Glenn Greenwald: The Crime Of Exposing The Truth About Iraq

[Hissyspit]

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/11/crime-of-exposing-truth-about-iraq.html

The crime of exposing the truth about Iraq

Two weeks ago, Dick Cheney said (while visiting with Rush Limbaugh) that things in Iraq were going "remarkably well" -- the same thing we have been hearing for several years now from the administration and their most rabid and dishonest followers. Yesterday, The New York Times published a chart prepared by the United States Central Command which demonstrates precisely the opposite -- namely, that the situation in Iraq is steadily deteriorating, not improving, and is close to full-blown chaos (this report received little attention because the media was focused on the much more important matter of John Kerry's joke).

Put another way, this report demonstrates -- yet again -- that the top officials in our government are blatantly lying about the conditions in Iraq and that that country is inexorably descending into civil war and complete chaos. What is the response of the administration to this revelation? As always, they want to criminally investigate and prosecute those who revealed the truth, as someone in the Pentagon shared with Fox News, which then dutifully reported:

The Pentagon is looking into how classified information indicating Iraq is moving closer to chaos wound up on the front page of Wednesday's New York Times, and is not ruling out an investigation that could lead to criminal charges.

Fox News is fulfilling its journalistic function by pursuing the administration as to why Cheney and other top officials lied about conditions in Iraq pursuing the story of the evil of The New York Times in publishing this information:

The New York Times had not yet responded to a request for comment by FOX News about how it obtained the chart, but a spokeswoman for the newspaper said it will.

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[porphyrian]

1. Well, they better hurry before they're on trial for lying in the first place. - n/t

[indepat]

2. Top officials are blatantly lying about conditions in Iraq and every other policy

initiative and action and have been from the get-go.

[acmavm]

3. This situation is so screwed up it makes my head ache. The

liars and murderers get caught and the people who show what they are doing are the ones who might get prosecuted.

This is just too damn much to even try to cope with.