President Barack Obama declared the end of the combat mission in Iraq. We thank him for delivering on his promise of military withdrawal from Iraq, and we will thank him even more when the remaining U.S troops, which stayed behind on the pretext of ‘training', will withdraw. The presence of 50 thousand U.S soldiers, mostly Special Forces, means that Iraq is still under occupation, and will remain so until the remaining U.S troops withdraw at the end of 2011, as the President promised. In the meantime, all my observations are not reassuring, and I will choose from among them what the reader may find significant or new: - U.S Vice President Joe Biden visited Iraq and said, “We are going to be just fine; they are going to be just fine”. This is not true. - On 29/8/2010, the New York Times ran a story entitled “Afghan Fatalities Rise in Weekend Violence”. The article mentioned that seven American soldiers were killed over the weekend, that the number of coalition soldiers killed until 1/8 was 62, while the number was 88 in July, and that 102 soldiers were killed in June, which was the worst month for coalition casualties. - On the same day, the Washington Post ran a story on the coalition's casualties under the title “7 US troops killed in latest Afghanistan fighting”. The story repeated the number of the casualties, as divulged by military reports, and mentioned that the number of just Americans who were killed last month was 42. - On 31/8/2010, the Los Angeles Times ran an article entitled “12 U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan in 2 days”. Again, the story repeated the numbers of coalition casualties, which increased in recent months. There were other news stories after that. Yesterday and the day before yesterday, I read about 22 coalition casualties. However, I want to mull over the news stories published by the three most important American newspapers, which are all liberal in their inclinations: I have noticed something common to all these news stories, which is the absence of a total tally of Americans killed in Afghanistan since the start of the war nine years ago, until now. In Iraq, the number of those killed was being recorded day by day, and totaled at the end of the month before being added to previous figures. We used to also read investigations, analyses and editorials when the numbers exceeded a thousand dead, then two thousand, three thousand and four thousand. On the behalf of the American press, I would like to mention that the death toll in Iraq until the time this article was written reached 4734 men and women including 4416 Americans, while the death toll in Afghanistan was 2057, including 1269 Americans. I am not talking here about tabloids from New York or a Likudnik newspaper like the Washington Times, but about leading and prestigious American newspapers. These are supposed to be opposed to all wars, and to urge the American public to oppose the war and save American lives. These are the same newspapers that stood against the Vietnam War, but remained silent about Bush's war to the degree of being complicit. I believe that they are still inadequately dealing with the ongoing war in Afghanistan although the United States has practically lost it, and in spite of the fact that this war is the longest in U.S history (having lasted so far twice as long as the U.S participation in the Second World War). Is it because the American liberal press opposes all wars unless they are against Arabs and Muslims? Or is it because Bush's wars, which Barack Obama inherited, were waged on oil-related and Israeli calculations? I am asking these questions to express a hunch, and not because I have any evidence of the kind that is admissible in court against the three newspapers, so I leave the final verdict to the readers. However, I noticed that the Washington Post, which forfeited its op-ed section to a pro-Israeli Likudnik, published the news on the casualties under the vague title of “Obama's war: Combatting extremism in Afghanistan and Pakistan”. Obama inherited a war that had been ongoing for eight years, and cannot thus be considered its principle advocate, even if he approved a surge there. I believe that Obama would not have chosen to fight any war, and that he will withdraw U.S troops at the first opportunity. Neither is he tempted to create an American empire that rules the world, nor is he an American Likudnik whose allegiance lies with Israel and who wants to serve it with the lives of American soldiers. But because of the continued decline and shortcomings of the traditional media, I fear that ordinary Americans may start to believe that their country is indeed embroiled in Obama's war, or that the current President is responsible for both the American and global financial crises which his predecessor caused with his ignorance, aggressiveness and the fact that he handed over his country's reins to the enemies of the United States. [email protected]
