Friday September 3, 2010.
Chaos and violence continue, Tony Blair lies to the world about donating
'royalties' (that will most likely not exist) to wounded British
soldiers, AP takes a stand for the facts, the political stalemate
continues, Iraqis weigh in on Tuesday's speech by Barack Obama, and
more. Whatever
the subject, we should be correct and consistent in our description of
what the situation in Iraq is. This guidance summarizes the situation
and suggests wording to use and avoid. To
begin with, combat in Iraq is not over, and we should not uncritically
repeat suggestions that it is, even if they come from senior officials.
The situation on the ground in Iraq is no different today than it has
been for some months. Iraqi security forces are still fighting Sunni and
al-Qaida insurgents. Many Iraqis remain very concerned for their
country's future despite a dramatic improvement in security, the economy
and living conditions in many areas. As
for U.S. involvement, it also goes too far to say that the U.S. part in
the conflict in Iraq is over. President Obama said Monday night that
"the American combat mission in Iraq has ended. Operation Iraqi Freedom
is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the
security of their country." However,
50,000 American troops remain in country. Our own reporting on the
ground confirms that some of these troops, especially some 4,500 special
operations forces, continue to be directly engaged in military
operations. These troops are accompanying Iraqi soldiers into battle
with militant groups and may well fire and be fired on. In
addition, although administration spokesmen say we are now at the tail
end of American involvement and all troops will be gone by the end of
2011, there is no guarantee that this will be the
case. Our
stories about Iraq should make clear that U.S. troops remain involved
in combat operations alongside Iraqi forces, although U.S. officials say
the American combat mission has formally ended. We can also say the
United States has ended its major combat role in Iraq, or that it has
transferred military authority to Iraqi forces. We can add that beyond
U.S. boots on the ground, Iraq is expected to need U.S. air power and
other military support for years to control its own air space and to
deter possible attack from abroad. Unless
there is balancing language, our content should not refer to the end of
combat in Iraq, or the end of U.S. military involvement. Nor should it
say flat-out (since we can't predict the future) that the United States
is at the end of its military role. We're
opening with that because it is news and it is important. To be clear,
not every journalist has jumped on the Iraq War over ball. For every
idiot on MSNBC or John Nichols, there have been cautious voices who have
refused to play along. Diane Rehm has repeatedly noted that 50,000
troops and the claim of an end make no sense, Michael R. Gordon has
offered perspective as well, as has Steve Inskeep, Matthew Rothschild,
Chris Floyd, Sonali Kolhatkar, Jane Arraf, Margaret Warner, Scott Horton,
Jason Ditz, and Kelley B. Vlahos among others. But they have been the
exception. (Scott Horton is the journalist, not the attorney. To be
clear on which one, he gets a link.) More commonly, American news
consumers have been repeatedly greeted with blind repetition of White
House spin and, especially for so-called 'independent' media (Katrina,
we're especially talking about The Nation, the magazine you've ruined), a desire not to contradict Blessed Barack. We
wanted an independent media -- in terms of the advertising-backed as
well as the donation dependant -- when the build up to the Iraq War was
beginning. We attacked and bemoaned corporate media but where has Panhandle Media
been the last two years? They've had no independence. Let's not kid
that you can be part of Journolist and be independent. Let's not kid
that you can be exposed as a part of Journolist -- as the bulk of The Nation
writers were -- and get away without issuing a public statement of
apology to your readers. It doesn't matter that you're an "opinion
writer" -- in fact that's even worse because people reading Katha
Pollitt, Chris Hayes, Eric Alterman, Richard Kim and the other Nation
writers who were on Journolist thought they were reading independent
thinkers, unaware that they joined with other like-minded writers to
determine what to cover (Chris Hayes and Spencer Ackerman issued the
edict not to cover Jeremiah Wright -- even to object to him -- because
it could hurt Barack). Whores. That's who staffs independent media and
that's only demonstrated all the more when they refuse to apologize for
their backroom dealings, their hidden agreements and instead carp about
Tucker Carlson and the outlet (Daily Journal) which exposed them. The
other reason is that Tom Kent notes that the media can't "predict" the
future. We've noted that here for nearly two years as outlets have
repeatedly insisted that the SOFA means the Iraq War ends at the end of
2011 when it doesn't mean that at all. Tom Kent and AP deserve
serious applause for doing what we say we want to see: An independent
media that questions, an independent media which doesn't just repeat the
spin of government officials. Today on the second hour of The Diane Rehm Show (NPR), Diane spoke about Iraq with Youchi Dreazen (National Journal), Adberrahim Foukara (Al Jazeera) and Kevin Whitelaw (Congressional Quarterly).
Diane
Rehm: Let's talk about the president's comments on the US combat
mission in Iraq officially over. Kevin, what does that mean for the
role of the remaining 50,000? Kevin
Whitelaw: Well that's right. The-the combat phase of the war is over
according to-to the Pentagon and according to President Obama. That
doesn't mean that US troops will not engage in any combat anymore. We
still have a-a sizeable portion, ten, fifteen percent of the force, that
really is part of a Special Forces component that is stationed in
Iraq. Still, remember, 50,000 troops. So you take about ten, fifteen
percent of that. These are troops that will still go out on missions
here and there to captue and kill -- Diane Rehm: With Iraqis? Kevin
Whitelaw: In most cases. We don't know for sure, keep in mind, whether
or not there might still be some unilateral missions but in most cases
that's correct, they'll go out with Iraqis to-to do certain targeted
missions and they'll also -- in the various training mission, the larger
training mission -- there will be US troops that accompany Iraqis on
various missions and you can expect that if they find themselves under
fire they will certainly defend themselves. So there is still combat
capability with this force that is in place. Having said that, what it
does mean is that the Iraqis are-are, you know, in the front lines,
they're the ones that are expected to do-to do the bulk of the security
work and to make the bulk of the security decisions about where to
target, where to go, how to defend and how to proceed. Diane Rehm: What about NATO forces still in Iraq, Abderrahim? Abderrahim Foukara: Well, I mean, if I may comment on the - the broader issue first of all? Diane Rehm: Sure. Adberrahim
Foukara: It all harks back to democracy obvivously. In a democracy,
when you make a pledge, you have to live up to it. President Obama made
the pledge that, you know, he would get the US forces out of Iraq and
obviously now that we uh-uh-uh closing up to-to the November election,
he has to be seen as living up to his word. Now leaving -- withdrawing
50,000 combat troops and leaving several thousands more in Iraq at this
time when there isn't even a government in place in Iraq, when despite
all pronouncements to the contrary, security forces -- the Iraqi
security forces are still not up to snuff, it is -- It may be a little
controversial calling this phase, combat phase, over because, it seems
to me that, US forces will remain in Iraq, will continue to be combat
forces, in one kind or another, in one situation or another. So I hark
back to my opening statement in this show which is that in the same way
that it is managing the crisis situation between the Israelis and the
Palestinians, Iraq will remain a crisis and the United States will keep
on managing that crisis for a long time to come. Diane Rehm: Youchi. Youchi
Dreazen: You know the war in Iraq has been a war of semantics from the
very beginning. "The Coalition of the Willing" which didn't exist. I
mean, there was a coalition of the US and a small number of allies, in
some cases absurdly small. The one Icelandic female soldier who I met
who was, excuse me, who was Iceland's entire military contingent in
Iraq. You had five Dutch. You had a Costa Rican bomb dismanteling team
who didn't want to leave any of its bases so, if the bomb was brought
to them, they would dismantle it but otherwise they wouldn't go. So you
had the "Coalition of the Willing" which of course didn't exist, you
had "Shock and Awe" which neither "shocked" nor "awed." Now you have
this transition from combat mission over to advise-and-assist mission
beginning and the previous points were exactly right. You have 50,000
troops which is a considerable number. They are still having the same
equipment they had before. They still have the same armored vehicles.
They will still be out on patrol. It's a semantic difference but that's
been the case with Iraq from the very beginning. The key difference to
my mind is there's no government. The second key difference from what
the president said, the president's speech sounded very much like "We
are out the door." The feeling within the Pentagon is that this will be
renegotiated and that, by the end of next year, there will still be
troops there. Diane Rehm: David Ignatius wrote in the Washington Post yesterday that,
"One of the mysteries of U.S. policy is why Washington keeps pushing a
formula that will allow Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to keep his job
(or another top post) at a time when he is rejected by nearly all Iraqi
political parties. America's silent ally in this peculiar gambit is
Iran. After so much pain, Iraqis deserve better." Youchi? Youchi
Dreazen: There is a very short and simple answer to the first part of
the question. It's that American officials have come to like Nouri
al-Maliki and to trust him which is remarkable if you remember a memo
leaked out a few years ago, which had been written by Stephen Hadley who
was then the National Security Advisor for the Bush administration,
raising questions about Maliki and making clear that, if you read the
memo carefully enough, that he was under some sort of American
surveillance because they didn't trust him. Now they do. And the
reason why there willing to keep him in power -- even as a caretaker,
let alone post as a caretaker -- is that there's a feeling that he's a
person you can do business with, a person you can trust and who has some
measure of control with the security forces. Diane Rehm: But how much trust is there, Kevin, that they can finally get a government put together? Kevin
Whitelaw: You know, we've been down this road. Every time there has
been one of these elections, there's been a lengthy transition. This
one's been even longer than the other ones but all the other ones did
result in a government that was able to exercise some amount of control.
At this point, it has dragged out even more, it's a sign of how little
trust still exists between the parties over there and I think you also
have a sense of while, while, there's a lot of Iraqis who are not big
fans of Prime Minister Maliki, he's still something of a known entity to
them whereas any new member -- any new potential leader , particularly
from a different party will be a gamble, a roll of the dice. And so you
have a real difficult question there for these Iraqi politicians to
decide: Do you go with -- Which guy do you go with? The devil you know?
The devil you once knew, which is a former prime minister Ayad Allawi,
whose party, whose coalition did well in the election? Or do you bring
in yet again somebody else? And then, obviously, all of the political
jockeying below that level. It's-it's -- Diane Rehm: And considering all of that, how realistic is it that the US will pull out at the end of 2011? Adberrahim
Foukara: I think militarily they will. My sense is the President Obama
will be able to live up to his pledge to get all or most of the
military out of - out of Iraq and by the end of 2011. Now what will
that remain for the role of the United States in Iraq? I think the role
of Iraq in the United States will, in different ways, continue to be
very strong, for different reasons. One of them is obviously the fear
although [US Vice President] Joe Biden actually trashed it but the fear
that the Iranians are playing an increasing role and therefore for the
United States to handover, if you will, Iraq to the Iranians or to
anybody else, for that matter, in the region, it's not going to happen.
Having said that, there's nothing that the United States, I think, they
current state of play being what it is in Iraq, there's nothing that
the United States can do in Iraq to actually increase its influence
beyond what the -- beyond the influence that's actually attributed
to-to the Iranians. You have to remember that the United States, the
Americans have built a huge embassy, it's probably one of the largest
embassies in the world in terms of its physical size and in terms of its
staffing and that gives you an indication as to the transformation of
the role of the United States in Iraq post-2011. But there's no doubt
that the United States has lost influence in Iraq. Diane Rehm: There is also transformation of opinion about the United States as a result of the war in Iraq. Youchi? Youchi
Dreazen: Well that was something that President Obama tried to address
in his speech earlier this week. You know the multiple facets of that,
obviously, the war began in tremendous, tremendous controversy which
has never really gone away. It was a measure of original sin in many
ways. It was seen as illegitimate, it was seen as under false pretenses.
In Iraq, you've seen opinion on the United States really vary, almost
like on a sign [sound?]wave. There was the initial, what Gen [David]
Petraeus referred to as "the man on the moon" feeling of "Hey, US, you
put a man on the moon. Why can't you restore our electricity? Why can't
you restore our water or our sewage?" Then during the civil war, there
was the feeling of the US is at least less of an evil than the Shi'ite
death squads or the Sunni death squads. Now again, there's a feeling of
-- my Iraqi staff are e-mailing from Iraqi daily, my fromer Iraqi
staff when I was at the Wall St. Journal, there's still no power, it's a
125 [degrees] and they have three hours of electricity a day. So
there's again the feeling of, 'We know you spent all this money, we know
that it enriched a lot of corrupt officials, but why can't you fix
these very, very basic issues?' One point on the speech that I thought
was very interesting, if you think back to how politicized this war has
been from the start -- Did Bush lie? Did Bush tell the truth? Was Saddam
containable? Etc. I thought it was remarkable that, on the end, in the
speech, that basically was our "We're departing" -- President Obama
couched the cost of the war primarily as an economic issue. I mean, in
his reasoning for why it's good we're getting out, he paid tribute to
the troops, he paid tribute to the sacrifice and then said, 'We need to
spend that money here at home.' And I just found it very interesting
that a war that began with so much high level debate about honesty and
lying and torture and deception and all these grand issues, in the end,
comes down to 'we can't afford it.' The conversation continued. We'll stop there. If Adberrahim Foukara crotch nuzzling of Barack got on your nerves, Marcia's addressing that tonight at her site. Again, FYI, Diane has a new book that was just released today Life With Maxie -- Maxie is her chichuahua and the book's being called a must for dog and pet lovers. Before we go to any other topics, let's go to some Iraqi voices. Thursday Leila Fadel (Washington Post) offered the views of some Iraqis:
Outside
the heavily fortified Green Zone, where many of Biden's meetings took
place, Iraqis expressed fear and frustration.
"We
wanted change, and nothing's changed," said Mohammed Imad, 21, leaning
against a wall covered with old election posters. [. . .] "Whose
celebration is this?" said Ibrahim Abdul Wahab, 57, a resident of Haifa
Street in downtown Baghdad, where Sunni insurgents were in control more
than two years ago. "It's his, not Iraq's. Where are the promises of
the planned democracy?"
Yahiya
Haji: I did not hear the speech and do not care about it. It is all a
lie. The American troops will stay in Iraq without a withdrawal, and who
knows whether 50,000 or 1,000 soldiers will remain. No one can tell,
not a security agreement or the prime minister. They will keep a force
ready in case there are any security problems." Qasim
Daoud, 44, Engineer: "Why should I listen to him? What will he say? All
the words are known and have been said before. This is all a lie, the
talk about withdrawal. Yesterday, there was a U.S. patrol in my
neighborhood. Withdrawing, and leaving 50,000 soldiers?" Muhammed al-Shaliji, 43: " I did not hear the speech and I am not interested in what he said." Ayad Muhammed, 52, Unemployed: "I did not hear the speech because I do not think that the U.S. will ever leave us alone." Omar
Walid, 40, Unemployed: "Half the speech was a lie, because they will
not leave Iraq. If they were going to leave us why did they build 93
military bases. As for what he said -- that they will stick with the
security agreement and be responsible for Iraq' borders -- say to him,
'here were you when the Iranian forces attacked Iraq? Where were you
when the Iranians took over Faka oil field? Where were you when the
Turkish forces attacked us?'" McClatchy Newspapers' Iraqi correspondents offer the views of some Iraqis. Army Officer Qaswar Abu Tariq states:
"People have a right to be afraid. It (what the US has done in Iraq) is
not a job well done. No one in his right mind, only perhaps a
politician would like to see occupation forces extend their presence.
But look around you – what do you see? The country's borders are open
on all sides, open for any who wish to enter and do their will inside
Iraq, whether Iran, Syria or any other of the neighbouring countries.
Was the decision to withdraw come at a time when they (US) left a force
able to secure our borders? No. There is no such thing - whatever the
politicians say.. Believe me, if we were able to secure our borders the
terrorist attacks would fall to one half – at least. So they (US) failed
to provide Iraq with secure borders. And how sovereign can a country
be if it needs the air-force of the U.S to protect it's air-space? In
seven years, why have no steps been taken to revive our air-force? " 70-year-old, retired school teacher and grandmother of seven, Widad Hameed is interviewed: (Will
violence escalate when the USF pull out??) (Long pause..) "I am torn
between two considerations answering this question. Firstly -- I am
strongly opposed to the presence of foreign troops on Iraqi sovereign
soil -- and therefore hope to see them leave as quickly as possible --
This is on principle. But on the other hand, I am afraid of what might
happen after they leave. I have no great faith in the abilities of the
ISF and feel that the chaos in our political situation will be reflected
upon the security scene as the politicians slug it out and violence
will rise and the people will pay. As for the Americans -- The chaos we
are witnessing is a result of their failed plans, and I don't think
there is anything they could do at this late date to make a difference.
Had they wanted to achieve better results, they should have been more
serious about training and arming the ISF -- commanders and ranks alike –
Seven years should have been long enough".
(Should
the USF interfere if violence rose to unbearable levels?) "Though I
hate to say it -- But, yes, they should interfere. They have a moral
duty to the citizens of Iraq. It was because of their intervention (the
occupation) that security has disappeared from our lives. The chaos now
present in Iraq is their doing – and they must protect us from the
dangers that they brought with them when they invaded Iraq. They must
protect us from al Qaida, the militias and the political violence. It is
their moral duty.
"They
decided to finish it, but they know it's not over," Othman said
Thursday. "War with terrorism is here, and Iranian intervention is here.
They are lying to tell their people that they left behind a government
that is capable and Iraqi security forces that are capable. . . . There
is no government, the people don't have confidence in the Iraqi security
forces, and Iraqi suffering is increasing."
Many
people here say that they did not expect Obama's declaration to sound
so final or that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates would acknowledge
that the war is over, albeit "clouded" by its start in a U.S.-led
invasion based on a false premise.
"I'm disappointed by this new administration," Othman said. "They want to run away from Iraq."
He
also criticized Vice President Biden's trip to Baghdad this week to
mark the end of the U.S. combat mission, questioning why Biden did not
hold a news conference while he was here. "This is America - it's
supposed to be transparent," he said.
Arab News also reports
on Iraq reactions: "Biden called on Iraqi leaders to speed up the
process of forming a government. 'They said they have withdrawn, but
they are still controlling us. They are the ones who make the decisions
in Iraq,' Um Ahmed, a 42-year-old housewife, said." The political stalemate was noted by Diane and her guests. March 7th, Iraq concluded Parliamentary elections. The Guardian's editorial board notes,
"These elections were hailed prematurely by Mr Obama as a success, but
everything that has happened since has surely doused that optimism in a
cold shower of reality." 163 seats are needed to form the executive
government (prime minister and council of ministers). When no single
slate wins 163 seats (or possibly higher -- 163 is the number today but
the Parliament added seats this election and, in four more years, they
may add more which could increase the number of seats needed to form the
executive government), power-sharing coalitions must be formed with
other slates, parties and/or individual candidates. (Eight Parliament
seats were awarded, for example, to minority candidates who represent
various religious minorities in Iraq.) Ayad Allawi is the head of
Iraqiya which won 91 seats in the Parliament making it the biggest seat
holder. Second place went to State Of Law which Nouri al-Maliki, the
current prime minister, heads. They won 89 seats. Nouri made a big show
of lodging complaints and issuing allegations to distract and delay the
certification of the initial results while he formed a power-sharing
coalition with third place winner Iraqi National Alliance -- this
coalition still does not give them 163 seats. They are claiming they
have the right to form the government. In 2005, Iraq took four months and seven days to pick a prime minister. It's now 5 months and 27 days. Phil Sands (National Newspaper) notes that if the stalemate continues through September 8th, it will then be a half a year since Iraqis voted. Today Qassim Abdul-Zahra (AP) reports
that Adel Abdul-Mahdi's name has been officially tossed into the ring
by the Iraqi National Alliance. He is currently Iraq's Shi'ite vice
president and the INA has long pushed him for the post. ICG's Joost
Hiltermann tells AP, "This is all really an attempt by INA to put
pressure on State of Law to throw al-Maliki under the bus. That will
only happen when State of Law has no other choice." Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports
a Baghdad roadside bombing which targeted security forces (Iraqi police
and Sahwa) and injured four bystanders, 2 Sahwa and 1 police officer, 1
corpse (Christian male) discovered in Mosul, a Mosul roadside bombing
which claimed 1 life and left another person wounded and, dropping back
to Thursday night, a Baghdad sticky bombing targeting police Lt Col
Mohammed Riyadh which left him injured and claimed the life of his
brother and a Baghdad roadside bombing which wounded three Iraqi
sodliers. I'm Matt Rotschild the editor of The Progressive magazine with my Progressive Point of View which you can also grab at our website at Progressive.org.
Yeah, I watched Obama's speech on Iraq and I can't say I was bold over
or blown away. First of all, to refer to the US invasion and occupation
as "this remarkable chapter in the history of the United States and
Iraq," as Obama did, is to really cake on the make up. And was it "a
war to disarm a state," as he asserted, or was it instead a war to
secure oil, or a war to project US power, or a war not of necessity and
not of choice but of therapy for George Bush to overcome his little
Oedipal complex? By the way, I could have lived without Obama's
saluting of his hapless and criminal predecessor, couldn't you? And I
know every president, every politician and now, it seems, every citizen
must bow down to all the soldiers who serve in our military, but was it
accurate of Obama to say that "at every turn, America's men and women in
uniform have served with courage and resolve"? I'm sure the vast
majority did but what about those who followed Rumsfeld's brutal
interrogation orders? What about Abu Ghraib? What about the two dozens
or more Iraqis our soldiers murdered in detention? I'm glad Obama is
ending combat operation sin Iraq and getting most of our troops out of
there. But he didn't need to rewrite history in the process. I'm Matt
Rothschild and that's how I see it. You can read Matthew's commentary in text form here.
He leaves out one aspect in terms of crimes -- there are many, he had
to select which to note -- that we are going to tackle at Third so I'll
bite my tongue. The only War Crimes resulting in any real convictions.
And if you're a TCI community member, you're already saying the name and
know what I'm referring to. Barack
is the Ghost of Illegal War Present and Future. Bush is the Ghost of
Illegal War Past. He's far from the only illegal war past ghost popping
up. In
an effort to rehabilitate himself and land a big advance for his next
book, one-time British prime minister Tony Blair's promoting his latest
book Go Down Tones: Confessions Of A War Hawk. And as he attempts to make like the giddiest Gabor but comes off more like a dazed and disoriented Dame Edith, Blair described to Steve Inskeep (Morning Edition, NPR) yesterday a chapter of his book which must be entitled: "At Least She Died In A 'Democracy'."
Tony
Blair: Yes. This is someone who came to see me before the Iraqi
conflict. And I remember sitting in Downing Street, up in the drawing
room in Downing Street, and her explaining to me how her family had been
tortured and killed by Saddam and how the country was crying out for
release from Saddam. And then, after May 2003, when Saddam was toppled,
she went back to Iraq, and then a few months later sectarians killed
her.
If you think/hope this led Blair to examine his War
Hawk motives and actions, you don't know Tony Blair. Instead, he
obsesses over what she might say now ("What would she say now?" he
repeatedly asks like a Dane in a Shakespeare play) and wondering what a
dead person might say is probably a great deal easier on the mind than
taking accoutability for the death you caused. He's also obsessed with
comparisons to Communism and the USSR (read or listen to the interview,
you'll see it) so apparently the dead woman's a variation, in Tony's
mind, of "Better dead than Red." Regrets, he has a few. But the illegal
invasion isn't among them. Robert Marquand (Christian Science Monitor) explains Blair would gladly do the illegal war again; however, he would consider giving Gordon Brown the axe. (Gordon Brown is not pleased.) Not everyone is taking Blair's multitude of claims at face value. Alexander Chancellor (Guardian) observes:
Tony Blair says in his memoir
that the bloody chaos that followed the invasion of Iraq in 2003 came
as a complete surprise to him. "I can say that never did I guess the
nightmare that unfolded," he writes. "The truth is we did not anticipate
the role of al-Qaida." Odd that, when all and sundry were warning him
about it, including former president of France Jacques Chirac and Eliza Manningham-Buller,
former head of MI5, who only a few weeks ago testified to that effect
to the Chilcot inquiry. She said she had warned the government that an
invasion would increase the terrorist threat to Britain and pave the way
for an al-Qaida jihad in Iraq. That Blair should have imagined that all
would go smoothly after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein suggests both a
remarkable lack of foresight and a stubborn resistance to any unwelcome
advice.
Has
this wretched man learned nothing? On and on, it went during his BBC
interview: "I would absolutely...","I definitely...", "I believed
absolutely clearly...", "It was very, very clear that this changed
everything" – "this" being 11 September 2001 – "Let me state clearly and
unequivocally", "The Intelligence picture was clear...", "legal
justification was quite clear", "We said completely accurately...
"Because I believed strongly, then and now...", "My definitive view in
the end is..." You would have thought we won the war in Iraq, that we
were winning the war in Afghanistan, that we were going to win the next
war in Iran. And why not, if Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara says so.
At The Progreesive, Amitabh Pal takes on Tony and his bad book: He
glibly asserts that "the full array of experts were consulted" before
he made his decision, blithely omitting how his government distorted the
input. But then, the honesty and/or judgment of a man is seriously in
doubt when he lists George W. Bush "near the top" of any list of
political leaders with the "most integrity." Speaking
of whom, it will be interesting to see how the less eloquent of the
pair handles the Iraq fiasco in his memoir, coming to a bookstore near
you in November. Unwilling to wait that long, Republican leaders are already engaged in a rewriting of history.
John McCain, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell all criticized President
Obama for allegedly not giving Bush credit enough in his recent Iraq
speech for the supposed success of the surge. No
amount of memoir writing or bloviating will nullify the central truth
about the Iraq War: It was a folly based on deceit and lies that brought
about unconscionable suffering. Blair, Bush and their supporters can
spin all they want. Okay,
Pal repeats one error that the media's glommed on and it needs to be
corrected. Tony Blair can't sell books. Tony Blair is hated in
England. As well as around the world. As he realized how hated he was
-- when his literary agent was attempting to shop Tony's next book -- a
p.r. campaign was begun: Tony would donate his ROYALTIES from the book
sales to help the British soldiers injured in Iraq. Pay
attention, that's BULLS**T. Tony's gotten some favorable comments from
some idiots who either don't know what they're talking about (one
British soldier) or lackeys who don't care about the truth (a number in
the press). Pal doesn't praise Blair for that announcement but does
repeat it. It's
a LIE. The book isn't expected to sell in big numbers. It's hoped
that it will have a run on the bestseller list (four to six weeks is the
big expectation). That hope would allow Tony to pocket a big advance
for his next book -- which, his outline explains, will be on the peace
process between the Israelies and the Palestinians (something he might
need to tell participants engaged in it currently since he's planning to
write about all of them). The sales for this book will determine
furture advances. Now,
PAY ATTENTION, Tony's offered to donate royalties from the sales of the
books. Tony's not offering anything from the huge advance he got for
writing this book. The HUGE ADVANCE, PAY ATTENTION, means that the book
must be on the best seller list for six months for any royalties of any
real significance to be credited to Tony. In other words, he pocketed
at least six figures (some say seven) for this book and will keep that
advance. He's not donating it. That huge advance means that there is
little chance of a profit (even before you add in how unpopular he is)
and the royalties are profits from the book sales after the publishing
company, AFTER, deduct the costs of printing, promoting and, yes, his
advance. There will probably be little-to-no royalties from this book.
Also in the air is where the 'promise' applies. Tony's American
publishing company states they're unaware of any alteration in the
contract they signed before Tony made his current promise to donate
royalties. It's
a scam. Tony The Liar Blair is lying again. He's using the wounded
British soldiers in an attempt to sell his bad book. He's hiding behind
them. He is not handing over that big advance to them. He's not
donating that to them. This should have been explained from the very
start when the spin began that Tony was being charitable. You've got a
lot of whores in the press who are not doing their job. (I'm not calling
Pal a whore. This should have been explained in the British press.) To
include that (and thank you to friends at Blair's British publishing
house for their input), we have to pull out other things; however,
that's really important because he's being declared "Saint Tony" for
doing nothing. We can't note this article by Atul Aneja because we don't have the room. or Cindy Sheehan's commentary
We'll pick it up tomorrow. I don't like liars and pressure needs to be
put on Blair to turn that advance he pocketed for the book over to the
British soldiers because, otherwise, they're not getting any money of
significance (as he's well aware). The $60 Billion Fraud
Medicare
and Medicaid fraudsters are beating U.S. taxpayers out of an estimated
$90 billion a year - $60 billion of it from Medicare - using a billing
scam that is surprisingly easy to execute. Steve Kroft investigates
Medicare. | Watch Video
The SEED School
There's
a unique school that's giving kids from an inner-city neighborhood that
only graduates 33 percent of its high school students a shot at college
they never had before. Byron Pitts reports on SEED School, the first
urban, public boarding school. | Watch Video
Tennis Twins
Pro
tennis' leading doubles champions are identical twins who are so
coordinated on the court that their opponents actually suspect they have
twin telepathy. Lesley Stahl reports. | Watch Video
60 Minutes, Sunday, Sept. 5, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
|
