ABC World News (6/10/14) depicts the Iraq invasion as “America’s fight to bring peace and stability to this country.”
The invasion of the major Iraqi city of Mosul by the Sunni militant group ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) has US reporters recalling the Iraq War—and showing once again how they see that deadly conflict mostly through the prism of US sacrifice and suffering.
On ABC World News (6/10/14), Martha Raddatz declared that “Mosul was once a focal point of America’s fight to bring peace and stability to this country.” It is hard to imagine many Iraqis would think of the Iraq invasion as an effort to bring peace, but this is not a new approach for ABC. When militants seized control of Fallujah in January, ABC‘s Terry Moran spoke of “a decade of US-led war to plant democracy in Iraq” (Extra!, 2/14).
US soldier bringing “peace and stability” to Mosul (cc photo: DoD/Gregory Gieske)
Raddatz went on to talk about ab out how more than 200 Americans had “given their lives to secure this city,” and that Mosul “is just the latest city to spiral out of control after the US pulled out”—which might suggest that Iraqi cities were in fine shape when they were occupied by US troops.
Her report closed: “So 11 years after the US invaded Iraq—lost nearly 4,500 American lives and spent over $730 billion—Iraq is in crisis.”
Iraq is in crisis not in spite of the US war, but because of it. And it’s beyond perverse to frame the ongoing catastrophe in Iraq through the prism of US suffering, as if Iraqi lives are of secondary concern. According to the most comprehensive study (PLOS Medicine, 10/15/13), approximately half a million Iraqis lost their lives as a result of the Iraq War—a hundred times the number of Americans killed there.
Still, US news programs tended to focus on US deaths, ignoring or downplaying the much larger number of Iraqis killed in the war the US launched. As NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams (6/10/14) put it, “After all the American lives there were lost, all those who came home grievously wounded, Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, has now fallen under the control of an Al-Qaeda offshoot. ” And CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley told viewers (6/10/14), “Another major piece of what America fought for in Iraq was lost today.”
And here’s CNN host Wolf Blitzer (6/10/14):
This is heartbreaking. The United States spent 10 years there. We assumed that Iraq would emerge a peaceful, stable democracy after the hundreds of billions of dollars the US invested, the 4,500 US troops killed, tens of thousands who came home without arms or legs or burned, post-traumatic stress, and look at this disaster.
CNN suggested that the trouble in Mosul started when the US “left the Iraqis on their own.” (cc photo DoD/Jason Robertson)
Blitzer was interviewing Peter Brookes of the right-wing Heritage Foundation, who refused to concede that the war was a mistake because Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. “We didn’t know that at the time,” he told Blitzer—which of course depends on who “we” are. But it’s not as if Brookes thinks US government should avoid blame—just not the Bush administration: “The real blunder is when the Obama administration got out in 2009 and left the Iraqis on their own.”
Brookes goes on to reject arguments about starting the Iraq War based on hindsight, since it’s clearly not fair to re-assess Iraq based on what politicians know now about how the war would go. At one point, Brookes says that predictions are difficult—it’s “especially hard about the future, right?”
But right before the Iraq War started, it wasn’t so hard. In fact, Brookes told CNN (3/5/03) that the Iraq War was “going to last a couple of weeks.”
He was wrong, of course—but he’s still an Iraq expert in the corporate media.
Bush2 got Iraq its opportunity to join the free and democratic world, Hillary/Obama are going to spoil it.
*** Iraq is in crisis not in spite of the US war, but because of it. ***
Blamig the rise of ISIS on US-led Iraq invasion is too simplistic. You just can’t leave out the sectarian politics of al-Maliki his inability to share power. Things are more complex than we make them out to be. Read up on Human Rights Watch latest report on this crisis.
http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/06/12/iraq-isis-advance-threatens-civilians
Keep the bigger picture in mind, not just what suits your ideologies.
1. It’s a lot more than Mosul: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/06/11/world/middleeast/isis-control-map.html
2. Brookes perhaps is forgetting that Bush signed the withdrawal order?
Every time we get out of some country that we occupy we are told that the getting out is wrong.
Yet all the while we are there, we are told that the occupation is wrong.
I say to those of you who are always pointing the finger telling us how wrong we are. Fix your own problems.
Amen!! I wish our politicians would feel like this. Or go to war themselves…
Obama did the stupidest thing I ever saw from any president: Obama said he won’t put any of our troops in Iraq. Obama ought to be fired for that. We never do that. Obama told the enemy to take Iraq.
man, you really have a messed up country there … some of these comments could be used in a sociology class as examples of group psychosis … ‘the enemy’ says one comment .. WHAT enemy ? the rest of the world? … you invaded a foreign country ! .. because .. umm … who cares? … just as you did in Vietnam … for the same reason … attempted global hegemony ///// https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBdeCxJmcAo
What Debris said.
Just wondering: why this article left out the prediction Saddam made about what to expect if the US sent in the military. His forecast was correct IMO
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the cradle of civilization has been completely destroyed, by the two administrations, Bush2 destroyed Iraq under the banner of WMD , Obama is destroying Syria under the banner of peace . inaction to stop a genocide is as bad and destructive as a foolish unjust war. what benefit did we get ?
Throughout recent human history, empires like the British, used the mantra, “White Man’s Burden”, in order to justify their lust for other people’s resources and land. Iraq was created from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire by the British, for the British (they also created the smaller client state of Kuwait). The Bush Era Neocons knew exactly that by taking out the ruthless dictator Saddam Hussein, Iraqi’s would degenerate into a civil war between Sunni, Shiites, Kurds and others. This is precisely what the Neocons wanted. Remember that during the Iraq/Iran War It was Kissinger who said that it would be great if both nations would lose.
The world is living (and dying) from the consequences of the French (remember Vietnam?) and British Empires (don’t forget Nigeria). And the American People yet again blunder into endless wars.
This criminal enterprise inflicted on the hapless Iraqis by the neocons a virulent stain on the American people responslible for the murder of of one million Iraqi citizens destruction their country into the stone age RAPE,BUGGERY,TORTURE and with all the filth that comes with America`s presence.
Well, this rebellion stems from what Bradly Manning protested about, in vain, to be sure, as his supervisors reprimanded him for raising the point. I am talking about the Shia- dominated armed forces and their persecution, often deadly, of dissenters thoughout Iraq, but especially in the Sunni areas. That point has been under-reported, but its consequence, the current upheaval, is reported as a terrorist rampage than as what it truly is, and that is a stage in a sectarian civil war.
The media, it seems, are treating Saudi Arabia with the same kid gloves once once reserved for Israel, as it is Saudi money that finances the weaponry of this effective but stateless army, made up as it is of a few thousand fighters who have caused over 50,000 regular Iraqi soldiers to doff their uniforms in their wake. I think this happened because ISIS does have wide support among a large segment of the oppressed Sunni population. It’s as simple as the people of Fallujah being tired of being shot down or locked up by Al- Maliki’s Shia armies.
ISIS was our friend when it waged war against the Shia Alawites of Syria, led by Assad. Now, when ISIS takes on the Shia of Iraq, who are closely aligned with Iran (so is Assad), we cry foul, though the ISIS certainly followed the US game plan in Syrian, where we incubated and nurtured their fighting forces, with help from Turkey, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and any other Arab state that has made peace with Israel.
Groups like ISIS, which broke down the Gadafi regime, terrorize Iran, and are now occupying parts of Iraq, actually serve US interests by undercutting the viabilty of Arab nationalist states that, if united and functional, could serve as powers countervailing the agendas of the US, the gulf petro states, or Israel. Therefore, the US leaders silently hope for a dismemebred and federalist Iraq, something Biden wanted 7 years ago; a wrecked Syria and a Libya made up of fiefdoms run by local warlords further suits their fancy, as does an Iran weakened by emabragoes and financial sanctions. Then, the monarchical Gulf States can rule the roost, carrying out with impunity their own brand of anti-Shia policies and extreme forms of Sunni fundamentalism.
Israel thus remains weakly challenged, if at all, and the petro-states on the gulf can continue to pour their huge oil profits into US made weapons when they are not using those same stupendous profits to buy the US Treasury bills that finance our 18 Trillion Dollar debt.
To me, what’s even more depressing than Iraq treading ‘quick sand’, is the high degree of Bush/Cheney related alzhiemers, from many Americans, for how and why this country roils in leadership dysfunction and sectarian meltdown. I’m angered from knowing the thousands killed in Iraq, who joined the service for the right reasons – were tactically misinformed by their commander in chief, and died for nothing but a sinister, money making venture. The thousands maimed, will suffer from injuries for the rest of their lives – all for a “completely unnecessary war”. We brutally murdered hundreds of thousands of civilians with our weapons – that had no business being used against a country whom never acted against us with aggression. I’m fed up with all reference to “bringing them democracy and freedom”, when it is known – some cultures are not a fit for representative government. We knew this of Iraq. To all you goddamn idiots still sure it was all a great idea: your voting rights should be removed.
It’s true “we” – thew American poeple – didn’t know the truth about the lies the government made up and that the media amplified without investigation. That makes official primarily culpable, with reporters anxious to preserve access and therefor at the least complicit in the deceptions.
There is so much sanctimonious complete BS being spouted by the Hawks in the media and in Washington. Bush and Cheney started a bogus war on entirely false premises but we’re supposed to forget that because the US propaganda machine thinks we’re all brainless sheep, and if they keep repeating the lies we’ll believe them. Unfortunately, they’re right to a degree.
Americans would not be so called “suffered” if the war criminals in Washington had not have started this illegal war and occupation of Iraq. Iraq did NOTHING to the us. The government lied to the people and continue to do so with the help of corporate media. Why no report of the us training isis? Cut the BS. The us is guilty of war crimes …