September 12, 2007
Ooooh...h Say Can You See
A while back I made you watch a Dennis Kuchinich's interrogation of Donald Rumsfeld. He was probing the news management of this war, as it related ot the handling of the Pat Tillman case. You will be delighted to know that news management is still in full flower, as you can see from the flap leading up to General Betrayus's much anticipated report delivered to Congress this week.
This particular sequence started at the end of July, when, after a sojourn to Iraq, (organized by the military, a fact reluctantly disclosed well into the fol-de-rol) two foreign policy analysts from the Brookings Institute, Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack, offered up some hearty optimism in an op-ed in the New York Times entitled "A War We Just Might Win". I would have added an exclamation point, had I been editor. The cheery souls were passed off as war critics, (a a rather recent turn of events) and found themselves in feverish demand. Within twenty four hours of publication, the dear fellows had appeared together on nine major network programs. Wow.
Their op-ed was analyzed, scrutinized and criticized in the blogosphere .
The mainstream media completely ignored, Anthony Cordesman who had accompanied Ken and Mike on the same trip, but came to very different conclusions. That was easy.
It was harder to overlook the response that appeared on August 24 in the Times written by seven active duty soldiers, which blew O'Hanlon and Pollack to shreds -- euphemistically.
On Monday, just as General Betrayus was about to begin his measured but enthusiastic testimony before Congress praising the surge, two of the seven soldiers who wrote the op-ed article were killed in action. Two articulate, thoughtful souls lost to a lie. And how many more will die because of Petraeus, Crocker, O'Hanlon, Pollack and our fearless leader.
Although many more good men undoubtedly will lose their lives as the surge goes blithely on -- these two soldiers had faces and voices. They had the courage to speak out. Dying in action was bad PR. Maybe our leaders will kill the story. They will certainly kill many more American soldiers and Iraqi civilians before they can be stopped.
Photo note: Myopia - or The Fog of Patriotism
Posted by Dakota at September 12, 2007 01:05 PM