No Celebration at Scoop

The editor of Scoop gives his reasons for not celebrating the reported fall of Baghdad

"I personally am not celebrating today because:
1. This was an illegal war founded in deceit and fought in deceit;
2. This was a war which, superficially at least, cements in the place of the Bush Administration as global hegemon, and this is good for noone. All this victory really signals is the beginning in a new and more dangerous phase in the clash of civilisations that the Bush Administration appears hell bent on pursuing against the counsel of every sane person on this planet;
3. I notice that Donald Rumsfeld is already singling out Syria for what would appear to be phase two of the Neoconservative's total war intentions;
4. While ridding Iraq of Saddam is a good thing, the US is yet to own up to being significantly responsible for him being there in the first place; for providing him with the weapons of mass destruction that he used on his own people; and for imposing a clearly comparable amount of harm on the Iraqi people through their sanctions regime as that which derives from Saddam.

Alastair Thompson
Scoop Editor"

Scoop also has a photo essay contrasting the U.S. view of the "liberation" with the real view. Be sure to click the "Flashback" links to get the contrasting, non-propaganda photos.