On this tenth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, both Joe Scarborough and Luke Russert attempted to do a bit of revisionist history this Tuesday morning on MSNBC and Salon's Alex Pareene did a fine job of taking them apart for it.

MSNBC selectively remembers the Iraq War:

Updated: Morning Joe and Luke Russert leave out some important context. Like how much MSNBC pushed for war

MSNBC today ran two very interesting segments addressing the 10th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War. In one, Luke Russert interviewed veteran NBC foreign correspondent Richard Engel on the state of Iraq today (spoiler: not great). In another, Joe Scarborough hosted a large panel to discus how the Iraq War happened and what went wrong.

The Russert segment is sort of bizarre, referring to “that big anniversary” and completely ignoring the reasons the Iraq War started. It concludes — after Engel explains how Iraq is once again in a sectarian civil war — with Russert essentially asserting the inevitability of a military strike against Iran, saying they could be “months” away from building nuclear weapons. [...]

Both of these segments show how incredibly little anyone learned from very recent history. [...]

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As Nicole already noted here, Richard Engel and his crew were captured and kidnapped in Syria and thankfully released earlier this week after five days in captivity, before they were eventually rescued. Engel joined Rachel Maddow on her show this Friday and relayed the details of their ordeal.

Engel and his crew are very, very lucky to be alive. We don't have too many reporters who are willing to go into the middle of war zones as Engel does on a regular basis and risk their lives. I'm just glad they made it out of there alive.

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John wrote about whistle-blower Bunnatine "Bunny" Greenhouse back in 2005 and sadly this woman's story has fallen completely off the radar, while in the mean time, war profiteer Dick Cheney is allowed to come on the air day after day and not be held to account for his helping his former company, Halliburton, fleece the American taxpayers.

Kudos to Maddow for shedding some more light on the story again during her and Richard Engel's two hour documentary, Day of Destruction, Decade of War.

More video on Halliburton's war profiteering and Greenhouse below the fold.

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Two sources told NBC News that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak would step down Thursday.

"Word of this information is just now spreading out in Cairo," NBC's Richard Engle reported Thursday. "We again, once again, have been told by two sources within the presidency that President Mubarak will step down."

"The prime minister's office is telling us that President Mubarak tonight will decide," he added.

For its part, Al Jazeera English continued to treat the news as a rumor.

Mubarak was expected to address the nation Thursday night.

US CIA chief Leon Panetta said Thursday that he expected the Egyptian president to cede power "today."

Al Jazeera also reported Thursday that Egyptian Army officials said that protesters' "demands will be met."

The supreme council of the Egyptian army met Thursday to discuss its position on the protests and Mubarak's future.

Protesters have been massing on the streets of Cairo and other cities in Egypt since Jan. 25, demanding Mubarak leave office. The size of the demonstrations have grown in past days.

Protesters called for 20 million to march throughout the country on Friday.

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It's been three years since Ari Fleischer was pulling this same number on Hardball and playing the "we shouldn't have gone into Germany" routine as John called it at the time. The more things change, the more they stay the same. --Ari Fleischer's Propaganda Iraq War Ad:

The propaganda that is hitting our airwaves over the Iraq war with creatures like Ari is sickening. This warmonger brought up WWII and the tired and wrong "we shouldn't have gone into Germany" routine (Barbara mentioned this mind set in her C&L post) in his defense of this. Ari is so 2007---and we're all just Dirty F*&king Hippies stuck in a 2001-2002 mind frame. [...]

This link to Germany and Japan is despicable, but neocons have no shame. Iraq was not part of the World Trade Center attacks and Ari knows it, but they need a propaganda link, so---there you go. Ari doesn't even know the wounded soldier's name in his own ad. There is no hole deep enough for these people and not even Hell should welcome them...If you don't think this has been coordinated with the WH, well...I know you do. Ari's group is called Freedom Watch.

As Media Matters reported, Ari Fleischer wasn't the only one of these Bushies out there helping to spread the propaganda today. He had some help from Karl Rove, Stephen Hadley and others as well.

Media turn to discredited Bush officials to respond to Obama's Iraq speech:

Following President Obama's speech on the end of combat operations in Iraq, media outlets hosted discredited Bush administration officials Karl Rove, Stephen Hadley, and Ari Fleischer to respond, despite the fact that the three were at the forefront of the campaign of misinformation used to sell the war.

Lots more there so go read the rest. They forgot to mention Dan Senor who was about as infuriating as this hack Fleischer was on Morning Joe. Hardball also had Senor on and CNN's Anderson Cooper had Fleischer on as well. I'll have more on that soon since Paul Begala gave Fleischer a tongue lashing on CNN.

Transcript below the fold.

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It's about time some of these troops are finally getting to come home from Iraq. We're still going to have 50,000 troops there so this doesn't mean the end of casualties by any means, though the troops in Iraq have seen a drastic reduction in casualties as Iraqi troops take responsibility for their own security.

The official end to Operation Iraqi Freedom is August 31st. But today's exit of the last Stryker Brigade into Kuwait signals an end to the United States' active combat role in that country, and serves as notice that the promises made to leave are being kept.

The remaining 50,000 troops will continue to leave the country through December, 2011, when the US military presence is scheduled to end completely.

This does signify fulfillment of President Obama's promise as well:

February 28, 2009:

The plan will withdraw most of the 142,000 troops now in Iraq by the summer of next year, leaving 35,000 to 50,000 behind with the limited missions of training and advising Iraq security forces, hunting terrorist cells and protecting U.S. civilian and military personnel. Those "transitional forces" will leave by 2011 in accordance with a strategic agreement negotiated by President George W. Bush before he left office.

"Let me say this as plainly as I can," Obama told the Marines. "By August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end."

As Combat Troops Roll Out, The Media Rides Along:

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From MSNBC:

Richard Engel, NBC News Chief Correspondent, takes Rachel on a tour of Kabul's Chicken Street shopping district where she forgoes inexpensive jewels [pure one carat emeralds for $120] and purchases a rug with a gun on it for her mother.

And although not the same one here's a reasonable facsimile of the one she bought.

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April 23, 2009 MSNBC Rachel Maddow Show:

Rachel Maddow is joined by Richard Engel to talk about the lastest on the situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

October 21, 2008 NBC News

Richard Engel covering Bravo Company 126th Infantry located in the Korengal Valley, Afghanistan's version of "Death Valley". They prefer to call themselves Viper Company.

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