Wikipedia as Democratic mouthpiece? The user-written and -edited site has been accused of left-leaning judgments on the part of its dominant editors, but not necessarily of hewing to any party line. But now, one must wonder: Wikipedia trumpets the White House talking point that today, August 19, 2010, was the “end” of the Iraq War.
The reason this can’t be considered the typical imperial stenography we’re all used to from the likes of CNN — they’ll report the truth as handed down to them from whoever is in power — is that, in fact, the war is not over by any meaningful metric. If they were simply going on authority-declared technicalities, Wikipedia would have listed the war as over on the “Mission Accomplished” day of May 1, 2003. After all, Iraq’s army had been defeated and “major” combat operations after that date had officially ended. One wonders what the effective nuking of Fallujah would be considered.
Almost immediately, some discussion was sparked by users. “This is a scam. The US is not the sole participant,” said one. Not only that, the US is still itself very much a participant, as 50,000 combat troops will simply be redefined, as Bush did with “operations,” as “transitional” troops. See how easy? Voila! But that’s not all. The State Dept., as we have been reporting for several months, plans its own 50,000-strong auxiliary force. We do need to protect our diplomats, naturally, and there will be ever so many of them!
I won’t restate the details of the true fact that the Iraq War, whatever the politicians want to call it, is not over — Jason Ditz spelled it out just fine today. But be sure, as over 100 Iraqis just this week would tell you if they had not been blown to bits, this war is still on and the US military is in it up to its neck. No matter what the Obamadrones at Wikipedia want to think.
"true fact?" Does that mean all of your other facts are false? I thought a fact, by definition, is true.
Emphasis.
Is it really OVER?
Charles
The historian, Tony Judt, christened our times as the “age of forgetting”. We (actually our politicians and “leaders”) forget anything inconvenient to our goals – we forget that there never was WMD in Iraq, we forget the pain caused by the lack of social safety nets during the Great Depression, we forget the consequences that Russia suffered in Afghanistan.
This term “age of forgeting” in appropriate for numbskulls like Bush or Palin and the TEA Party crowd, but what about the clever folks? The schemers and manipulators. The CEOs of corporations paying diddley-squat on their enormous profits and wanting to pay even less. Or the Zionist neo-cons promoting a needless attack upon Iran. Or vicious bastards like the Wall Street crowd who loot and plunder the common wealth under the pirate flag of “free market finance”?
To describe a time when poisonous desires are presented on silver platters, we need a phrase such as the “age of horseshit”, Horseshit just being the shorthand way of “malice wearing the cloaks of sincerity and naivete”.
I think America is deep in the age of horseshit.
You got that right ! WAY DEEP in horseshit , espercially when an EDITABLE "alleged " source of information ,becomes a paradigm of truth .
Wikepedia is a pathetic joke , but it IS a sign of the times , ain't it ?
Oh , and soley for the sake of not letting Richard Vajs , get away with that "wikepedian " statement of "zionist neocons promoting a needless attack upon [ poor little innocent ] Iran " ….Iran is a sponsor of terrorism , a theocratic facist regime , a meddler in Lebanon , a promotor AND instigator of "The Summer War "with Israel, which btw cost Lebanon dearly , a provocative antagonist causing a war with Iraq in the past costing millions of lives , a violator of women's and human rights , a persecutor of minority religions, with an illigitimately "elected " head of state who goes on the world stage threatening to wipe another nation of the face of the Earth , with religious apocalyptic screeds , and missle launch demonstrations meant to destabilize the region .
badaboo, do you even read this site? The ""wiping israel off the face of the earth" was a misquote(Justin and others on this site believe it may have been intentional).Also western countries test weapons everyday, does that mean they want attack their neighbors?
..a sponsor of terrorism(Saudi Arabia)
, a theocratic facist regime(Saudi Arabia)
a meddler in Lebanon(Syria and Jordan)
a promotor AND instigator of "The Summer War "with Israel(Syria),which btw cost Lebanon dearly ,
a provocative antagonist causing a war with Iraq in the past costing millions of lives(Israel),
a violator of women's and human rights(Saudi Arabia)
a persecutor of minority religions(Saudi Arabia)
with an illigitimately "elected " head of state(Sausi Arabia, Jordan).
Its a good thing we aren't allies with any of those countries listed.It is us against the islamofascists.You know countries where women can't vote, can't drive, are restricted in their travel (may require a male protector), are subject to the dictates of a religious police and tribal councils.Countries that are the birthplace of Osama Bin-Laden, the 9/11 hijackers, AL-Qeada's leadership, and the guy who tried to blow up the WTC the first time around.Countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN THAT THEY ARE OUR ALLIES!
What do you mean that they are our allies
MISQUOTE ???? You're DELUDED.
Iraqis have "saw fit to slaughter each other long before the US went in . Iranians and Iraqis "saw fit to slaughter one another , long before we were there , they both "saw fit " to slaughter Kurds , long before we were there , and the Sunni Regime of Saddam "saw fit to slaughter 300,000 Shia , long before we were there .
You replying to me Thomas B. ? WHO said Egypt and Saudi Arabia are our allies ? We were talking about Iran …were we not ?
However if you'd like to include them , fine , when it comes to hostility top the US ,they're in the same category . Iran is simply OVERT about it rather than the COVERT Saudis and Egyptians .
LOL ….you've stumbled onto a great truth here .
..a sponsor of terrorism(United States of America) )
a meddler in Lebanon(United States of America/israel)
a provocative antagonist causing a war with Iraq in the past costing millions of lives(United States of America/Israel),
a violator of women's and human rights(United States of America/israel)
a persecutor of minority religions(United States of America/israel)
Don't forget to include Israel as a sponsor of terrorism too.
they have more hands on approach to terror so, sponsor is not the correct term to me
You're a great revisionist Bass . I guess you haven't been to either country . Perhaps you should get a passport and move to your favored Iran . You don't know what you're talking about sonny .
It's not over until the last overloaded helicopter is chased out.
It'll happen someday….
You should learn "the shocking truth ", that the overwhelming majority of Iraqi casualties …..have been caused by ….IRAQIS KILLING EACH OTHER …….don't take my word for it , look it up .But maybe you been reading "wickey " rather than reports in newspapers here and abroad .
We're all aware of this. However, they would not have done so if the situation had not been ripe. For many reasons, many Iraqis saw fit to slaughter each to come out on top in a unitary state with no clear guarantee as to who might take it all. That's politics, even if by Western standards (at least in the later part of the century where we only kill foreigners for political reasons) it's bloody.
Dear Zionist Troll,
It's true most of the Iraqis who died violently did so at the hands of other Iraqis. (As opposed to the hundreds of thousands who have died from disease and hunger because of US sanctions and destruction of infrastructure.) But the internecine warfare was deliberately provoked by the occupiers as a way to defeat the Sunni-led insurgency. Look up "Salvador option" and you will find this was a deliberate plan of the American occupiers.
Not to say there wouldn't have been some violence in this situation anyway, as there is today, but the US provoked most of it. More to the point – Iran is the point – Iran hasn't attacked anyone for 500 years. The Iran-Iraq war was started by Saddam, with our encouragement. 90+% of the violence (and especially of the terror) in the mid-east is carried out by the US and Israel.
Dear victim of propaganda , children who allegedly died of starvation in Iraq due to US sanctions , died at the hands of their dictator Saddam . THERE WAS NO EMBARGO OR SANCTIONS ON FOOD < BABY FOOD OR MEDICAL SUPPLIES .
The Iran Iraq war resulted from Iranian medling vis-vis the Shia in the South of Iraq .
Get your story straight David .
BTW , NO INFRASTRUCTURE IN IRAQ WAS DESTROYED BY THE US , in the First Gulf War , with the excveption of Military Infrastructure .
With such breathtaking counter-factual revisionism and accompanying shoddy logic, never mind the suffocating moral vacuum left in the wake of the absence of even the slightest trace of empathy, one is easy persuaded to see your wikipedia-denialism (skepticism it is not, for skeptics rely on evidence) and the urge to throw out the baby with the bathwater as part and parcel of the same ill fated ideological mode of thinking that underly your other demonstrations of self defeating idiocy here.
Well what do you know? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_sanctions
…and your "SOURCE " …LOL….."wikepedia " ? Here's a hint for those who lack the ability to type UNESCO , or UNITED NATIONS …there you go sport , I've even spelled it for you .
Trouble with wiky is, that those too lazy to cross-check information , and gullible enough to believe the edits at wiky are ..lol…"true facts " , go out and tout their newly found "facts " .
History the way you want it eh sonny ? LOL
Please forgive me if I fail to be sufficiently surprised at finding you have missed the point entirely. The question must have never occurred to you why I expressly linked to Wikipedia.
Weird thing to be so wrong and yet so confident. Ah well, that seems to be the hallmark of foolishness.
Oh , and for oneselbow , don't worry that day will come , and those choppers won't be chased out . And when they do leave , then you'll see the REAL KILLING BEGIN .
So? Let them. It is none of our concern except that our government set up the board for it to happen.
Badaboo,
I am trying to figure out whether you are mentally in the “age of forgetting” , i.e. having forgotten what a con job those Zionist neo-cons did on selling us into the idea that we were bombing Iraq to liberate them or whether you are truly a man of our times (the glorious “age of horseshit” ) with your laundry list of Iran’s alleged crimes and other talking points right off AIPAC’s printing press
Also, if you're a wikipedia member, go and protest or change this ridiculous entry.
If ou actually read my first statement , you might recall that I'm highly critical of wikepedia , or ANY reader editable information source ….as far as WHO uses it for their own propaganda purposes , guess you haven't figured out yet , that covers both ends of the spectrum . Pay attention David .
BTW David , what did you say ? Iran hasn't attacked anyone in 500 years ? LOL…better brush up on your history , or just ask some Kurds .
badaboo,
Take a break – you are working too hard for your money.
Another troll hired by Israel, no doubt.
You ASSume Richard , and you're wrong . And btw Richard , everyone of any intelligence knows by now ,that the words zionist and jew are interchangeable , the latter merely being code for the former . Judging by you're use , you're quite transparent .
It's not work David , it's simply a matter of parsing fact from propaganda . But I gues it's not easy to fall into the trap of being a propaganda parrot . Parrots dont know the facts nor even the meaning of the words , they just imitate the sounds . With humans though , there's usually an underlying agenda .
Youre use of "zionist neo-cons " a term used by specific "groups " of people, displays that particular agenda . Our entry into Iraq was fueled not by any love for Israel , nor by your "coded " zionist neocons , but rather by OIL and duplicitous relations with what are truly enemies of the US . So too the state of affairs with Iran , has nothing to do with Israel , thus your repetitive use of "zionist " is disingenuos at best , and an expression of purposed ignorance.
LOL…I see by the voting , birds of a feather flock together …not too much independent thought takes place on this thread eh …lol..
badaboo,
I wish you wouldn’t call me anti-Jew, it makes my poor mother, the late Anna Moors Chormanowitz, roll in her grave.
badaboo,
I find it offensive that you would insist that anyone who opposes Zionism somehow is against or is out to hurt all Jews. Not all Jews are Zionists nor are all Zionists Jewish; the Sarah Palin type of Christian Evangelicals are even more Zionist than most Jews. In the case of the case of the Christian Zionists, there is a strong likelihood that they are basically anti-Muslim.
Anyway, I am ethnically Jewish. Why am I not pro Israel or Zionist.? Because how can I espouse a movement that believes that it is ethically OK to steal others’ land without compensation, divert all of the waters so that the Arabs drink polluted water while we have swimming pools, to dump white phosphorus, napalm and cluster bombs on unarmed civilians, to herd 1.2 million people into 100 sq miles of Gaza and systematically starve them, to goad sympathetic Americans into killing Iraquis and Iranians simply because they are a “threat’ (to our pride), to refuse to hire the natives and bring strangers in to do the dirty work. I could go on and on but the point should be noted that Zionism is racist land theft and unspeakable cruelty. There is nothing about Zionism to claim the allegiance of any decent person, Jew or otherwise.
I doubt that very much ,what you are implying Richard . The word you are in the habit of using , is used almost exclusively by those who are . Either way I'm sure your attitude indeed , would make your mom roll in her grave .
Nice try though Richard ……NOT .
badaboo
You say “I doubt that very much, what you are implying Richard”. Badaboo, I try not to imply much, I try to speak plainly. That is one of the reasons that I use my real name rather than an alias – in this age of an eternal internet records, it can very embarrassing to leave a trail of bullshit and lies attached to your real identity. It is working without a safety net. If you use your real name, you better tell the truth.
But enough about me, why don’t you defend Zionism. Tell me what is untrue about I say about Zionism and its racism, its land theft, its cruelty, its manipulation of America, its hatred of all of its neighbors.
…lol…and as I stated before , "birds of a feather …" as my reply is being moderated , as yours is not . And that is because you are "towing the accepted line " .
You're being moderated, and yet still 70% of the comments here are yours? I don't think so.
You can accuse me of being a paid agent of Israel , a troll , a zionist " , yet I express no bigotry , but your "bias " is overt and obvious , and no doubt passes muster .
So ….to say "zionism is not racism " and to say "zionism does not perpetrate genocide " is not acceptable …..but to claim the opposite is .
LOL…..what do you call THAT ??
Don't lecture me about buillshit Richard .
In FACT RICHARD , you are most likerly an Arab or Muslim because you rhetoric is exactly what is parroted by them , "hatred of all it's neighbors " REALLY Richard , who are you trying to kid ?
ME ?
You wouldn't bne the first to put on a charade with a western name , nor the first to gravitate towards a blog that shares your views on Israel . And talk about hatred ? It drips from your statements .
But you've got freinds here …eh "Richard " ???
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