Iraqis Are Not "Abstractions"

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Iraqis-Are-Not-Abstractio-by-Ray-McGovern-Children_Compassion_Iraqis_Media-140621-937.html



Ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern holding up the iconic photograph of a six-year-old Iraqi girl who survived the accidental killing of her parents by U.S. troops in 2004.

Iraqis Are Not "Abstractions"
By Ray McGovern
OpEdNews Op Eds 6/21/2014 at 15:42:29

When I saw the Washington Post's banner headline, "U.S. sees risk in Iraq airstrikes," I thought, "doesn't that say it all." The Post apparently didn't deem it newsworthy to publish a story headlined: "Iraqis see risk in U.S. airstrikes." Then, in an accompanying article, authors Gregg Jaffe and Kevin Maurer observed nonchalantly that "Iraq and the Iraqi people remain something of an abstraction," a point that drove me to distraction.

Further putting me in a bad mood, the story's first paragraph about the latest bloody debacle in Iraq declared: "The sudden collapse of Iraqi forces in the face of lightly armed insurgents has catalyzed an emotional debate within the U.S. military about a war that, just a few years ago, seemed on the brink of going down in history as a success."

Fresh in my mind was Robert Parry's article that same day (June 19) exposing the myth of the "successful surge" in Iraq. That, in turn, had prompted me to re-read my own retrospective on the celebrated "surge" of 2007, reconstructing the play-by-play on its genesis and how, with the help of media cheerleaders, that myth enabled President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to ride off into the sunset on Jan. 20, 2009, to all appearances not having lost the war in Iraq.

In the wake of recent events, the corporate-owned-and-operated media appears determined to apply its most imaginative legerdemain to convince us of this past "success" while moving to the blame-game mode of faulting President Barack Obama for the current mess.