Letters to the Editor
-
Shame on the NY Times
Why do they continue to be used as mouthpieces for the administration's propogand? Don't they have people on the staff with at least half the brains of Glenn so they could run the kind of analysis we see here?
Is the NYT doing these things to remain fair and balanced? Or are they just putting a lot of views on their pages?
Well, on the positive side, the right wing has been very clear about their strategies and published many of them. This looks like it is part of the strategy to say that everything is going well. The real problem will come if the right wing quotes the NYT as saying that the surge is going well.
From Juan Cole's daily report on Iraq we find today:
Skepticism on Gates-Rice Mission
The aid organization Oxfam estimates that a third of Iraqis, about 8 million persons, are in urgent need of aid, lacking potable water and in many instances even food to eat. The BBC summarizes:
' Nearly 30% of children are malnourished, a sharp increase on the situation four years ago. Some 15% of Iraqis regularly cannot afford to eat.
The report also said 92% of Iraq's children suffered from learning problems. . .
t suggests that 70% of Iraq's 26.5m population are without adequate water supplies, compared to 50% percent prior to the invasion. Only 20% have access to effective sanitation.
'
These statistics strike as similar to the ones for Palestinians in Gaza, which was under Israeli military occupation for decades, and which is still in a kind of Israeli penitentiary. The Iraqi statistics are worse, and were achieved more quickly. But foreign military occupation clearly isn't good for a people, and one of its by-products can be large numbers of malnourished children.
Keep up the great work Glenn.