Stop Counting the Dead
Last night, retired General Tommy Franks told a friendly audience at the annual NRA banquet that the number of American lives lost in Iraq isn't the issue. Security is the issue:
What we're talking about is neither 2,400, 24,000 or 240,000 lives. Terrorism is a thing that threatens our way of life.
That might be true, General, except that Iraq had nothing to do with the terrorism that so provoked America's fear and wrath.
The invasion and occupation of Iraq was and is utterly unjustified, no matter how many times President Bush and his minions stamp their feet and insist otherwise.
At the end of his talk, the 3,000 NSA members in attendance gave Franks warm ovations. He later joked that such an enthusiastic response from an audience "makes me think about going into politics," but that fortunately, "the great blessing is that thought doesn't last long."
Too bad. He certainly has what it takes.
Comments
You know, I saw this blurb about Franks as well, and it really pissed me off. This constant, endless, repetitive, disingenuous, dishonest, manipulative, misleading conflation of terrorist attacks and U.S. military aggression in Iraq makes me want to clutch my hair with both hands and run into the street screaming,
It's equally repugnant that the General could be so cavalier about the potential number of lives that might be acceptably sacrificed in his "war on terror". Oh, I know that military commanders have to have a certain steely view of battle casualties. But when the rationale behind those sacrifices has been repeatedly proven to be a lie, such an attitude strikes me as criminal.
All of which should be pointed out regularly by a media machine that contends its mission is to report the truth. I'm beginning to believe that the most insidious danger to our democracy is the 4th Estate itself, in the way it has come to present the opposing sides of every issue as if each is equally believable, valid, true.
At the very least, an objective, factual news report on Franks' comments should have automatically included something akin to:
The fact that there is no such paragraph setting the record straight is an egregious sin of omission. And it's a sin of which all the traditional media is guilty. On a disgustingly regular basis.
Posted by: Bob P | May 21, 2006 08:08 PM
You're not asking that the media be...fair and balanced, are you. ;-)
Yes, "criminal" is the operative word for this war. Looks like the Bush admin had great foresight to withdraw us as a signatory to the International Criminal Court, eh?
Posted by: abi | May 21, 2006 09:27 PM
Bob P. is absolutely right about the media, and I'm sure it's one of the reasons circulations are down across the country.
Posted by: Kathy | May 23, 2006 01:13 PM