The media says "mission accomplished," but they don't talk about Obama's officials his security advisors before he was even elected, who had decided that they'll be keeping at least between 50-70,000 troops in Iraq until the end of Obama's first term (Jan 2013) and, you know, they're right on track for that. They're reclassifying troops as noncombat troops to keep them there on small-scale air-force bases called lily pads, to keep a strong military presence there for ahem Iran, and, to monitor and control access to Iraqi oil.
In Afghanistan, it's just as bad there now as it was in Iraq the first few years: three-Americans-a-day being killed. Now Afghanistan, from a media perspective, is like Iraq in 2003 through 2005, and that's where we're at with Afghanistan.
FJS: Journalism is an institution that's supposed to monitor the Establishment, but the irony is that the journalism the majority of people experience these days is often propaganda spun by the very corporate and financial interests that have an overwhelming influence on the Establishment. As an independent journalist, can you talk about this conundrum, and, what sort of problems arise around corporate media regarding honest reporting?
Also, in most journalism schools throughout the country the myth of objectivity is a whole new thing, you're supposed to report both sides without personal feelings, to have no personal perspective, and that is bullshit. The second we decide to cover one story and not another there goes objectivity. Let's be honest here, as journalists we give a damn about what we're reporting we care about the people and the places we are reporting about, or at least we should, and that makes for honest reporting. And so, there goes objectivity.
The myth of objectivity that is propagated so heavily in journalism school, coupled with such strong corporate influence and control over the media has crippled honest reporting. I mean, remember two or three years ago when NBC aired Carl Rove and his cohorts dancing on stage
FJS: Right, I remember that, what a fool
DJ: Right is that an example of journalism?
FJS: What do you make of the recent switcheroo from McChrystal to Petraeus?
DJ: Well I think Petraeus is another media-created phenom. If you look at what he did in Iraq he was in charge of the area around Mosul, he wanted to make Mosul a modern city, use it as a model for how we'll transform Iraq. To date, right now, Mosul is one of the most violent areas of the country, yet he, Patraeus, keeps getting promoted up the chain in the military. He's credited with bringing about the surge, but all he really did was bought off the resistance and used death squads and, in turn, got the guns turned from the occupiers to each other.
And really, replacing McChrystal with Patraeus is irrelevant it doesn't matter who's in charge. Patraeus will surely continue buying people off. And you know, like I said, Afghanistan isn't Iraq, look at the history: Khan, the Brits, Russia all have failed in their attempts to occupy that region. The US is trying to occupy a country that has never been occupied, and we think we can do it because of our hubris and technology alone, and at the end of the day, those two things won't get the job done.
FJS: Many of us are starting to realize that much of the reconstruction funds for Iraq and Afghanistan end up unaccounted for (like the recent $8.7 billion in Iraqi reconstruction funds that, well, are, lost") and/or finding its way into the pockets of private contractors, military operations and local counterparts to the former and latter. Do you want to expand on this?
DJ: Well first off, does anybody actually believe that this country [the US] would spend hundreds-of-billions-of-dollars to invade and occupy simply to help people? If you think so then you need to go through puberty again, grow up, and look at the world more clearly governments and corporations don't operate that way. We're there because of US economic interests. In the case of Afghanistan there's a big fat oil and natural gas pipeline from the Caspian Sea running through Afghanistan and part of Pakistan to the coast. If you look at where four of the main US bases in Afghanistan are they're right along the pipeline route. The major corporations in Afghanistan are the same that were in Iraq: DynCorp, Blackwater [now known as Xe], Halliburton, etc. etc. The occupation is about making money, maximizing profits, and it's also if you look at the geographic placement of the US military bases part of the strategy of isolating and surrounding Iran. And again the Russians, the Brits" they were bled in Afghanistan, and the same will happen to the US. The US is not going to win this.
FJS: The US invasion and occupation of the Middle East extends far beyond just Iraq and Afghanistan, doesn't it?
DJ: Yes. If you look at the national security strategy for the US, it's all about using the military to protect what the US views as "national security interests", which includes other countries' oil and natural gas sources and reserves, and the shipping lanes of those resources. You can read the Quadrennial Defense Review report in which it explains having a military capable of annihilating any and all adversaries that refuse to toe-the-line regarding US interests, i.e., anyone "hostile" to US interests-security, like, e.g., Iran, Syria really anyone not bought off becomes a target.
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