Hey brother. You are wasting your breath. He has already admitted to being fine with living in ignorance.

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Someone hijacked my sig again.

Anikdote seems to forget that Big Red asked him to provide proof that the majority of Iraqis felt the invasion was a good thing. I and others already provided many links to many polls that show overwhelmingly that the majority of Iraqis are against the invasion and occupation.

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America's Enemies Are Not Mine

All wars represent a failure of diplomacy

“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” - Stephen Roberts.

I of course, enjoy the nourshiment of factual information and not propaganda, rhetoric or just plain ridiculous nonsense. But that is just me.

http://abcnews.go.com/images/US/1043...hingsStand.pdf

I don't doubt that there are Iraqis that love our occupation. Of course.

I don't think that is going to happen, but nonetheless, no my convictions will not change.

[/quote]
From the beginning of this segment of the discussion, you (just like most people that debate me on here) seem to have this idea of what to expect for whatever reason. I care about your opinion as much as it takes to understand and respond to it. In some instances, I can respect an opinion. It doesn't mean I'm going to dismiss it though just because it differs from mine.

Tony Blair is a moron like Bush. I don't trust the government. I don't trust any government. I don't care what their talking heads have to say. They are politicians and politicians suck. Not all, but most.

Agreed there...

Yes, I second Big Red's sentiments. The thing is that from my experience of this site, most people will cite something from Fox, the BBC, CNN etc with regards to Iraq for example, and then falsely assume this to be fact. The reality is that journalists who report on the war who are employed by these organisations, are restricted by what they can actually report mainly for logistical reasons. So for instance, the said journalists will invariably report from behind the heavily fortified 'Green Zone' in Baghdad. Moreover, they also collate second and third hand information (propaganda) originally sourced from the Pentagon.

So what we read in the mainstream newspapers and hear on our tv news broadcasts is a distorted and biased outlook of the Iraq conflict, viewed from the perspective of US/Western power. Some people on this site then reproduce this US/Western propaganda as a means to bolster their spurious arguments. The notion that Fox, the BBC etc, under these circumstances, are in the position of producing balanced reportage is quite simply farcial. What is in fact reported then are effectively 'our' perspectives on the Iraqi conflict from the mouths and pens of 'embedded' journalists as if they were observing a sequence of events through a one way mirror.

----they went into an Iraqi wedding celebration and killed 35 people attending the wedding party.

What a bunch of yellow-bellied cowards----targeting and murdering innocent people, just as they did on 9/11.


"Double suicide attack on wedding party kills 35 in Iraq
By SELCAN HACAOGLU, Associated Press Writer
Thu May 1, 4:38 PM ET


BAGHDAD - Two suicide bombers attacked a wedding caravan Thursday as it drove through a crowded market district past bystanders cheering the bride and groom, killing at least 35 people and wounding 65 in a town northeast of Baghdad, officials said.

In the capital, a bomb-rigged parked car exploded when a U.S. patrol went by in a crowded area earlier in the day, leaving a U.S. soldier and at least nine Iraqis dead. The attack also wounded 26 Iraqis and two American soldiers."

Is there no end to the number of people they find who are willing to blow themselves up in their cowardly acts?


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080501/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

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"This is a time for a national imperative not to fail in Iraq." Condoleeza Rice, January 11, 2007

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The woman in my avatar is Cristina Scabbia and the woman in my profile picture is Tarja Turunen
Sun flames and moons glow, timeless the tides will flow, what will I face, what will be mine, fortune and fate the other side...

Post of the week:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Inferno You just don't relate to my sense of humor. How about this. Gosh darn funny man living in a whale. doncha know that gawd could do that I betcha he could. wink wink.

clearly, the media's reporting of this war will not be seen by historians as even or incisive; most journalists - at least the ones we hear from - are still embedded within the American military structure
however, your post above, does not identify another medium from which many Americans are still able to extract real information about what is going on: our troops themselves. here is an excerpt from a recent e-mail which gives some feel for the current state of affairs from a soldier's perspective:
it is recognized that our forum has the benefit of the first-hand experiences of some GI's who have served recently or are in the region now. the distinction i make is that the comments in the conversational e-mails home are not sent with the purpose to convince us of any argument as may be the case with the observations offered up by some of our forumites
this site provides us with a variety of accounts, which variety is lacking in our typical media reporting. i do think sifting thru the range of posts, from some who offer little more than cartoons from right wing rags, to the other extreme who serve up anti-war rhetoric from left wing sources, allows us to flesh out the situation in a way the standard media alone would not permit

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“Mayor Palin fails to have a firm grasp of something very simple: the truth.”

[Frontiersman editorial, 2/7/97]

Yeah, I appreciate your sentiment about the value of a site like this. However, implicit in your argument is the notion that somehow individual testimonies, however welcome they may be, can someway offset the institutional and deep rooted bias inherent within the mainstream corporate media. The media sells war to us as though they were reporting in an impartial and objective way. Indeed, I would say that most 'professional' journalists who work for an organisation like the BBC sincerely and honestly believe that they report objectively to the best of their ability.

But the problem is that they are often unaware that they are essentially reporting from the perspective of official power and as such have little conception that they remain tied to an ideological leash. The end result is that the vast majority of journalists are unaware that they are being reined in by this power. Of course there are exceptions to the rule - John Pilger and Dahr Jamail - are examples of two such journalists. Both Glasgow and Cardiff Universities have undertaken in-depth studies in the field of media bias in the reportage of war. Professor Greg Philo and his colleagues at the former university dispelled the myth that the BBC, for example, reports wars with a 'left wing bias'. On the contrary, their analysis showed that of all news broadcasters, the BBCs reporting of the Iraq conflict was the least critical, including Fox News. The writer David Cromwell and his colleagues at www.medialens.org also critique corporate media output more generally and their results are startling.

The simple truth having said all that, is that war journalists can only report on the unit they are with. They see what the unit sees, and limit themselves to what the military decides they will see. In many instances they sign forms granting the military the right to censor their work. It is impossible for such 'embedded' journalists to report accurately on how Iraqi's for example, are being affected by the occupation. Independent journalists on the other hand, who are free from these constraints, are able to focus instead in the case of Iraq from an Iraqi perspective. Dahr Jamail for example, has focused his stories on how rampant unemployment, lack of water and electricity, the US-backed segregation of Baghdad, and the horrible security situation has had an impact on Iraqis. Recent polls suggest that a minimum of 70 percent of Iraqis want the US and Britain out of their country immedietely but we would be hard pressed to read that anywhere in the mainstream.

While embedded reporters is not new, the current embed programme utilized by the Pentagon was set up as a means of information control. It was tested out during the 1991 US attack on Iraq, and then streamlined into the system we see today. Thus, Western journalists who 'embed' are unwittingly volunteering to act as propagandists for the US military. Yet this is done under the pretext that they are 'reporting' when in actuality the military is using them for its own propaganda purposes.