Busy week ahead. Luckily for me, Maha has done an excellent piece about how Iraq is coming to resemble Vietnam more and more every day -- this time, by reintroducing a focus on body counts.
Isn't there ANYONE in the US armed forces who remembers ANY of the lessons we learned so painfully in Vietnam? It's not exactly ancient history, you know.
*sigh*
Back to class readings & prep for our upcoming weekend trip to Miami.
Comments (1)
The chief lesson the military and government learned was NOT, don't do it, but don't let them see you do it.
One of the main reasons people began to protest Vietnam was the constant and graphic footage of it on the 6 o'clock news.
The army and gov have tried to avoid all that by "embedding" journalists--and of course letting them see and show only what they want. Also, the government keeps the lowest possible profile on dead and wounded U.S. soldiers. (In addition to the almost 2000 dead--no photos, please--there have been 55,000 medevac evacuations. They don't medevac for hangnails.) To be fair, Iraq is so dangerous that any journalist doesn't "embed" is at real risk.
Still, because of the army's own leaks (Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo), and some very courageous independent journalists like Robert Fisk and Dahr Jamail, the news got out--and is still getting out.
When something is as bloody and vicious and corrupt as Iraq, not all the embedding and Foxes in the world can cover it up.
Posted by Paul Schumacher | September 19, 2005 12:12 PM