 It was my red line, that's when my red line got crossed, I was completely outraged at what I was seeing and felt that the states had to be up a bit if anything was going to change and so that was when my red line got crossed and I decided to go to Iraq. And I would argue that the coverage is horrible, I mean that's not journalism, that's what veteran journalist John Pilger describes as propaganda disguised as journalism, that's what that is. And I would argue that that trend has continued, it has not abated, some people think maybe well it has abated because we are getting some idea from the mainstream media now that things are actually a little bit better in Iraq. They are going bad and there isn't enough reconstruction and there are problems but when we compare the catastrophic nature of the situation on the ground in Iraq today to the type of coverage it's getting particularly right now, it's again it's literally like you're watching two different stories. So for example if we, as I touched on earlier, if we look at the corporate media today and we look at how Iraq is being reported and I assume that this is fairly similar in Canada. Things are better, US treat deaths are down to very very low levels, people are returning to their homes in Baghdad, Baghdad, new breath is being brought into Baghdad, Baghdad is coming back to life. These are literally some of the headlines that have been in the New York Times and the Washington Post in recent weeks and many of the other big papers around the US, the LA Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, we can go down a long list. But again it's an interesting methodology of propaganda because it focuses in on a few things that are true, like there are bits of truth in this. It's unarguable, US treat deaths are down quite significantly. In this month right now we're on a trend where they may be the lowest of, maybe even the entire occupation and the fact is that yes there are some Iraqis who have returned to their homes in Baghdad. But let me just take these two facts that are being presented as evidence that the surge is working. These are the two primary arguments being made at least in the United States, media. So troop deaths are down. Now let's give a little back story to that. Troop deaths are down why? One reason. Muqar al-Sadr's militia, the Mahdi army, which is the largest militia in the country is on stand down right now. They're reorganizing, they're retooling, they've had some internal problems, so he literally has them, they have ceased all operations. So that's one reason why US troop deaths are down. Another reason is that the primary resistance, which is largely Sunni, is also on stand down right now. In classic guerrilla war, you don't go head to head with the most powerful military on the planet when you're basically guys running around with Kalashnikovs and RPGs and you can plant roadside bombs. When that conventional military is making a huge offensive in one area of the country, you sit back and wait. After all, it's your country, it doesn't cost you anything to be there. You have more time. You basically have to not leave your country to win. So you're going to sit there and wait that out. And that's exactly what most of the resistance is doing today. Another important factor as to why US troop deaths are down is because we have a policy that's being carried out in all Anbar province and part of the Sunni dominated parts of Baghdad where the US is doing on a huge scale what they did in Fallujah after the failed April 2004 siege. When the US military tried to take Fallujah in April and they failed. They were kept out of the city by the resistance. They had to save face because 2004 we had a presidential election coming up that fall. We're already in the spring and the military basically had a humiliating defeat handed to them and it was also made very clear. Look, if they're going to take Fallujah, it's going to cost a lot. It's going to cost a lot of American lives. There's going to be a tremendous amount of destruction in the city and probably a lot of civilian lives. So we need to find a way to put a smiley face on this, at least until after the election. And they did and it was successful in quotes because what they did is they bought off the resistance fighters in the city. They put them on the payroll. They started paying them monthly salaries. They started giving them guns and ammunition and flat jackets and radios and trucks. And they called them Iraqi police and they called them Iraqi army and Fallujah remained that way for six months. And the US declared we have handed security over to Fallujah and that was on May 10th. I was in the city when they rolled the convoy into the city that day. Their little commander went in and met with the mayor, did the photo op, shake hands and they left. So that was in April of four. And then we had the presidential so called elections in the United States in November 2004. Three days after those elections, the second siege of Fallujah is launched and the city is completely destroyed. 70% of the city is destroyed. So back to present day we have in Al Anbar, it was the deadliest place in the country for US soldiers. Second place is the province of Baghdad, but not by much. So these two most troublesome provinces for the US military in Iraq, basically what they decided to do is again buy off the fighters. So they found tribal shakes that are willing to collaborate with the Americans and they've used them as point men to funnel so far to date over $17 million into monthly paychecks to Iraqi resistance fighters. They're paying them $300 a month and before I tell you what they call them and some of you probably have heard this because it's so outrageous. But a few of my friends and I were sitting in Baghdad at one point and as a journalist you hear these quotes coming out of high ranking officials and it's so outrageous. If you were writing a fiction novel you'd be hard pressed to make up more ridiculous types of quotes and you know the ones I'm talking about. I mean just listen to Bush for five minutes. So we made this thing up called the Can't Make This Shit Up Club. And so the former resistance fighters that the US is paying now to stand down and not attack them, they're calling them concerned local citizens. So that's definitely in the club. They're also called awakening forces and then in other places they call them volunteers. It's also a recycling program of the Reagan strategy in Afghanistan in the 1980s of funneling in billions of dollars of arms and weapons. But to Mujahideen there except this time back then of course they were fighting against the Soviet Union's military. So basically along our province it's also a classic dividing rule strategy, arming the Sunnis to the teeth while supporting the Shia politically in Baghdad. So these are some of the reasons why there's fewer US troop fatalities but I would argue confidently that it's a ticking time bomb. And why would they explode in many, many different ways. The reason why there are actually some people going back to their homes in Baghdad, let's talk about that. First let's put that in context. There's over 4.5 million people that are displaced from their homes both inside and outside of Iraq. The number of, when we talk about a successful troop surge, this is what they're saying in the media in the United States, the surge is working well the surge has worked since the surge started the number of people displaced from their homes has quadrupled. And it's over 4.5 million now and to date the only legitimate figure I've seen produced by the UN of the number of Iraqis that have returned to their homes is 30,000. So 30,000 out of 4.5 million but the surge is working. Let's talk about some of the reasons why they're going back. Up until October 1st Syria was the only country on the planet that allowed Iraqis in without visa restrictions. As of October 1st the country is buckling under the strain of refugees. Iraqis now compose 10% of the total population of Syria. So as of October 1st the Syrian government imposed visa restrictions. So Iraqis wanting to come in, have to either have a merchant visa, a way to prove that they're coming in to do business in the country, usually being invited by a business person in the country, or they have to have a medical visa. A medical visa showing that they are in need of urgent medical attention. Everyone else has to go back. So if you're in Iraq and you come to the border and you can't prove that you deserve one of these visas or already have one, you get to choose between either staying at a refugee camp right on the border in the middle of the desert, or going back to Baghdad and waiting it out in your home and hoping for the best. And the second main reason that people are going back to their homes, and this is all backed up statistically by a recent poll conducted by UNHCR in Iraq. The second main reason is that literally people are running out of money because when you leave Iraq and you're a refugee...