Iraq suffers from a 'Congolese-style of corruption'? How snooty! Yearning for the days of the Raj,
Cockburn is really describing a pure American-style corruption - completely destructive and grotesque - Pol Pot in cowboy boots...slaughtering or exiling all the educated and competent Iraqis with leadership experience. Look at every occupied colony of the US - Kosovo, Haiti, Nicaragua, Philippines, Afghanistan, as well as Iraq..and admire the most thuggish, ignorant, dysfunctional puppet elites in the world. Mega-unemployment, mega-misery, mega-death squads, mega-corruption... Cockburn whines about Iraqi politicians...'out to feather their own nests...' These are precisely the ones the US chose to put in power - in order the shred Iraqi society.

THANK YOU FOR THE CORRECTION.

Thanks. Exposing these so-called 'rights groups' is essential to understanding events on a broad scale. 'Reporters Without Borders' should be re-named 'Disinformation Agents without Borders'. They've always been around...

Notice how this so-called 'independent' organization mentions only countries which can be portrayed as opposed to US or Israeli policies.
Notice how the Philippines, a close US ally, is not mentioned despited the scores of journalists murdered and 'disappeared' there - including 30 media personnel in one infamous massacre this year (the Ampatuan massacre - committed by a warlord militia connected to the government).
Notice how the killing of journalists by Israel is never mentioned.
Notice how the killing of journalists in Colombia - by the military or mililtary linked death squads - is never mentioned. Or in Mexico - by the drug lords or military-linked death squads...
The list can go on and on.
Reporters without Borders is a sham outfit - and has nothing to do with 'freedom of expression' or the right of journalists to document and investigate the truth!