the hawks promoting the invasion of Iraq, we found a policy paper written by Richard Perle et al for the state of Israel in 1996: (A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm): http://www.israeleconomy.org/strat1.htm (link still good)
“This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right —
as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions.”
And in 1998 Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, and notably Donald Rumsfeld (and others) wrote a letter to then President Bill Clinton calling on him to remove “…. Saddam Hussein’s regime from power.”
http://newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm
What is especially significant is the fact that the people who signed this letter back in 1998 entered the Bush administration after the presidential “election” of 2000.
After the terror and confusion of 9/11 in 2001 (which had nothing to do with Iraq), they were able to implement their planned invasion of Iraq using the deception of WMD’s and non-existent links between Iraq and al-Qa’ida.
And in the last past 5 years since 9/11, the evidence, the facts, all support the conclusion that Jane’s Intelligence Digest hints at in the following report: http://www.janes.com/regional_news_africa_middle_east/news/fr/fr030416_1_n.shtml (link taken down)
“All of this lends weight to the theory that Bush’s war is part of a
master plan to reshape the Middle East to serve Israel’s interests.”
Iran is next.
Someday the Iraq war will be understood as another monstrous exercise in U.S politcal and military industrial complex corruption. If it weren’t for media assets of intelligence agencies – the hideous lawyers of war would be out of business.
Mateen it speaks volumes that you are unaware of the removal of yellow cake from Iraq. Just to help you out MSNBC isn’t a news cahnnel
Iraq and Afghanistan were/are shameful reminders of foreign adventures for the korporati to get their hands on the valuable resources of these countries: oil in Iraq and lithium in Afghanistan. There was never any intention to bring ‘democracy’ to the people. That was just part of the propaganda used on us, the citizens, to cajole us into believing that we were the good guys. What a crock! The corporate media is never going to tell the truth about this, because the corporate media is under the thumb of about five corporations. It is up to each citizen to do his/her own research to try and determine why these foreign adventures happen and why they will continue; i.e., Syria and Iran.
“Al-Qaeda linked” is a CIA lie.
Actually, the yellowcake story was a hoax.
Opium comes from that part of the world and cocaine comes from South America.
Dan: Every nation that is invaded by a hostile nation has the right to fight off its invaders, no matter who they are. “those that stayed had ties to terrorists.” Really! Answer me this, at what point is a man allowed to fight, and not be called a terrorist? Is it that one is only a terrorist if fighting against US troops? And whose the terrorist here, the man defending his home against invaders or the man who travels 3,000 miles to attack the first man’s home?
Dan: When you violently penetrate a country and set up shop there, you are a conqueror. Don’t be delusional about the whole “freeing” people BS. A conqueror, is a conqueror, is a conqueror, it doesn’t matter how you slice it, or what your “noble” intentions were. Beside, the US has a consistent trend in propping up more dictators then it does democratic leaders. Saddam was “our boy” until we through him under the bus.
They stayed because its their country, their home. We went there for one thing..by hook or by crook, by lied and deceive.. get the country wealth. Let just put aside imposing our beliefs, our so call Freedom, our so call Democracy.
Dan, the problem with you is that you took some but not the least CNN, BBC and even Al Jazeera, those controlled government media as gospel truth. You been seeing too much Hollywood war movies.
“dan” is the new (if not the same) “michael e:” a bone-headed idiot and a troll. It is not, has never been, nor will ever be worthwhile to engage “him.” Remember Rule #14 of teh interwebz: Do not feed the trolls, it only encourages them.
AFTER the war a huge effort was made to teach the people to vote for their own leadership.The fall of this area is a setback for that effort.
The war against Japan and Germany was not fought to implant Democracy.Yet……..
To one who reads…..As usual(for a lib) you are asking for less discussion.Especially with anyone who disagrees with you lot.Obama care is a good example/Their is a certain lib talk show host.We talked a year ago and I laid out how i thought Obama care would fail.So far im dead on.When i saw her this week she said…I dont want to talk to you and ran for the hills.So cute little saying like “dont feed the trolls” may sound to your ears like your seeing t as a waste of time.The truth is you want no other sides of the coin.
The answer is simple. OIL. Saddam Hussein switched the oil currency of Iraq to Eurodollars to free himself of the debt yoke of the Federal Reserve and the stranglehold it has on global currency. He was warned like the Taliban who refused to have their country dug up for gas pipelines from the Caspian Basin, the world most abundant supply of natural gas. Not to mention their opium crop which has been increased multifold since they went in.
So they conspired against us and drew up a cunning plot called PNAC: Project For A New American Century. They assembled a roadmap of all the countries they would invade to control their resources and strangulate their currencies by imposing the petro dollar scheme upon them whereby the banksters in Wall Street and Westminster would literally make a killing in billion/trillions $$$ of blood for oil war profits that would ultimately be used in the creation of a New World Order. The world govt that Jesus Christ prophesied in the Bible. Only absent was some catastrophic and catalysing event that would be used to sponsor endless wars for profit and control of the economy of earth.
Their ultimate goal is to bring their Messiach g-d, the Antichrist to power who will reign from Israel which is why the Christian Churches are all duped into praying for Israel, ‘God’s people’, but its all a big lie.
The corporate masons infiltrated the churches moons ago teaching the false doctrine of Pre tribulation Rapture, a 19th century John Darby /Cyrus Scofield doctrine. Israel at any cost.
911 WAS AN INSIDE JOB!
“For i shall send them strong delusion, that they too will believe the lie’.
2 Thess. 2:11
As the police state tightens its grip on America those that resist, even non-violent resistance, will be labeled as “terrorists”.
Case in point: “How the US Turned Three Pacifists into Violent Terrorists”
https://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/05/15-7
u guys need jesus
I don’t know why our former President invaded Iraq! No intelligence has ever been released that says Iraq or anyone directly from Iraq participated in the terrorist attacks of 9/11. The intelligence seemed to say the enemy was in Afghanistan and Pakistan and where the enemy was is where we should have gone. We were attacked and if you don’t think a powerful self defense response was necessary please pull your head out of the sand and stop living in your far left Lilly White World! But as for Iraq I just don’t understand that invasion or war. Barring information that states otherwise I can’t see what was achieved there. I won’t call our former President horrible names like some have because quite frankly it was a horrible time for our nation and everyone Muslim looked like an enemy during that time. As for President Bush ever admitting he made a mistake please get real! How many Presidents ever admit they made a mistake? As for the horrors of war please get off your high horse. Our troops were in harms way against an enemy that hid behind their women and children. Civilians die in war it’s horrible it’s tragic but it’s war. Again stop living in you’re Lilly White World. I’m a Democrat but a conservative one and yes they do exist. I disagreed with Bush but I respect the office and always will. With our current information there is no doubt Iraq was a strategic mistake for George W. Bush. It destabilized that region and emboldened Iran. The mistake cost over three thousand American lives and even greater numbers of Iraqi lives. That is something the former President will have to live with. But I don’t believe he was malice just over his head at a time when the enemy was not completely known. Good Day.
Also those who said we invaded Iraq for oil please shut up! We got not one single drop of oil from Iraq. Jesus! In fact most our oil comes from Canada and with our own oil boom we increasingly get oil from right hear at home. Yea research it before you open your mouth. I Iraq was George W. Bush’s mistake but why that mistake was made is unclear and might remain that way. But it certainly was not for oil. Good Day.
This only confirmed what I believed just doing my due diligence t.y Americans r so dumbed down if it on the idiot box it must be true what a shame where’s the curiosity every govt.news station same new on all almost word4word that should be a clue to investigate
Just checking to be sure my belief is correct top&mid level govt. Plus the decision makers conveniently absent that day military officers need to be charged with high treason they will certainly find their special place in hell for sending America’s young patriots into a war simply put designed to bring trillions$ to their hidden or not to military Ind.complex and their own hidden accounts pent explosion conveniently hits exactly where all evidence ..computers having info about missing trillions$ t word twice in one post evidence on missing defence dept.dollars gone where is any wreckage of a planes all crashes I have seen their is luggage everywhere this story is simply genocide crimes against humanity still can’t find out how all 3bldgs turned to dust as a concrete mason I’m stumped email me an answer