This look at the actual career of David Petraeus in The Independent is useful for reminding us of the glaring gap between his record in Iraq and the esteem he is held in by the American media. The gap in Petraeus’ record should be useful in evaluating the report he is going to give this week, but it won’t be used by our media. They have been ramping up the subtle and hardly subtle pro-war propaganda for weeks, doing their part in the Republican media campaign to continue Bush War II until Bush leaves office. They will then begin the “who lost Iraq” part of the scenario. That certain part of the campaign is already beginning and it will be everyone except for those who brought this disaster on us and the world who will be blamed.
It’s good to look at The Independent, The Guardian, etc. online and recall what it used to be like to have news in the United States. With a few exceptions of nugatory influence we don’t. We have pro-Republican, corporate propaganda which will march in lock step even in the face of years of evidence that the direction is straight into disaster. They do this because as long as their incomes aren’t negatively impacted, their dinner invitations don’t decline and their invitations to appear on TV and radio to sell their product continue, piles of rotting corpses in other places don’t bother them one little bit. If anyone has a candidate for a news operation in Washington D.C. which isn’t part of this corrupt insider system it would be good to hear about it.
When the “report” comes out it should be remembered that Petraeus and Crocker (sic.) will be reporting on their own work. As the article says, they’re smart enough to give the appearance of some self-criticism to create an official plausibility of verisimilitude but the results will be entirely political, most carefully calculated to achieve a political result in the United States. Everything Petraeus has done has been to create political effects here. But it won’t be an attempt by the Bush II regime to woo the media, one doesn’t have a need to woo their own concubine. The media won’t evaluate the “report” they will accept it. Well, perhaps they’ll do a bit to create their own illusion of verisimilitude also, but they can be counted on to not go farther than would risk reality breaking through. When things go farther into hell, which they will, the Petraeus Report show will not be mentioned again, though the man’s career in our media will probably be a total success.
Here is John Kerry’s view of the escalation’s accomplishments.