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From Wiki:
Barham Ahmad Salih (born 1960) is a Kurdish politician who serves as Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq. He was elected to the Iraqi National Assembly in December 2005 as part of the Kurdistani Alliance list. Salih chairs a committee on oil and energy policy.After leaving Iraq in 1979 he received a B.Sc. in civil and structural engineering at Cardiff University (Wales, UK) and an M.Sc. in statistics and computer modelling at Liverpool University and finally received his Ph.D. in oceanography. While working as an engineering consultant, he served as spokesman for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in London and later in Washington.
Salih appeared on The Colbert Report on June 10, 2009, broadcast from Baghdad, and was interviewed by the host. He praised the U.S. military for freeing Iraq and said he thought Iraq should remain a single country, although he acknowledged that many Kurds desire independence.
Colbert is digging himself into a huge war-supporter hole. Will he lose his audence when he gets home? There is no satire here. Colbert has gone off the rails in favor of America’s "War of Choice". A war that Americans were lied into supporting through stove-piped, Team B intelligence, counterfeit documents and falsified evidence. An unnecessary war that has killed a million innocents, maimed or killed thousands of our own young men and women and displaced millions of Iraqi’s.
Colbert has showcased an American General who assures us of more killing in the name of Democracy and a British-educated, oil-soaked Deputy Prime Minister who dances to the same fiddler.
Colbert gleefully cheers them on. How will Colbert ever regain any crediblity with his liberal audience after this horrible charade?
15 Comments
I came away from that interview with a totally different impression. It seemed more like a platform for Kurdish sympathy, acknowledging who they are while acknowledging other entities will not suffer the rise of an independent and sovereign Kurdish state.
That’s a pretty far ways from the U.S. support of Saddam Hussein in the 1980’s (insert picture of Rumsfeld shaking hands with Hussein here). We shouldn’t forget that the U.S. encouraged Hussein at great cost to the Kurds.
This seems very significant that a Kurdish leader would come on and say there is no fear of an independent Kurd country. Colbert gave him a chance to say that to a US audience. If Salih feels the need to be polite to the US military, I would not hold that against him or Colbert.
I haven’t seen anything pro war per se. I saw the interview with Gen. Odierno and while it was a puffball interview, Colbert was “declaring victory” and saying the troops should come home and bring stability to the US!!
Very ironic.
If Colbert seems over the top, it is probably because of the setting and that he is there to boost morale. Then again Colbert is always over the top! :]
On the other hand, he did bring the troops a very nuanced and funny ”Formidable Opponent” debate about DADT.
Interpreting satire is not always easy, and in this sort of setting it’s even more difficult.
Colbert is there to raise morale, not to destroy it. The last thing he’s going to do is obvious anti-war schtick, not that Stephen Colbert the character ever does obviously anti-war schtick.
He’s there for them, not for us. We have a son and daughter-in-law in the Army (not overseas so far, thank doG), and we’re going to cut Colbert a lot of slack on this one. I think you should too.
I know. Terribly conflicted watching him this week.
He is what he is. Court jesters are not revolutionaries. I just won’t watch this week. I remember Bob Hope troops specials during the Vietnam War. It’s all too painful. Maybe he thinks he’s more Hawkeye than Bob Hope.
I agree Colbert rolled over…really rolled over. No difficult questions..this must have been part of the deal.
From the Colbert show its as if the Iraqi people had asked us to invade their country so that they could access freedom. No mention on his program about the “pack of lies” used to invade, the hundreds of thousands dead, the injured, no mention not one mention of the 5 million Iraqi refugees. No mention of the American suicides, injured, the war time contractors, Abu Gharib. Everything is roses if you are watching the Colbert show. He sure sold out to do it from Baghdad
Bob Hope wasn’t in the business of deploring LBJ & Nixon in the 70’s. It’s about rewarding service with something unexpected and enjoyable (no matter the level of prop), plainly a distraction from utter chaos.
That is, for me, the saving grace, if such a thing is possible.
Colbert is a smart guy. He could have figured out a way to entertain the troops without the heavy propagandizing. A variety show or other light entertainment without agreeing with and promoting the falsehood that we are somehow “Freeing the Iraqi People” at the barrel of a gun.
It will be difficult for Colbert to redeem himself. He is a suberbly talented satirist on his show. He was an excellent satirist at the Dubya WH Correspondents’ Dinner. Colbert can easily discern truth and propaganda. He coined the word truthiness. Colbert’s fawning admiration for the General and the government puppet (and the war) was sickening.
Ya volt Herr Hack, Stephen is not ideologically pure in his essense and must be punished for not serving our political program. To think that some hayseeds who have just fallen off the turnip truck actually watch Colbert because he is funny. Thanks for your enlightened position Hack, hopefully Colbert will apologize soon and once again sing to your particular choir. Maybe tonite he will mock some troops for you and all will be better.
I have a different take on it. One man’s sickening is another’s entertaining. The USO shows were a godsend to us once upon a time. I suggest you have expectations that Colbert simply cannot fulfill at this moment in time. The USO places constraints on these entertainers whom they bring over, after all. It’s a shame that you’re so down on him over these four days that you allow them to sour your opinion of his work-and indeed, your assessment of his character! Bear in mind that the lion’s share of the people in that audience weren’t looking for nuance nor were they there for political satire. For the crowd that he was aiming to entertain he was doing a great job.
Purity of essence, hackworth 1. Accept nothing less.
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“How will Colbert ever regain any crediblity with his liberal audience after this horrible charade?”
Oh gosh, Davey, I just don’t know.
Are you guys kidding? Colbert is an entertainer first and foremost. He’s not Noam Chomsky or Amy Goodman. Yeah, he’s a satirist, but he’s not going to go into a war zone and run down the army who invited him there, especially in front of an audience of troops. The man’s done some wicked puncturing of the right wing in his time; can we accept that he can’t do everything for everyone and that he’s just a TV show host?
He could hardly talk about how illegal and mis-guided the war is in front of the troops. They’re suicidal enuf as it is. It would depress them, I would think, if he told them that most of us want out of Iraq and think the troops are being used mercilessly by several different governments, including ours.
he could have talked about the false intelligence, the deferments of the V.P. While talking about the honorable intentions of the majority of our soldiers. He could have looked for the WMD’s in a funny way. Instead he played Saddam Hussein as if he was any worse than Bush and Cheney come on somewhere between 100,ooo – one million (lancet report) Iraqi people are dead, who knows how many are injured, 5 million Iraqi refugees. And all Colbert could do is fluff the feathers of the leaders?
He could have added to that skit when he was in the hole as Saddam Hussein showing his living room, kitchen…he could have said and “over here are the WMD’s” That would have brought down the room with insightful humor and the absurdity of it all.
Instead he fluffed the image that all is well over there in Iraq…going along as planned.
Colbert opened his first show saying that “there is hardly any news from Iraq anymore” Well nothing has changed. Although we did get to see the faces of some of the troops.
###When Former President Clinton came on the screen and said “thank you for fighting for our freedom” I almost choked. Coming from someone who did not serve in that way and then lying again and again to these young soldiers and saying “you are fighting for our freedom” Any of those soldiers who read are wise and honest know that this is as far from the truth as you can get.
That war was based on a “pack of lies” Hundreds and thousands are dead, injured and millions are displaced. This is what we have done.
The only way those young people are there protecting our “freedom” is protecting our access to their oil and millions have died in the process