Tuesday, April 08, 2008

About that al Qaeda in Iraq

When I responded to Tony Snow's misinformation about the nature of the conflict in Iraq I pointed out how deceptive it is to frame the Iraqi conflict as the U.S. fighting al Qaeda. This Bill Moyers Journal segment from last summer says the same thing but in greater detail and from people who have expertise on the subject.

1 comment:

Sheldon said...

Yep, spot on. I haven't seen the Bill Moyers segment yet.

However, everytime I see or read something about the Iraqi insurgency, I learn that it is a much more complex and varied than portrayed in the mainstream press. Really should be called "insurgencies".

Have you seen the documentary "Meeting Resistance" about the Iraqi insurgency? I missed it when it came to town, but it is scheduled to be out on DVD in May, and is on my Netflix waiting list.

Frontline also had an excellent program a few years ago which examined the various factions of the insurgency.

One thing that stuck out in my mind is that one group of insurgents actually voted in the elections on the same day that they carried out an attack against U.S. forces!

The idea that Iraq will somehow become ruled by Al Qaeda if the U.S. leaves is highly unlikely and simply scary propaganda. Most likely it would flatten some of Al Qaeda's tires.

It is apparent that if you want to understand events in Iraq, you just simply cannot depend on mainstream corporate news, whether its Fox, CNN, or ABC, but must dig a little deeper.