The Showcase Behind Door Number "Biased"
Paul Rieckhoff is an Iraq war vet, and the founder of Operation Truth, the largest organization of Iraq and Afghanistan war vets in the country.
We had Paul come into the studio today to get his perspective on the guided tour of the Green Zone in Baghdad hosted for a bunch of rightwing talk radio folks by Centcom. The tour it starts today and goes for a week. Their mission? "To report the good news on Operation Iraqi Freedom". Buzz Patterson, one of the radio folks taking part in the tour says,""The war is being won, if not already won, I think ...[Iraq] is stabilized".
Want to know what an actual vet thinks about their so-called truth tour? Listen here.
Rachel
Rachel and Morning Sedition
And a hats off to the excellent job the Rachel,Mark and Marc did yesterday.All I can say is it's good we keep the terriost in Iraq so they don't come to like......London!!!
- Email this page
By jimrc5July 8, 2005 - 11:24amThe conservative talk show host beauty pageant in Iraq
I can't help thinking what a mixed blessing it would be if a mortar round took out a few of these talk show hosts. Sure, some promising (and lucrative) careers in broadcasting would be tragically cut short. But another almost certain consequence would be the further depression of the war's popularity here in America, and maybe an acceleration of plans to end this stupid and pointless (now that the election has happened) occupation. Greater good, and all that.
And right here is a place where I think we can see a divergence of aims, between those of al-Qaeda (whom the administration now wants to paint as the author of all recent attacks in Iraq), and the "Iraqi domestic insurgents" (who don't have an official name partly because as far as this administration is concerned, they don't exist).
The "native" Iraqi insurgents may only want us to get out of Iraq. But al-Qaeda has a different objective. They want us to stay in Iraq because that is one of the things that keeps us spread too thin to have a hope of doing them any real harm. And one of the things that keeps us in Iraq is the ignorance of the American people concerning what's really going on.
So if the administration is right about its "outside agitator" theory, you should expect those talk show hosts to be among the safest and most cared-for Americans in the country. In fact, al-Qaeda will probably be mounting their own patrols to make sure nothing bad happens to these morons.
Terry Allen
Seattle, WA
- Email this page
By terry_allenJuly 8, 2005 - 2:09pmI was a bit troubled about a
I was a bit troubled about a comment you made this morning .
You sarcastically complained that you could always find comments about Israel knowing about some [terrorist] event in advance. I disagree with you on that one. If there is quite a bit of smoke, it is probably for a reason. Please see a summary of the Israeli message bungling that took place at http://www.antiwar.com/blog/index.php?id=P2205
It is only after congress members retire, that they finally make critical comments about our closest “friends” in the “Middle East.” The most recent comments made by CIA analyst Ray McGovern—he d’ Man!-- are immediately dumped into the bucket of anti-Semitism. He made comments that I wanted to hear for the longest but I wanted to hear it from congress members that are in office not out. Former (?) Senator Ernest Hollings made somewhat similar statements but again…after he is about to retire. There is a small handful that speaks the truth about ours and other’s policy regardless of who gets cut by it. Why is it that only after he/she is about to retire that the truth gets out? That should get your curiosity up about there being something going on maybe even a conspiracy of silence or fear. Policy is policy, not people.
Remember Cynthia McKinney, a congress woman in Georgia that spoke the truth? She recently won her seat back but of course she had to lose it first. Take a look-see at how she lost it and after what she said, that Dan Rather warned her to “shut up before they come after you” and who financed her opponent.
“The biggest conspiracy of them all is that there are no conspiracies.” (Read at www.whatreallyhappened.com )
Take Randy Rhode’s path and un-categorically state that you will never criticize Israel. I find this unfortunate because she is a citizen of the United States of America not Isreal…I think, but at least she is up front about it and that is just as important.
Please don’t be offended, I am not pissed; I was more, shocked than anything because in the past you had mentioned the name Palestinian in an appropriate light. Just in case
I mis-heard something, my humble apologies.
I will be listening.
Eli Wright
- Email this page
By wryghteJuly 8, 2005 - 4:03pmMisterHandsomePants
Good to hear from Paul Rieckhoff again.
They really oughtta put a link to it on the audio highlights on the AAR homepage.
- Email this page
By NJSharonJuly 8, 2005 - 9:37pmUnfortuately AAR posts propietary wma audio, many cant listen
Unfortuately good interviews by Rachel are being posted in the microshaft propietary wma closed audio format. Millions of people that aren't using Windoze are unable to listen to that crappy propietary format like me :(
If your on a Mac or Linux you're shit out of luck.
Adam, if you read these, please please plead for AAR to get rid of the wma format and post audio in the standard open source MP3 format.
- Email this page
By GreatAmericanPatriotJuly 9, 2005 - 3:40amMP3, please!
Amen, I agree wholeheartedly. I haven't been able to run WMP on OSX for some time - I have installed again and tried to stream this interview and couldn't so I ended up listening to it hovering over my laptop with tinny sounding speakers, ugh!
I very much miss Rachel's interviews from her other show and would love to download and listen to inteviews like these more often, as long as they're in the proper media format!
William
- Email this page
By ukbloggerJuly 12, 2005 - 7:59amReally not all your fault world going to pot
Hey, you deserve some time off. Enjoy. The worst thing is that I'm still trying to find some talk radio to fill the hours of 9 to 11AM when I worked with my radio and listened to 3 informative hours on airamericaradio. Now they broadcast only rant. Also, you being on the double Marc[k] show sure does raise the level. So good to hear.
- Email this page
By twandaJuly 10, 2005 - 5:41pm