March 26, 2008
With the Iraq War entering its sixth year and the U.S. death toll now surpassing 4,000, it has become fashionable – and rather convenient – to claim that no one prior to the invasion five years ago could have foreseen what a bloody disaster the war would turn out to be.
Typical is a recent article by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter John Burns, published in the New York Times a few days before the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion.
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Bush more successful in accomplishing Bin Laden’s mission to kill Americans than Bin Laden himself…
“...only the most prescient could have guessed..."--John Burns
Prescience is one thing, Mr. Burns, due diligence is quite another. In the run-up to the Iraq war, prescience would surely have warned that sh*t customarily happens. Due diligence, on the other hand, might also have defined exactly what kind of sh*t to expect. I much prefer that my journalists and government leaders concentrate on due diligence. Don’t you, Mr. Burns? Particularly when it comes to the initiation of war!
Not to mention Gen. Eric Shinseki's estamates which were written off during the run up to the war.
One of the very worst TV new spitters of the last 5-6 years was Chris Matthews whose shows often went for months on end without having an opposing voice to Bush and Crew or to the "Conservative Right Wing" (who often seemed imaginary rather than real ) on his program. He especially did not have ANY African American pundits or journalists join his discussions.
Nowadays, poor Chris is splitting a gut trying to show himself as nonpartisam. He wants to be "Mr. Everyguy" and longs to "be liked." Add to that the fact that he currently has a regular list of African American journalists and guests on every program.
He now tries to have such a JImmy Stewart character whereas during the heyday of BushCo, Matthews had one of the nastiest, most vicious, cutting personalities on the air. Strange how one can change when one's ratings and job are on the line.
He understands that those of us whom he insulted by omitting our voices during those years do not wish to hear his opinions now and would like to see him replaced on all normal stations (that is all stations except the perverted FOX.)
There were a lot of us who could see the light from the first discussion of this "war.' Does anyone remember the huge antiwar demonstration held at Times Square where over a million demonstrators showed up and were not allowed on Broadway but were contained on only the side streets, therefore making the demonstration seem small and inconsequential. Being a New Yorker, I hold former mayor and pro war supporters Rudy Giuliani responsible along with the major newspapers who failed to report what had happened. Julie Annie turned the police loose on the demonstrators and it was reminiscent of the Civil Rights rallies - not nearly as bad - but certainly aimed at the same goal - to prevent free Americans from dissenting.
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