Not the war itself. The war is very real. But the haze of propaganda and PR stories is just amazing. I really would like to think political leaders, the military and reporters would have learned more from the "credibility gap" during the Vietnam War than that.
I thought it might be kind of a waste of journalists' time to be digging out the facts about Bush's famous Thanksgiving photo with a turkey platter. After all, there are more substantial deceptions to be dissected. The apparently bogus claims of 54 enemy killed in the recent battle in Samarra, for example.
Viceroy Jerry Bremer tells us that he expects the insurgency to make more and more attacks on the "coalition" forces as the planned elections next year approach. But this will be a sign of success, he tells us, because it shows they are mad about how well the occupation is going.
But now, via Hesiod, it looks like even the troops at the Thanksgiving photo op were hand-picked. Lord forbid that the President of the United States encounter a skeptical question or less than enthusiastic comment from one of the troops he sent into the Iraqi shooting gallery to find "weapons of mass destruction" that, at most, were a gleam in the eye of Saddam Hussein.
Why, he might have even encountered someone who would say something like, "Excuse me, Mr. President, but it sounds like the version of the war they're promoting on Fox News is kind of fake." No, we can't have the President subjected to that kind of stress.
See Some troops not happy with historic visit European Stars and Stripes 12/05/03. "For security reasons, only those pre-selected got into the facility during Bush’s visit."(my emphasis) For security reasons. And if you believe that, let me tell you about all the WMDs that Saddam was hiding ... That article also notes at the end that the soldiers' Thanksgiving meals for US troops in Baghdad were prepared by "Army cooks or Kellogg, Brown & Root employees" (KBR is a Halliburton subsidiary). Crony capitalism goes to war.
2 comments:
It seems a little bizarre when a president has to be shielded from the press or a skeptical public. All their public appearances are photo-ops for a friendly audience or scripted speeches. Whatever happened to a no-hold-barred press conference? Just another example of Bush carrying on the Reagan legacy.
Good question. But it's by no means all a bad thing for Democrats. Bush - not unlike his father when he was President - has really isolated himself from the day-to-day political exchanges that are going on among ordinary people in America. Eventually, during next year's Presidential campaign, he's going to have to expose himself to those exchanges to a greater extent. And he may find them more of a challenge than he expects because he's foolishly sheltered himself from them. - Bruce
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