03.26.08
Fascinating interview
Glenn Greenwald has in his column today a fascinating interview: Charlie Rose interviewing two Iraqis resident in the US about their view of the invasion. Absolutely a must-watch. And the column, which includes the passage below, is a must-read:
The significance of the interview lies as much in what it says about the American occupation of Iraq as it what it illustrates about the American media. In the American media’s discussions of Iraq, when are the perspectives expressed here about our ongoing occupation — views extremely common among Iraqis of all types and grounded in clear, indisputable facts — ever heard by the average American news consumer? The answer is: “virtually never.”
Rose was as adversarial and argumentative — angry, even — as he ever gets with anyone, because he plainly did not anticipate, and did not like, that he was being exposed to such hostility towards our Freedom-spreading, Liberty-loving Liberation of the grateful, lucky (dead and displaced) Iraqi people.
To see how scripted and narrow the American media’s discussion of Iraq continues to be — as Americans are told that it is a matter of mandated orthodoxy that they believe that the Surge is Working (so much so that John McCain actually demanded yesterday that Hillary Clinton “apologize” for daring to question the pronouncements of the High, Honorable Commanding General, David H. Petraeus) — watch the entire interview and consider how those views are never heard. For those who do not watch, I will excerpt just a few of the illustrative exchanges, beginning with this opening exchange:
