{"id":1589,"date":"2004-12-30T17:53:32","date_gmt":"2004-12-31T00:53:32","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2004-12-30T17:53:32","modified_gmt":"2004-12-31T00:53:32","slug":"elections-mission-accomplished-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2004\/12\/30\/elections-mission-accomplished-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Elections &#8211; Mission Accomplished again"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Something <a href=\"http:\/\/lefti.blogspot.com\/2004_12_01_lefti_archive.html#110428219856663125\" target=\"_blank\">Eli said <\/a>the other day has been bugging me when I read news articles about the Iraqi resistance, because I never really noticed it before.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>With <em>MacWorld<\/em> approaching, I&#8217;m reminded of the famous <a href=\"http:\/\/www.folklore.org\/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&#038;story=Reality_Distortion_Field.txt&#038;sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date&#038;detail=medium\" target=\"_blank\">Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field.<\/a> But Jobs has got nothing on the U.S. and Israeli governments, and the Reality Distortion Field they cast on the American corporate media.<\/p>\n<p>Virtually every single attack by Iraqi insurgents these days is heralded in the media as &#8220;an attempt to derail the upcoming elections.&#8221; Not once have I heard an attack described as &#8220;an attempt to expel the American occupiers&#8221; or, perhaps less provocatively, as &#8220;an attempt to weaken the American resolve to continue their occupation of Iraq.&#8221; Even today, when there were a series of attacks not on elected officials or candidates but Iraqi police and National Guard, a <a href=\"http:\/\/story.news.yahoo.com\/news?tmpl=story&#038;cid=578&#038;ncid=578&#038;e=2&#038;u=\/nm\/20041228\/ts_nm\/iraq_dc\" target=\"_blank\">Reuters article<\/a> links the attacks to bin Laden&#8217;s message about the elections yesterday, notwithstanding the fact that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2004\/12\/28\/international\/middleeast\/28laden.html?oref=login\" target=\"_blank\">bin Laden simply called for a boycott of the elections<\/a>, and did not call for a &#8220;holy war&#8221; on elections on Reuters claims.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I came across <a href=\"http:\/\/www.komotv.com\/stories\/34600.htm\" target=\"_blank\">this perfect example <\/a>of where this is coming from today :<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Insurgents tried to ram a truck with half a ton of explosives into a U.S. military post in the northern city of Mosul on Thursday then ambushed reinforcements in a huge gunbattle in which 25 rebels and one American soldier were killed. Warplanes fired missiles and strafed gunmen during the fight.<\/p>\n<p>The assault on the outpost, which U.S. soldiers finally repulsed, appeared to be better coordinated than past attacks, with <em>guerrillas apparently pulling out their strongest assaults in an effort to derail Jan. 30 elections, U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Paul Hastings said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The terrorists are growing more desperate in their attempts to derail the elections and they&#8217;re trying to put it all on the line and give it all they can,&#8221; Hastings said. <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Right.  It isn&#8217;t the occupation, it&#8217;s the elections.  That&#8217;s why they&#8217;re attacking the US and anyone collaborating with the US.  After the &#8220;elections,&#8221; which the US has already admitted will do nothing to stop the resistance, what will the next excuse be?  I can already hear it.  <em>&#8220;They just don&#8217;t want Iraq to have a constitution,&#8221;<\/em> they&#8217;ll say as they continue to occupy the country, and Americans and Iraqis continue to die.  We just go from one Mission Accomplished moment to the next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Something Eli said the other day has been bugging me when I read news articles about the Iraqi resistance, because I never really noticed it before. With MacWorld approaching, I&#8217;m reminded of the famous Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field. But Jobs has got nothing on the U.S. and Israeli governments, and the Reality Distortion Field [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[676],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-1589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-antiwar-movement"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1589\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1589"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}