rdolan
03-26-2008, 05:59 PM
Glenn Greenwald, of salon.com, has an excellent post today in media's narrow narrative of the Iraqi war (http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/03/26/iraq_debate/).
He posts video and transcripts of Charlie Rose's interview with two Iraqis living in the United States who are vehemently opposed to the view that there is any silver lining in the Americans continual occupation of Iraq.
Greenwald writes: To see how scripted and narrow the American media's discussion of Iraq continues to be -- as Americans are told that it is a matter of mandated orthodoxy that they believe that the Surge is Working (so much so that John McCain actually demanded yesterday (http://blogsforjohnmccain.com/mccain-asks-when-hillary-clinton-will-apologize-gen-petraeus-video) that Hillary Clinton "apologize" for daring to question the pronouncements of the High, Honorable Commanding General, David H. Petraeus) -- watch the entire interview and consider how those views are never heard. For those who do not watch, I will excerpt just a few of the illustrative exchanges, beginning with this opening exchange:
ROSE: And obviously, what we want to accomplish on this fifth anniversary of the American invasion, or the coalition invasion of Iraq, is how they see it as Iraqis, five years later. Give me an assessment.
ALI FADHIL: That's a big question, assessment. Well, basically, probably, I`ll kind of sum it in a few words.
It's -- we have a country where the government is not functioning after five years. We have too many internal problems. And we have the violence increasing day after day.
We have a huge crisis of refugees inside and outside Iraq. We have a total failure of the -- of the civilian -- the civilian structure and what's happening inside. We have the sectarian divisions increasing. We didn't have that before. Now we have it.
So, basically, my assessment is we have a whole nation called Iraq, now it's wiped out.
CHARLIE ROSE: And Iraq is worse off because the United States came?
ALI FADHIL: It's worse off because the United States came to Iraq, definitely, and because the United States did all these mistakes in Iraq.
(emphasis added by Greenwald)
He posts video and transcripts of Charlie Rose's interview with two Iraqis living in the United States who are vehemently opposed to the view that there is any silver lining in the Americans continual occupation of Iraq.
Greenwald writes: To see how scripted and narrow the American media's discussion of Iraq continues to be -- as Americans are told that it is a matter of mandated orthodoxy that they believe that the Surge is Working (so much so that John McCain actually demanded yesterday (http://blogsforjohnmccain.com/mccain-asks-when-hillary-clinton-will-apologize-gen-petraeus-video) that Hillary Clinton "apologize" for daring to question the pronouncements of the High, Honorable Commanding General, David H. Petraeus) -- watch the entire interview and consider how those views are never heard. For those who do not watch, I will excerpt just a few of the illustrative exchanges, beginning with this opening exchange:
ROSE: And obviously, what we want to accomplish on this fifth anniversary of the American invasion, or the coalition invasion of Iraq, is how they see it as Iraqis, five years later. Give me an assessment.
ALI FADHIL: That's a big question, assessment. Well, basically, probably, I`ll kind of sum it in a few words.
It's -- we have a country where the government is not functioning after five years. We have too many internal problems. And we have the violence increasing day after day.
We have a huge crisis of refugees inside and outside Iraq. We have a total failure of the -- of the civilian -- the civilian structure and what's happening inside. We have the sectarian divisions increasing. We didn't have that before. Now we have it.
So, basically, my assessment is we have a whole nation called Iraq, now it's wiped out.
CHARLIE ROSE: And Iraq is worse off because the United States came?
ALI FADHIL: It's worse off because the United States came to Iraq, definitely, and because the United States did all these mistakes in Iraq.
(emphasis added by Greenwald)