CNN propagandist bullshit

[Goathead]

Christian Amanpour and Anderson Cooper just declared the election as a tremendous loss for the "insugents". It is disgusting that CNN tries to mold the U.S. foreign policy situation in Iraq. Everyone knows it is bullshit. No, Anderson the biggest loss incured in Iraq was the day the American army rolled across the southern border. The country is now run by a band of Bush cronies who are carving the country up for their coffers and over 100,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives so the Bush crime family can get a little richer. No, Anderson the Iraqis lost with Saddam Hussein and they continue to lose with their current dictator, George W. Bush.

[Blue_State_Elitist]

1. The sad thing

is that Americans buy into this fascist shit. Things are looking really bad in Iraq, so what do they do? They have the media run a 48 hour propaganda marathon.

I wouldn't be surprised if Bush got a 20 point approval bounce. The media is shit, the public is shit.

[spooked911]

3. I doubt he'll get much of a bounce. Only the most hard-core Bush

supporters really think this is a big deal-- especially considering the cost.

CNN is certainly playing this up to a disgusting extent.

But, in a month, this will be very old news. And the outcome is really not clearly good in the long run.

[autorank]

5. Don't worry about a 20% bump. CNN maxes out at 1.5 mil. viewers

O'Liely at 2.4 million. That means that they can control public opinion for a city about the size of Houston. Screw 'em, nobody watches. Shows like this may have 400,000 viewers. They are a charade. Nobody cares. Hardly anybody watches.

[Blue_State_Elitist]

8. But today's push was just as strong as 9/11 IMO

The media is trying its best to help their master.

[autorank]

15. Oh, I totally agree with you on slavish media behavior.

And your avatar is totally twisted, in the best sense of the word. I just think that the CM (corporate media) is losing influence and all three cable networks are very lightly watched (according to all the ratings I've seen). Be happy this is the case. Were it not, we'd be in huge trouble for just the media behavior you're point out.

[tavalon]

7. Yep, and while we've made great strides

in bringing Faux "News" to light as the propoganda mouthpiece of the Bush regime, we have not been as successful showing the bias of CNN and even NPR. I've started calling the former, Corporate News Network and the latter National Policy Radio. These days I get all of my news from Buzzflash and from foreign newspapers. I'm sure there has to be some truth hiding in American news sources but it is so rare as to be suspect, even when true.

[Kerrytravelers]

2. Propaganda? No, seriously... you jest !!!!!

[moggie12]

4. But it IS a "loss" for the insurgents

What are they supposed to say? Zarqawi promised "blood on the streets" and then couldn't "deliver". Meanwhile, brave Iraqis risked death to vote.

Most media pundits are saying that this is a wonderful step but just a first one and many more obstacles lay ahead. That seems like a fair assessment to me.

[Goathead]

9. It is not a loss if the "insugents" just don't show up.

Remember the old addage "He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day"

[moggie12]

12. Very true, I imagine they're not going to pack up and go home

Some commentators have mentioned that too. Things look one way today but I think the road ahead is a long one..........

[Skittles]

11. how is it a wonderful step

for people to vote for ANONYMOUS PEOPLE RUNNING FOR ELECTAION? Does that make a damn bit of sense to you?

[moggie12]

13. The fact that it was something of a "stealth" election

is being overwhelmed today by the fact that people simply showed up in the face of possibly being blown to smithereens. There's a long road ahead and the situation over there is very fluid. One day's great news becomes tomorrow's old news very fast these days.

[CatholicEdHead]

14. 44 dead is not blood on the streets?

If this is under "total lockdown", what will happen in the future?

[moggie12]

17. compared to what most were expecting,

44 deaths was a fairly small number (I was personally fearing the worst, thinking we were going to lose dozens of soldiers and hundred of civilians.

The point I was trying to make is that many commentators acknowledged that there's a long, tough road ahead (not all, but most). Like you just pointed out, they can't keep the country in lock-down forever......... That doesn't take away from what happened today, however -- it was still an amazing day, in my opinion.

[Tinoire]

6. More CNN manufactured footage

The charade is highlighted in brown.

Posted in full with Dahr's permission (posted at end). If you would like to donate to this excellent reporter, please go here

"Here comes “The Freedom”"

My friend from Baquba visited me yesterday. He brought the usual giant lunch of home cooked food he always brings when he comes to see me. I’m still eating it, actually. I had it again for dinner tonight. Ah, the typical Iraqi meal.

He owns four large tents, and rents them to people in his city to use at funeral wakes, marriage parties, tribal negotiation meetings and to cover gardens, among other things.

During the Anglo-American invasion of his country back in the spring of 2003, when refugees from Baghdad sought shelter from the falling bombs, many of the families inundated his city. After his house was filled with refugees, he let others use his tents, for free of course.

Refugees from Fallujah are using them now.

At least 35 US soldiers have died in Iraq today. 31 of them died when a Chinook went down near the Jordanian border. At least four others died in clashes in the al-Anbar province. A patrol on the airport road was bombed, destroying at least one military vehicle. The military hasn’t released any casualty figures on that one yet.

“Bring ‘em on,” said George Bush quite some time ago, when the Iraqi resistance had begun to pick up the pace.

Today, during a press conference he spoke about the upcoming elections in Iraq.

“Clearly there are some who are intimidated,” he said, “I urge alls (not a typo) people to vote.”

Let me describe the scene on the ground here in “liberated” Iraq.

With the “elections” just three days away, people are terrified. Families are fleeing Baghdad much as they did prior to the invasion of the country. Seeking refuge from what everyone fears to be a massive onslaught of violence in the capital city, huge lines of cars are stacked up at checkpoints on the outer edges of the city.

Policemen and Iraqi soldiers are trying to convince people to stay in the city and vote.

Nobody is listening to them.

Whereas Baghdad is filled with Fallujah refugees, now villages and smaller cities on the outskirts of Baghdad are filling up with election refugees.

Yet these places aren’t safe either. In Baquba attacks on polling stations are a near daily occurrence. Mortar attacks are common on polling stations even as far south as Basra. A truck bomb struck a Kurdish political party headquarters in a small town near Mosul, killing 15 people, wounding twice that many. A string of car bombs detonated at polling stations in Kirkuk, which was already under an 8pm-5am curfew, killing 10 Iraqis.

Here in Baghdad, although the High Commission for Elections in Iraq has yet to announce their locations, schools which are being converted into polling stations are already being attacked.

Iraqis who live near these schools are terrorized at the prospect.

“They can block the whole city and people cannot move,” says a man speaking to me on condition of anonymity, “The city is dead, the people are dead. For what? For these forced elections!”

He is angry and frustrated because his street is now blocked as he lives near a small yellow middle school that is going to be used as a polling station.

Nearby some US soldiers are occupying a police station, as usual. One of them saw me taking photos and tried to confiscate my camera.

It didn’t matter that I showed him my press badge. After some talking he let me delete the photos and move on, camera in hand.

Sand barriers block the end of a street, the school where the insides are already in disrepair sits just behind them.

At least 90 streets in Baghdad are now closed down by huge sand and/or concrete barriers and razor wire. The number is growing daily.

“Now I’m afraid mortars will hit my home if the polling station is attacked,” he adds. He’ll be moving across town to stay at a relative’s house, which is not near one of the dreaded polling stations.

An owner of a small grocery shop nearby is just as concerned. He had to negotiate with soldiers to have them leave an opening on the end of the barrier so people could access his place of business.

“I’m already living off my food ration, and have little business,” he says while pointing at the deserted street, “Now who wants to come near my shop? All of us are afraid, and all of us are suffering now.”

A tired looking guard standing nearby named Salman chimes in on the conversation. “I would be crazy to vote, it’s so dangerous now,” he says with a cigarette dangling from his hand, “Besides, why vote? Of course Allawi will stay in. The Americans will make it so.”

A contact of mine just returned from spending a week in Fallujah. We shared some of the food brought from my friend in Baquba.

“I’d been in Fallujah for a week and all I’d seen was tough military tactics,” he tells me, “They are arresting people and putting them in these trucks, blindfolded and tied up. Everywhere I looked all I saw was utter devastation.”

He spoke with many families who told him one horror story after another, death after death after death.

“Then today, the military brings in a dozen Humvees and ground troops to basically seal off a small area near a market,” he continues, “In the middle of them is a CNN camera crew filming troops throwing candy to kids and these guys in orange vests start cleaning the streets around them.”

He laughs while holding up his arms and says, “I’d never seen those guys anywhere in the city before. I don’t know where they came from.”

After a pause to take a drink of soda he adds, “I’d never seen any boots on the ground at all, and all of the sudden there are all these marines standing around like everything was ok. It was the first time I’d seen any soldier not in a Humvee or a Bradley. I was really surprised.”

“All of it was 100% staged. Good PR before the election,” he says. Then in a reference to mainstream America he adds, “Fallujah is fine, now go back to sleep.”

http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/archives/dispatches/000186.php#more

====
News From Inside Iraq
Weary of the overall failure of the US media to accurately report on the realities of the war in Iraq for the Iraqi people and US soldiers, Dahr Jamail went to Iraq to report on the war himself.

His dispatches were quickly recognized as an important media resource and he is now writing for the Inter Press Service, The NewStandard and many other outlets. His reports have also been published with The Nation, The Sunday Herald and Islam Online, to name just a few. Dahr's dispatches and hard news stories have been translated into Polish, German, Dutch, Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese and Arabic. On the radio, Dahr is a special correspondent for Flashpoints and reports for the BBC, Democracy Now!, and numerous other stations around the globe.

Dahr has spent a total of 8 months in occupied Iraq as one of only a few independent US journalists in the country. Dahr uses the DahrJamailIraq.com website and his popular mailing list to disseminate his dispatches.

Get more information about Dahr in his interview in Newtopia Magazine.

http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/
===


Permission granted to post in full:

----Original Message Follows----
From: Dahr Jamail
Reply-To: [e-mail]
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Contact From the Dahr Jamail Iraq Web Site
Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 13:37:37 +0300

Thanks a lot xxx,

Please post whatever of my work you like and keep up the great work.

Best,

Dahr


[e-mail] wrote:

>The following message was sent to you from a visitor to
>DahrJamailIraq.com. The person entered: [e-mail]
>as the return email address. If you reply to this message, it will
>be sent to [e-mail].
>
>******
>Hello Dahr,
>
>First I need to tell you how AWED I am of the good work you\'re
>doing in keeping us informed of what\'s really going on in Iraq- not
>that we would believe the mainstream media for one minute but your
>information is VERY important to the antiwar movement.
>
>I would like your permission to repost some of your writings at the
>reasonably Leftist web-site www.democraticunderground.com. Most of
>the posters there are passionately antiwar and have been fighting
>this madness for years.
>
>I am trying to fight that creeping propaganda from the
>right-wing. I promise to give you FULL credit with a link taking
>people back to your site (which I\'ve already been extensively
>advertising). The site has over 60,000 registered users (though I\'d
>warrant only about 2000 are active) and many lurkers. Would you
>please allow me to repost a few of your blog entries in their
>entirety? I am determined to fight the sickening propaganda that
>there\'s any sort of an \"election\" in Iraq.
>
>God bless you whether you say yes or no. You are a hero in my eyes.
>
>Sincerely and gratefully,
>
> ((me))

[Rapcw]

10. At least CNN never has bombs to music

as fox did during operation "Iraqi Freedom" n/t

[tavalon]

16. But that just makes their propaganda

that much more insidious. NPR is even scarier because they have a reputation of being truly objective. They aren't anymore, but the rep. sticks. Many of my liberal friends get all of their news from NPR so they are slowly being poisoned by the Kool-aide.