Sounds Like We Succeeded

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Notice anything about this partial quote from the article?

I noticed the same thing when I read an article on this topic in my local newspaper today: The article is about former Iraqi interim-government officials embezzling money -- lots of money. Yet the "journalists" reporting this news could not resist sticking a few paragraphs about bombings into the middle of the article -- incidents totally and completely unrelated to the topic,

Yeah, so I posted some follow up sources that focus only on the embezzlement part.

In reality, the first article you are bashing does indeed follow a theme: it's what's on the wire from Iraq today that the guy has to report. sad to say, bombings are no longer news. They are just thrown in as "me toos" in another article because they don't justify their own article.

That's what my take on it looks like and I have edited a few articles in my time. This guy just did a "dump" on whatever the "Iraq" stories of the day were and threw it into one article and it was not well done. I don't see any grand conspiracy here.

On most TV news broadcasts Iraq reports of bombings come at least 20 minutes in and never get more than about ten seconds of air time. The embezzle part was a new story angle so he plucked that one out for the article headline. Putting the grabber on the headline is how you get people to read an article.

"Car bomb blows up in Iraq and kills people" ain't gonna do it these days.
 
So. We created a "U.S. Style Gov't in Bagdad." I say "bring back Saddam!" These guys would never have stolen a nickle if he were still running things.

rr
 
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I say "bring back Saddam!" These guys would never have stolen a nickle if he were still running things.
True. After saddam got done siphoning off the profits, there wasn't any meat left on the bone.

The sad thing is they didn't just steal (which would have been bad enough) but they did it by pretending to buy usable weapons for the IDF (Iraqi Defense Force) when they were actually buying a bunch of worthless junk. As if the IDF didn't have enough problems trying to get off the ground......
Most of the money was supposedly spent buying arms from Poland and Pakistan. /// Military equipment purchased in Poland included 28-year-old Soviet-made helicopters. The manufacturers said they should have been scrapped after 25 years of service. Armored cars purchased by Iraq turned out to be so poorly made that even a bullet from an elderly AK-47 machine-gun could penetrate their armor. A shipment of the latest MP5 American machine-guns, at a cost of $3,500 (£1,900) each, consisted in reality of Egyptian copies worth only $200 a gun. Other armored cars leaked so much oil that they had to be abandoned. A deal was struck to buy 7.62mm machine-gun bullets for 16 cents each, although they should have cost between 4 and 6 cents.

Many Iraqi soldiers and police have died because they were not properly equipped. In Baghdad they often ride in civilian pick-up trucks vulnerable to gunfire, rocket- propelled grenades or roadside bombs. For months even men defusing bombs had no protection against blast because they worked without bullet-proof vests. These were often promised but never turned up.
 
Sure the first article could have been better written, but any great novelist could find passages in their most famous works with which they aren't satisfied. Geez ain't we a bunch of English perfessers all of a sudden.

I for one like how he juxtaposed the lack of control of money at the highest levels of government with the lack of control of security on the street.
 
Pah, amateurs. When a US official steals money he makes it legal first. Then his publicist goes on TV, somehow makes it into a partisan issue, and within two days polls show half the country thinks he's done everyone a favor.
 
Sure the first article could have been better written, but any great novelist could find passages in their most famous works with which they aren't satisfied. Geez ain't we a bunch of English perfessers all of a sudden.

I for one like how he juxtaposed the lack of control of money at the highest levels of government with the lack of control of security on the street.

Still looks to me like some writer got a "grab bag" of the day's news from Iraq dropped on his desk and threw it all together to save time and column space. I've seen it often enough.
 
That someone would even quote www.socialistworker.org as a serious source explains a lot about some of the posts I have been seeing around here.
So... let's see if I can follow the evolution of the thread:

1) I post an article verbatim from Netscape news and people <> whine because it isn't well written and includes material not directly related to the article's title (Iraqi politicians Indicted for stealing Billions).

2) I post a second article that deals only with the theft of the Billions. No comment.

3) I post a third reference of similar content and that elicits <> whining that it must be bad because the word socialist appears in the URL.

Good night, sweet prince......

Art's Grammaw stopped by.
 
Corrupt politicians...now there's a real newsflash!

It's the fault of the United States....situtation normal.

Here's another newsflash: US forces are in Iraq. Complaining about how we got there ain't gonna help. Whining about everything that goes wrong ain't gonna help. An immediate pull-out of US forces isn't going to help.

If you think you are all knowing and can end the violence in Iraq, feel free to contact your representatives in Washington and enlighten them to their mistakes.
 
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