Email to a friendMedia Views
Real News: Where Does the Bush-Petraeus Strategy Lead? (9/18/07) by Paul Jay
In the first of a four-part analysis from the nascent non-profit news network, Phyllis Bennis responds to Jay's observation that "one wouldn't even know, I think, by watching American television media what this debate's about—about permanent bases or not. There seems to be no media conversation about it."The existence of the permanent bases has been something constructed under the radar, without any attention being paid by the press.... We know [of] at least four giant permanent bases, one in each quadrant of Iraq. These are bases that comprise not just acres, but square miles upon square miles of territory.... These are small towns that are essentially being built up.
Calling the closure of these mammoth military installations "something that has to happen as part of step one," Bennis points out what corporate media silence on the matter excludes from public debate: "Only then, after withdrawal of the troops and the closing of the bases, can we get to the longer term obligations that we in the United States have toward the people of Iraq."
FAIR does not endorse every opinion expressed or vouch for facts presented here, except by ourselves. Send link suggestions to jnaureckas@fair.org.
