I’ve seen the excellent piece by Juan Cole on the “Top 10 Myths about Iraq in 2005” linked by several blogs already, so perhaps you’ve already seen it. Either way, I think it’s well worth linking to here and I recommend you give it a quick read if you haven’t already. As Cole points out, there are many complexities in the Iraq situation, which don’t necessarily translate well to the sound bites we’re accustomed to in the “rough and ready, two-party American political arena.”
Cole explains some of those complexities in a very straightforward and informative fashion. Amongst the one or two of the myths that jumped out at me, personally, and have been driving me crazy when I hear them repeated by wingnuts on both TV and in comments here…
Got that? Okay, good. So — wingnuts — please spare me the crap about how wonderful it is that your man Bush has finally brought democracy and freedom for all to the Middle East. You may be willing to bullshit yourselves, but please don’t bother to try and wipe that stench off on me.
In another section of Cole’s rather fair and rather balanced assessment, from which both “sides” of the American political food-fight are bound to harvest fresh ammo, is this:
Got that one, too? The “terrorists” are increasing, not decreasing vis a vis this pathetically run charade.
Finally, the myth that “The Bush administration wanted free elections in Iraq” is quickly dispatched by Cole as “simply not true”. But the still-more maddening piece of this bit of treacherous wingnut mythology, refers back to the point above about the increasing insurgency. In giving the real history of the Bush Administration’s various flip-flops throughout the American occupation in regards to holding free and fair democratic elections in Iraq, Cole points out how the Bushies played their cave to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani (who had demanded free elections back in late 2003) in order to avoid troubles that might effect Bush’s own election back here in America. The results of Bush’s personal political power play meant the insurgency was allowed to grow worse, so Bush might be allowed to be elected in 2004:
Lovely. And Team Bush has the unmitigated gall to accuse Democrats of “playing politics” with the Iraq War?! Puh-lease.
Check out all 10 of the myths as explained by someone who actually knows what’s going on on the ground. How refreshing.
I like #10… of course they never wanted real elections in Iraq. They don’t want them here either. When people have choice, you lose control. And if there’s one thing people in power want, it is to maintain control!
But seriously, this list is but ten grains of sand on the enormous beach of neocon lies.
Click here to ask Barbara Boxer to lead the fight for fair elections!
I’m sure he will go to the new american zionist neocon site (PNAC) and afterward quietly un-register as a republican and go silent….
That’s what happens to nearly all of them now.
Take out Diebold/Sequoia until they are writhing in agony and then someone get rid of the iVotronic machines!!!!! ELECTIONS WITH PAPER BALLOTS!
Doug E.
A few days ago a friend e-mailed me a recent lecture by Henry Kissinger. I haven’t seen it in the mainstream press for some reason.
Dr. K didn’t use the term "Muslim caliphate," but his words were being cited in support of Rumsfeld’s scare talk about an Islamic terrorist empire extending from "Indonesia to Spain." Considering that Kissinger was one of the strongest proponents of the Domino Theory vis a vis Communism, it looks as if neo-cons are resurrecting it. Except, now the dominoes are Muslim countries.
Fact: Indonesia is a Muslim country.
Fact: Spain has a growing Muslim population.
Fact: Many Muslims live between the two countries.
Fact: Many Muslims don’t like the United States.
Fact: A tiny percentage of Muslims are terrorists.
Fact: Local governments have enabled terrorism.
Fact: Our invasion of Iraq added to terrorism there.
Conclusion: Because Saddam Hussein was a nominal Muslim, and a bad guy, he must have been linked to Osama bin Laden, a Muslim terrorist, even though Osama called Saddam an "infidel," about the worst insult a Muslim can utter.
Conclusion: Both Saddam and Osama are Muslim bad guys, so they must be linked to other terrorists
now operating between Indonesia and Spain.
Conclusion: A Muslim caliphate, such as operated in the 7th century C.E., has re-emerged, and we must confront it "over there" so we don’t have to fight it "here."
Question for Henry Kissinger: If Iraq’s new constitution, created under our auspices, affirms Islam as a state religion, and the United States is hailing this document as historic in that it advances democracy in Iraq, doesn’t that mean the United States is aiding and abetting the Muslim caliphate?
Brad,
Very important this link to Juan Cole’s recent piece. I’d love to see him to an update on the amazing essay he wrote a year and a half ago ("If America Were Iraq, What Would It Be Like?" Sept. 22 2004)
It can be found here:
http://www.juancole.com/2004/09...uld-it-be.html
If anyone at BB hasn’t yet seen this piece (which won an award for Best Blog Article of 2004 IIRC), do have a look.
It is equally instructive to poke around in the Juan Cole archives for that month (Sept. 2004) which are here:
http://www.juancole.com/2004_09...e_archive.html
You can remind yourself what was going on then in Iraq, and what was being said about it or not said about it in the MSM.
It was this article (emailed to me by someone in Ireland) that first made me hunt down Juan Cole and his website. Amazing stuff.
So, I am awaiting comments from Ricky & wingnut gang. Where are they? If they do comment, they will dodge the issue.
Big Dan #6,
Don’t waste your time or energy. They will only distract you from doing something more productive with your time (e.g. phoning your local media or your elected representative, or finding out more about something that is important to you).
I think it’s only worth it to respond if, in doing so, you add information that might be new or useful to other readers. To respond to troll-like emotional or intellectual come-ons is to do just what they want–it makes you a less effective Brad Blogger. It makes this website less worthwhile if it’s filled with crap and people responding to crap.
When a website degenerates into useless name-calling that adds nothing of substance, that’s when I spend my time elsewhere. This is also part of trollers’ game plans. So don’t bother responding to posts that don’t deserve it–unless you can add value to the overall conversation.
For Big Dan: Either they’ll dodge the issue, or they’ll wait for the White House spin about Iraq’s new consititution (maybe that it’s an "evolving document" that lays the groundwork for democracy in the future in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East), then parrot that back to us as justification for the Iraq invasion, which they’ll insist is a liberation.
Bush administration spin is circular. It is endless, both geometrically and politically. Beginning with 9/11, every press release from the White House about Iraq was taken at face value by the media (and by trolls), instead of being recognized as damage control for previous lies and distortions.
That has begun to change where the media are concerned, praise God, but not where trolls are concerned. Scottie McClellan’s lies and half-truths remain their gospel, sometimes word for word, just as the Holy Bible represents revealed truth to fundamentalist Christians.
One or two of the proposed myths give me some pause but most ring true.
One myth that missed the top ten, but shouldn’t, is that Iraq was the primary battle in the "war on terror". The fact that Iraq had the second largest reserves of oil, and the largest reserve not being used, is the antidote to that myth.
Nevertheless, my appreciation for the list is the fact that someone is showing that there is an abundance of myth out there, some or most of which are started by the neoCon malfunctioning mind.
So I wanted to bring up one myth, which is fundamental. It is the liberty v security myth. This myth says that security is a result of loosing some liberty. You can’t have both is the myth.
There is an article in the Miami Herald that shines some light on this myth:
"Is that America’s highest goal — preventing another terrorist attack? Are there no principles of law and liberty more important than this? Who would have remembered Patrick Henry had he written, “What’s wrong with giving up a little liberty if it protects me from death?” (link here).
What the neoCon slime minds want to get across is the notion "Give me liberty or give me security", which is a perverted distortion of "Give me liberty or give me death".
RLM #8
You triggered a thought about yet another myth. The idea that any nation choosing to begin on the road to constitutionally guaranteed freedom has to start off at the lowest possible point.
This seems to be the myth the neoCons are promoting when they say look how long it took us to get to where we are, a couple of hundred years. So give Iraq a chance.
No, if we are (according to the neoCon myth) bringing democracy to Iraq, then why do we have to bring the weakest and worst form to them? Do we teach them slavery, just so they can go thru the struggle we went thru to throw off the plague of slavery? Not only no, but hell no.
Any new baby nation the mama neoCons give birth to should start off with the best democracy an invasion, occupation, destruction, and propaganda can bring.
We are paying billions and billions of dollars and thousands upon thousands of barrels of blood for this neoCon "democracy", so the baby should be healthy, wealthy, and wise.
It should be the best democracy money can buy. We do not pay top dollar for low quality democracy … it does not make good economic sense does it?
So, my point being that it is a myth that democracy takes the lowest form from birth. There is no "law of the birth of democracy" that says it has to start out in abject social darkness.
The neoCons are naked in these assertions this myth is composed of. The real reason for this myth is that their incompetence equated military victory with political victory.
The two could not be further apart. Gandhi started the largest democracy, India, without invasion, occupation, or armed uprising. It began quite mature and is not composed of a one-religion constitution.
Dredd #9
Great point. It’s a huge framing issue, isn’t it? (Presenting us with a supposed choice between liberty or security.)
By now I hoped American’s would be hip to
President Chuclenuts’s tricks, Media Diversion.
Coincidence : When the shit hits the fan (big time)
at the crawford plantation always drag out ken lay.
Myths about Iraq huh? How about this?
When did Saddam Hussein go from our ‘good buddy’ whom we supported fully during his war with Iran to our ‘enemy’ and someone much like Hitler?
Curiously, right up to the invasion of Kuwait he was asking our opinion. Not much of an enemy or a Hitler at that moment.
But, immediately after the invasion George HW Bush said, "this aggression shall not stand." and from that moment onward Saddam was a ‘bad guy’.
It seems George HW Bush MADE Saddam into a bad guy. It seems George wanted Saddam to be our enemy. It seems George is the real bad guy.
Is Iraq an enemy of America? It wasn’t until the Bush family made him into one.
The myth is that we had no choice, that it was for our own self defense, that Saddam forced our hand. The truth is that we had plans for Iraq which didn’t include Saddam and we just labeled him ‘enemy’ and ‘took him out’. We have seen the enemy and it is named Bush.
Whats the issue to avoid? What Juan says about Iraq? Damn, Liberman WENT TO IRAQ and came back with positive reports which were completely ignored but everyone here. There is no issue to respond to, just the usual example of liberals being invested in failure.
America does good= Liberals lose.
America does bad=liberals win.
This thread like all on this blog are examples of just that. You are all happier when bad things happen so thats all you talk about. Its that simple.
Issue? Nope, same old story from the Hate America crowd.
The myth about Saddam supporting terrorism by paying families of suicide bombers is particularly ugly. Imagine for a second a Palestinian family of which a member has just blown herself up for some truly unfathomable existential reason. The family is devastated, and then come the armored Israeli bulldozers to level the family’s home. Saddam gave cash grants to such families to rebuild at least their houses – their lives of course can never be the same. Who was a villain here, and who was a perpetrator? The deluded suicide bomber? The Israeli "security forces" administering collective punishment? The bereaved family? The generous neighbor trying to alleviate at least a bit of the family’s indescribable pain? I sure don’t claim to know all the answers, but I really can’t stand simplistic answers spewed by simpletons.
Ricky’s Historic Election Results:
"Report: Kurds plan to seize Kirkuk
10,000 militia members inserted into Iraqi army wait for orders to break ranks."
Just can’t wait for the next one!
White house wants Sahara War on Terror
"White House wants Sahara ‘war on terror’
Bush plans to spend $500m to control lawless swaths of Sahara desert."
Pop up banner ad I just recieved:
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BB2 – This Bradovian (standing corrected) was there, did that – sort of. The qualifier is because it was ’65, and there was a draft. That said, the Army was berry berry good to me, relatively speaking. But I lost dear friends in that fiasco. Please, let’s do whatever we have to to bring the troops home, ASAP!
czaragorn
I too lost several school buddies back then and saw many more return damaged for life.
The common thread I recieved from them back then, as well as from the sons and daughters of friends who are returning from Iraq, is WHY?
OT
To all our friends in Texas and Oklahoma here’s hoping you are all fine and that the fires will be out soon. Wish there was a way to send some of this rain that’s been falling here for the last week! Rivers here are at the monitoring level and rain is expected for the next week or so. (Here is Sacramento)
For Dredd and Catherine: I’ve arrived at the point where I believe that the idea of "democracy in Iraq"
was nothing more than an after-the-fact rationale for a failed policy, and that all the myths were known to be myths all along. I don’t remember hearing about a constitution for Iraq back in 2003.
Think about it. Could anyone have really believed that a fair election process could produce any outcome other than a constitution that left Muslim clerics in control of Iraq’s government? No. The end result was entirely predictable, since the only frame of reference Iraq had with a secular leader was the brutal tyrant, Saddam Hussein.
Bush went into the war convinced Saddam had WMD, and was comforted by the fact that most Democrats believed it, too. When no WMD showed up, Bush didn’t have the humility to admit he’d made a mistake, so he tried the uranium/Niger idea on for size. When that failed, he went to the Saddam-conspired-with-Osama nonsense. Finally, they settled on a neo-con dream…that Iraq without Saddam could become a democratic model in the Middle East, an example for Syria, Iran, Jordan, Pakistan, etc. That had special appeal for Zionists, which is why Joe Lieberman is going around saying silly things about how we’re all safer now.
The whole election/constitution thing has been a dog and pony show, ex post facto of a tragic mistake Bush couldn’t own up to out of hubris.
#20 — Bluebear 2 — I share your sentiments concerning Texas and Oklahoma folks. Also, I think I’m sharing some of the rain. I’m up the hill from you and pretty much socked in – the road washing out and the pond is up to my back door.
Haven’t had to deal with this the past few years. When it calms down a bit, the egrets and herons will be catching frogs in my back yard.
Brad you are on a roll ! ! !
I actually managed to scare a wingnut in real life cause I went off all over him like you are doing here.
By the time I was done with him, he was silent.
I did manage to hold a civil and hopefully thoughtful discussion with a very nice guy, but a Bush Sheeple. I managed to work out some talking points, that I had actually contemplated for sometime. Cripes, the man even fired an employee for being against Bush. That made me cringe. It was all I could do not to leap across the kitchen bar and throtle him. But I managed to maintain my cool.
One "talking" point to bring up and pound them with is "My loyalty is to my country and its people before any political party."
One funny thing he said was; "I can’t believe the president would send all those people to die for oil."
To which I replied, "They have already sold off all the oil."
He looked at me in stunned silence.
I sent him to:
New American Century Org
I said you better go check out "Rebuilding America’s Defenses". Its your administrations site. Its not an opinion of what their plan is. Its their plan."
Whether he went to it or not, I don’t know. Probably not. However, my impression of him was someone that REALLY wants badly to believe in his country, but I sensed doubt as well.
Can not bring up juan cole .com from verizon DC!
Tom Arner #23
I get "Connection refused" message – using sbc
Comes up just fine using Comcast.
Still a no go for me – hopefully it is because word has gotten out and his server is bogged down.
Or is that Blogged down?
Still a no go at freepress.org also
I bet the Juan Cole article is getting lots of traffic. Deservedly. Could their server be down? I was just there w/o problems.
If you’ve already read the full article, go back and read the *Comments* that are accumulating! They are interesting and articulate, reflecting various political and strategic points of view. Breath of fresh air. (All comments there are moderated, though there is no "approved" point of view.)
There’s a fair bit of criticism and alternative viewpoints, particularly regarding #3 which claimed "insurgents aren’t winning."
Funny to see Ricky come here and prove the point.. dodge the issues presented (claiming they simply don’t exist).
Ricky.. Comment on this.. "the constitution in Iraq establishes a Theocracy".. then go on to explain how setting up Islamic law, the basic pretense that has the terrorists motivated, is good overall.
You claim we only see "bad" and only like "bad".. then show me the "good" in the presented fact.. please.. enlighten me (us) so we can appriciate the good in religious fundamentalism..
For Savanster: The last desperate move in any debate is for the loser to claim the winner’s case is non-existent; in other words, there was no debate to begin with. Small-minded people fall for this idea.
What Ricky is really saying is that the burden of proof falls on opponents of Bush’s policy in Iraq to show that it’s wrong. I don’t agree with that, because war is not natural or desirable; thus going into war requires a strong belief that a nobler end is justified by deadly means. But even if Ricky were right that Bush deserved the benefit of the doubt before now, the Iraq constitution proves the war was a calamity from the beginning…because the end clearly didn’t justify even a single death.
At this point, Ricky declares the argument null and void. I think he’s a candidate to replace Libby as Cheney’s chief of staff.
Another myth is that Iraqi voters control oil destiny and destinations.
The neoCon admin is showing that the Iraqi folk can vote all they want, and have a government, so long as they do not hamper the oil baron picked oil handlers who will decide oil issues (link here).