This is stunning and hits right at the heart of the matter and slams home two points: We always intended to occupy Iraq. And you know who suffers the most from a worthless laptop Anna Nicole/Paris Hilton obsessed media?
Soldiers
"I am a serving British Army officer with operational experience in a number of theatres. I am concerned … and would like to highlight that it is not merely medialens users, who are concerned about embedded coverage with the US Army. The intentions and continuing effects of the US-led invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq have been questioned by too few people in the mainstream media and political parties, primarily only the Guardian and Independent, and the Liberal Democrats, respectively.
There is a widespread, and well-sourced, belief based on both experience and evidence, in both the British military and academia, that the US is not "just in Iraq to keep the peace, regardless of what the troops on the ground believe. It is in Iraq to establish a client state amenable to the requirements of US realpolitik in a key, oil-rich region. To doubt this is to be ignorant of the motives that have guided US foreign policy in the post-war period and a mountain of evidence since 2003."
That the invasion was 'illegal, immoral and unwinnable', and the 'greatest foreign policy blunder since Suez' - to paraphrase the Liberal Democrats - is the overwhelming feeling of many of my peers, and they speak of loathsome six-month tours, during which they led patrols with dread and fear, reluctantly providing target practice for insurgents, senselessly haemorrhaging casualties, and squandering soldiers' lives, as part of Bush's vain attempt to delay the inevitable Anglo-US rout until after the next US election. Given a free choice most of us would never have invaded Iraq, and certainly would have withdrawn long ago. Hopefully, Tony Blairs's handover to Gordon Brown will herald a change of policy, and rapid withdrawal, but skewed pro-US coverage inhibits proper public debate, and is deeply unhealthy; lethally-so to many of us deployed to Iraq.
Once I heard Bob Schieffer speak at the Bob Bullock Museum. This was right around the invasion. He commented that he thought embedding reporters was a great idea.
I was so astonished at the time. I am listening to this famous newsman who is telling us that he thinks purtting reporters where they lose their independence was a good idea.
I thought I must be crazy. Because this lifelong newsguy thought it was a great idea and I thought it was insanity.
I guess I was right.
We all suffer as a result of a media that is genreally unable to keep someone's attention with regular old facts and relevant information. They have to have scandal and worthless chit chat about Anna's boobs and Paris' fate and the little boy whose missing from his home and the man who had three heads.
We should have in mind that the next president understands that propaganda has to be shut down and cut out like a cancer.
Link here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/...