Press freedom, result of Operation Iraqi Freedom. And an example of American freedom, both at the same time , but from different authorities. Well done George and Dickster.

The White House won't lift a finger to overturn this action by the Iraqis, because it will serve to feed the fiction that they are a "sovereign" nation and government. ("Gee, WE don't think this is such a good idea, but what can we do? After all, Iraq has a democratically elected government!")

Even worse, our own armed forces will continue to be USED shamelessly by this Administration and its supporters, e.g. by agreeing to accept petitions signed by active duty forces who support current Iraq policy, while denying/denigrating/dismissing negative commentary by anyone connected with the military, whether active duty or retired.

It's all so sickening -- and so predictable.

"the ministry ... does not want to give terrorists information that they achieved their goals."

'Hey Ahmad, did Malkaki's suicide bombing go well?'

'Couldn't tell ya, I've been checking the associated press feed all day but none of the stories have any pictures of the bombing.'

'How disheartening! Without visual evidence of our success I see no reason to continue fighting, or believing in Islam for that matter.'

Can't see the bodies, can't watch the war -- out of sight, out of mind. Not the best policy for a (dis)informed electorate, but nice of Bush's proxies in Iraq and the Pentagon to come up with a pretext for it, just in case anybody thought maybe this was to save GOP political bacon from an electoral reckoning in 2008.

At least we can trust in the integrity of our leaders to tell us how well it's going. They've been so honest and forthright with the American people so far.

*koff*

So much for supporting the troops. My son is deployed in Iraq and is occaisionally able to posts pictures on his myspace page which let his large groups of friends and supports see that he is OK without emailing every one. His wife uses it to send him notes of support and a running countdown of the days remaining until he comes home. It gives him and all his loved ones a boost, but no matter, the need of the Bushies to control the flow of info out of Iraq comes first. They make me sick.

Here's a link to my son's myspace page. We can still see if even if he can't. I sure everyone will agree that it is a treat to our national security .

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=111370070&MyToken=e5bbc020-aeb4-4879-a816-aabc9e61f829

Surge Success!

Baghdad Street Violence Does Complete Turn-about

The news will get out. It always does. If they try to sugar-coat and lie their way out of this disaster it will come back and bite them on the ass.

Censorship and TCP/IP don't mix. To the internet, censorship is just a malfunction which is quickly routed around.

Would that other things were as robust.

When you have no power. Or TV. That's the Iraqi plight.

"We do not want evidence to be disturbed before the arrival of detectives..."

That they were banning a whole range of outlets including UTube, My Space, MTV.com and a whole bunch of others. When I first read it I commented that there would be mutiny in the Troops because they do want their MTV after all. I work in a public library in a towe with a lot of Guardspeople on their second and third extended tours and I see firsthand how families rely on such things as My Space. All this is doing is stirring up more ill-will and engenders distrust and hatred among people who were formerly the GOP's biggest, reddest, supporters.

The Day has arrived. The Day when we all went behind the looking glass has arrived. And the Media were MIA, again. We did not elect idiots, incompetents or bad managers...we elected evil and traitorous men, men who should be hanged. But we were asleep.

What's new?

The American media has held that position of censorship ever since the war started.

You know what's next, don't you?

No video or still photo images inside American military hospitals or regional VA hospitals. After all, Al Qaeda might see them and rejoice at their handiwork. (Not to mention, we don't want to upset the American sheeple.)

What you don't know can't hurt you.

1. RichEmery - The US will do nothing to lift the ban because they asked for it. Who does it prevent from seeing this stuff? Iraqis? Hardly. It's us here in the States.

2. I'm probably breaking the DMCA for circumventing the ban or something (tongue half in cheek) but when YouTube was banned at the tech firm I work for all it took was one little trip to http://proxy.org/ (there are Firefox proxy extensions too) and we were up and running again on YouTube in no time. Proxies are a well worn path by nerds, school kids who want to go to MySpace, and now, servicemen alike.

3. If YouTube democratized video, what does it say about our government that they would deny servicemen access to it? I realize that soldiers give up some rights in order to be soldiers but they're not the ones in the wrong. There's something very un-American about wanting increased domestic surveillance while at the same time wanting to prevent Iraqi war footage from making its way onto the Internet. The people are supposed to check up on government, not the other way around.

On NPR today there was an Iraqi official going on about how the "surge" was starting to show success. He did not reference it as "the new security plan." By his reckoningit all good in Iraq. I'm not going to be watching, but I have no doubt that someone over at Faux will sieze on this as evidence of success.

then the press censorship. Heavens are we talking about Iraq or the United States?