Sunday, Jul 26th
Last update08:23:18 AM GMT
War Glance
All governments lie in wartime but American and British propaganda in Iraq over the past five years has been more untruthful than in any conflict since the First World War.
Often it is difficult to know where the self-deception ends and the deliberate mendacity begins.
The most notorious lie of all was that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. But critics of the war may have focused too much on WMD and not enough on later distortions.
At least two Iraqi families of victims killed by Blackwater security guards in September tell ABC News they have refused compensation offered by the company.
Officials familiar with the case told ABCNews.com last month that Blackwater had resisted U.S. government demands that the company pay at least $100,000 per death, claiming the U.S. government itself hasn't paid that much in similar situations.
TVNL Comment: Resisted demands? What happened to following orders? It is a war zone, isn't it? Don't they work for the government? How the hell do we let this madness continue?
The Americans learned one lesson from Vietnam: don't count the civilian dead. As a result, no one knows how many Iraqis have been killed in the five years since the invasion. Estimates put the toll at between 100,000 and one million, and now a bitter war of numbers is raging.
Lieutenant General Tommy Franks, who led the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan during his time as head of US Central Command, once announced, "We don't do body counts."
Iraq’s “Day of Liberation” – as George W. Bush called it – was supposed to begin with a bombardment consisting of 3,000 U.S. missiles delivered over 48 hours, 10 times the number of bombs dropped during the first two days of the Persian Gulf War in 1991.
It is impossible to keep up with all the Bush regime’s lies. There are simply too many. Among the recent crop, one of the biggest is that the "surge" is working.
The real purpose of the "surge" was to hide another deception. The Bush regime is paying Sunni insurgents $800,000 a day not to attack US forces. That’s right, 80,000 members of an "Awakening group," the "Sons of Iraq," a newly formed "US-allied security force" consisting of Sunni insurgents, are being paid $10 a day each not to attack US troops. Allegedly, the Sons of Iraq are now at work fighting al Qaeda.
Some of the 3,200 U.S. Marines slated for a seven-month deployment to Afghanistan's volatile south have begun arriving at the region's largest base following a call from Canada for more troops there.
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney on Monday declared the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq a "successful endeavour" in a visit to Iraq that was overshadowed by a suicide bombing that killed at least 25 people.
"If you look back on those five years it has been a difficult, challenging but nonetheless successful endeavour ... and it has been well worth the effort," Cheney told a news conference in Baghdad after meeting Iraqi leaders.
TVNL Comment: For Cheny, this is a success. Disaster was the plan. Stealing Iraq's oil was the plan. Creating a situation where the US was forced into spending it's wealth to enrich Cheney's friends in the defense industry was the plan. Invading Iraq has been a success for the people who live on war. It is a success for Cheney.
Page 122 of 124
