The US propaganda continues

Isn't it weird that on Yahoo US and CNN, I see U.S. forces kill 27 attackers in Iraq , while the BBC and Yahoo UK already announced hundreds of Iraqi killed 2 hours before.

Not surprised. That's why I never take CNN or Yahoo US seriously.

By the way, Maciamo, since you are so knowledgeable about India, do you know of the author Arundhati Roy? She wrote the book entitled "The God of Small Things"? She's a brilliant person and has a lot of interesting things to say about the situation in Iraq...

I heard 70 in BBC News. I can only speculate that the actual number is on the double digits. I also heard that a chopper was shot down and a jet fighter was destroyed due to mechanical failure....

I wonder where is the true. Well... screw the truth since everyone seems to own it. I just wished for straight facts.

It's a straight fact that no WMD have been found yet. Remember, that was the main reason to start action against Iraq.

I don't know too much about this without any independent coverage in the Japanese papers. But from reports on NPR I've gathered that 27 is the number thought to be actual fighters, and the other 60 or 70 residents around this so-called terrorist camp.

That is even worse ! If they killed twice more civilians than fighters, I understand they want to hide this from the general public.

Yeah, usually I only go to cnn for breaking news, but for more in depth middle-east news, i watch: http://www.arabworldnews.com/ (of course, it is still heavily influenced by US, but there are some articles here and there that are quite interesting).

Im not saying the US had justification to go to war over WMD (iraq''s capability was poor to start, and that was played up). But Iraq possessed WMDs and they still exist somewhere in the nation. They were not ready to use like Blair tried say or that Iraq was continuing to produce it like Powell tried to submit, but I do believe they are significant quantities sitting somewhere in the desert. He may of destroyed some of the stocks, which I beileve is quite likely, but saddam didn't destroy all of them. Whether or not somebody will find them is unlikely.

As for news outlets, no news outlet is "perfect" Although I would consider the BBC the best international network, its stil has a Bias. The BBC's work in Zimbabwe has quite significant role in contributing to the sequence of events in that nation, precipitating the Capital flight that occurred in 2000 over an the eviction of white farmers, a phenomenon that had occurred all over Africa (not suprisingly then Mugabe enjoy;s the full support of almost all African leaders for his fight against what they call "neo imperialism). The capital flight just served to further entrench Mugabe's position. Because of BBC's very biased reporting, it caused the uproar that caused this situation.

My opinion then about news outlets is that it is important to read as many news programs as possible. each morning I troll through 7 papers, and 3 news services. CNN is one of them but I don't take its word as bible. Therefore you get a good spread of information. ITs also important that people get both sides of the perspective, therefore I have taken to reading rightwing and left wing papers together. Only then can I legitimately say that I have read up on issues.

Well......The news medium in the United States & everywhere else in the world are all controlled by their countries's propaganda ministries. On the VERY rare instances that the U.S. news mediums say anything about flying saucers they claim not only that they don't exist, but insult the intelligence of the American people by having the audacity to suggest that Americans don't believe in flying saucers. In my 54 years of life I've met about the same number of people who don't believe in flying saucers as I've met who have the guts to admit that they aren't Hippies. 2 in each case. We know that Flight 800, the one with the high school kids on it, headed for France, was shot down by a terrorist missile, president John Kennedy was executed by 3 executioners, not by the hero Lee Harvey Oswald, & people get recruited by flying saucers every day for cross breeding experiments. Its common knowledge. Maybe if the propaganda ministry learns to tell believable lies someday, they might succeeed in fooling somebody above the age of 6!

I don't believe that Iraq has any significant quantities of chemical or biological weapons. It doesn't make any sense. What would the purpose of saving some be if not to use them in defending Iraq from a US invasion?

Agree that the BBC is a much better news source than most others. CBC Newsworld is also a fantastic news station, but you can't get it in Japan. There are a ton of good web sites to get news from though.

easy... if Saddam used Chem weapons, he would completely lose any world support for his regime. Saddam's strategy relied upon rallying world support for his regime. Use chem weapons, and he can kiss that goodbye. Only problem was that he used his tactics from a 1980s soviet manual... which is what the Americans prayed for and got.

A better question is... if he didn't have chem weapons... why didnt he let inspectors in without problems, like he did for the IAEA?

I don't think that Saddam was stupid enough to think that international moral support would save him from the thousands of tons of US bombs raining down on Iraq. His regime was finished and he wouldn't have had anything to loose either way, so what reason could he have for not using them if not the fact that they didnt exist?

I don't think the Iraqi tactics had anything to do with Saddam's loss, more likely it was the fact that the US has a 400 billion dollar a year defence budget and the Iraqi military doesn't. Not much anyone could do about that.

Weren't you watching the news from september to march? Iraq did let inspectors in with unfettered access to all sites. They even let US spy planes into their airspace to help. The reason in the past why they weren't totally coopereative was the fact that the head of the UN inspection team was an American spy passing on vital military information to the CIA. That was a pretty big story in the papers for a couple of hours before everyone forgot about it on September 12th when Rumsfeld decided he wanted to invade Iraq. At any rate, now they have about 1500 inspectors on the ground who can't make any excuses about Iraqi obstruction and they haven't found anything after looking everywhere either, so what further proof is necessary?

Uhh no

Accorrding to Blix's report, There were serious access problems with the Chem an Bio teams. They were not given full access, and were continually hampered by overseers and other excuses. Contrast this with Baradai?s IAEA team who was given full access, and was able to conclude that the Iraqi?s had not resumed their nuclear activities. Iraq failed to account for several tons of banned toxins know to exist after the second gulf war in 1991. For someone like Saddam, it makes more sense that he was keeping some of the poisions for later use.

Saddam?s strategy was to rally as many sides to his cause, and to cause as many American Casualties as possible, WITHOUT the use of WMD. Using an WMD would give the United States all the justification it needed, and would rally support to the US side. But if he could cause a massive amount of US casualties, and without the use of WMDs? Saddam might be able to force a truce. That would be the only way he could win. What sad dam did though was to use the Soviet manual from 1982, when he should of used the soviet manual from 1942. Fighting a set piece action outside of Baghdad in the desert was about the stupidest thing you could do against the American where their weapons are most effective. What should have been done is to pull all their weapons into the cities and wait it out. Look at the guerrilla conflict now in Iraq? and imagine that 10X. You can?t beat America today by smashing their forces, you can however use the Vietnam effect (creating massive amounts of American casualties)) to poison a domestic audience that would recoil in disgust. Polls showed that there was less support for a war in Iraq if it caused more than 5000+ casualties. Had he of used WMD Im sure the Americans would of never stopped no matter the casualties that were inflicted

This is all interesting, but it doesn't answer the question of why Saddam would have maintained WMD knowing full well that possesing them would have invited an American invasion and international condemnation. I understand that the only purpose he could have had was to wait until sometime in the future when UN sanctions were lifted and the inspection issue forgotten and then re start his weapons program. He had all the experts around and could easily hide the blueprints, so why bother keeping the actual weapons? They are the only thing that, if discovered, would have gotten him into hot water, so it doesn't seem worth the risk.

Contrary to what some people are saying, these weapons aren't that easy to hide. Many of them have a very short shelf life and if not stored properly will be spoiled or leak out into the environment. it would require sizeable facilities to maintain these weapons and staff with the knowhow to do it. Add to this the fact that a lot of defectors, including Saddam's son in law, had said that the weapons were destroyed years ago I don't think it is at all believable that there are chemical or biological weapons in Iraq today.

As for Iraqi tactics, its worth noting that while the US military slaughtered the few formations that did try to fight, the vast majority of the army simply walked away from their tanks. They had been through the same thing in 1991 and knew that lining their tanks up in the dessert was suicide. The Americans were really concerned after they captured Baghdad so easily because they weren't able to account for most of the Republican guard troops who were defending the city. They were worried they had gone into hiding to fight another day. Now, two months later with Americans dying everyday we know that is exactly what happened. I don't think the war is over yet.

What I like with the BBC is that they will bend over backward to tell people what is really going on, going as far as defying their own government if necessary.

Reuters : Fresh BBC claims reignite Iraq row

The BBC says senior figures "right at the top" of government no longer believe weapons of mass destruction will be uncovered in Iraq.

The claim looks set to deepen divisions over whether the war was justified, as well as reignite a row between the government and the broadcaster over Iraq coverage.

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and indeed :
BBC News : Iraq weapons 'unlikely to be found'

That came after a major row (for Americans "row"="quarrel" and rhymes with "cow", not "low") with the government a few days ago :

BBC defiant in Iraq dossier row

BBC governors have defended the corporation's news team in the row with the government over claims Number 10 "sexed up" a dossier on Iraqi weapons.
They called on Downing Street's director of communications Alastair Campbell to withdraw his allegations that the BBC's reporting of the Iraq war was biased.

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But the bitter confrontation looked set to continue as Downing Street replied by saying the BBC was "still trying to defend the indefensible".

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That's not CNN who is going to criticise the US government, is it ?

American media is so biased it can't really be trusted as a source of news on events that involve the US government. They pretty much rely entirely on government sources for their information, so you can guess whose interests they are going to represent. The BBC (and CBC) seems a lot more reliable if you want to find out what actually happened.

I guess that's the popular opinion outside the US and that's probably the main reason that the Guardian is going to launch a US version. They're planning to launch a weekly magazine, if I recall correctly.

If I find the link to the news, I'll post it here.

edit:

Found it: http://nymetro.com/nymetro/news/media/columns/medialife/n_8938/

In this respect?as a robust counterpoint to the American media?the Guardian (to which I sometimes contribute) had had a very good war. It became an almost-fashionable read on select U.S. campuses and in certain American liberal circles. Traffic on its Website, which has had a steadily growing American audience, climbed dramatically during the war. The electronic Guardian was the alternative press?if you were looking for one.

Still, when, during a coffee break, Alan Rusbridger, the Guardian?s editor, said to me, in a most offhanded way, ?We?re coming to America,? I assumed he was talking about a personal visit.

?Well, let?s definitely get together,? I politely said.

?No,? he said. ?We?re bringing the Guardian to America. We?re going to publish an American version.?

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That would be cool if they made an American edition. I often visit the Gaurdian website for good news and editorials. I liked Greg Palast a lot, ever read his book the best democracy money can buy? It was great.

wow, people who don't actually believe everything the media feeds them!

great!

These days I have to rely on independent news sites for information, as the mainstream media is so biased and corporately-controlled. Z Magazine had the best coverage following 9/11, and The Progressive has continuing coverage of the New McCarthyism that has been sweeping this country since 9/11. I usually frequent the following sites:

http://www.projectcensored.org/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/default.stm
http://zmag.org/ZNET.htm
http://www.inthesetimes.com/
http://www.progressive.org/
http://www.thenation.com/
http://counterpunch.org/
http://www.motherjones.com/
http://www.antiracismnet.org/main.html
http://www.commondreams.org/
http://www.workingforchange.com/
http://www.onlinejournal.com/
http://www.alternet.org/
http://www.fair.org/
http://mondediplo.com/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/


Kirei_na_me: I am very familiar with Arundhati Roy and have really enjoyed her writings, as well as listening to her on shows like Democracy Now. I usually go to http://www.webactive.com to listen to Democracy Now, Counterspin, Free Speech Radio, Jim Hightower, etc. It's a lifeline these days!!

Senseiman: Greg Palast is a wonderful investigative journalist. Have you visited his web site at: http://www.gregpalast.com ? It's very informative.