Wikipedia as Democratic mouthpiece? The user-written and -edited site has been accused of left-leaning judgments on the part of its dominant editors, but not necessarily of hewing to any party line. But now, one must wonder: Wikipedia trumpets the White House talking point that today, August 19, 2010, was the “end” of the Iraq War.
The reason this can’t be considered the typical imperial stenography we’re all used to from the likes of CNN — they’ll report the truth as handed down to them from whoever is in power — is that, in fact, the war is not over by any meaningful metric. If they were simply going on authority-declared technicalities, Wikipedia would have listed the war as over on the “Mission Accomplished” day of May 1, 2003. After all, Iraq’s army had been defeated and “major” combat operations after that date had officially ended. One wonders what the effective nuking of Fallujah would be considered.
Almost immediately, some discussion was sparked by users. “This is a scam. The US is not the sole participant,” said one. Not only that, the US is still itself very much a participant, as 50,000 combat troops will simply be redefined, as Bush did with “operations,” as “transitional” troops. See how easy? Voila! But that’s not all. The State Dept., as we have been reporting for several months, plans its own 50,000-strong auxiliary force. We do need to protect our diplomats, naturally, and there will be ever so many of them!
I won’t restate the details of the true fact that the Iraq War, whatever the politicians want to call it, is not over — Jason Ditz spelled it out just fine today. But be sure, as over 100 Iraqis just this week would tell you if they had not been blown to bits, this war is still on and the US military is in it up to its neck. No matter what the Obamadrones at Wikipedia want to think.