The New ‘Forgotten War’: Iraq Occupation Falls into Media Shadows

By Dahr Jamail
Global Research
March 16, 2010

“The Western world that slaughtered Iraq and Iraqis, through 13 years of sanctions and seven years of occupation, is now turning its back on the victims. What has remained of Iraq is still being devastated by bombings, assassinations, corruption, millions of evictions and continued infrastructure destruction. Yet the world that caused all this is trying to draw a rosy picture of the situation in Iraq.
— Maki al-Nazzal, Iraqi political analyst

As Afghanistan has taken center stage in U.S. corporate media, with President Barack Obama announcing two major escalations of the war in recent months, the U.S. occupation of Iraq has fallen into the media shadows.

But while U.S. forces have begun to slowly pull back in Iraq, approximately 130,000 American troops and 114,000 private contractors still remain in the country (Congressional Research Service, 12/14/09), along with an embassy the size of Vatican City.

Upwards of 400 Iraqi civilians still die in a typical month (Iraq Body Count, 12/31/09), and fallout from the occupation that is now responsible, by some estimates, for 1 million Iraqi deaths (Extra! 1/2/08) continues to severely impact Iraqis in ways that go uncovered by the U.S. press. …

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FROM THE ARCHIVES: One Year Ago — March 17, 2009

A Key to Success for Obama?

One-year retrospective: One year ago today,I featured a report from Oprah magazine regarding the personal qualities of President Barack Obama:

“‘Boring’ might not be the first adjective that comes to mind to describe [Obama], but it was ‘No Drama Obama’ who assured the nation with his steady composure and won the White House. Aubrey Immelman, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at the College of St. Benedict | St. John’s University in Minnesota, says the variable that most distinguishes Obama from the two previous presidents is conscientiousness.”