now i know that
this is a lie because bush doesn't watch the news. i find it frightening that he wasn't told about this sooner- although i am sure that president cheney and vice president rumsfeld already knew. they should probably brief their front man a little better though.
12 comments:
Maybe that Times reporter should be President. He can't possibly know less, and might actually have a functional brain!
Notice that the press always use words like "killing" rather than "massacre", yet a bomb "rocked" the convoy. Hmmm...
Meant to put in "killing" and Haditha "deaths". I wonder if this manipulation of language is conscious on the part of reporters.
yes. i believe that they deliberately choose their words based on what their corporately owned editors tell them to say.
Gee...you think this might have been covered up a little.
You know, our press is the least free it's been in quite some time, perhaps since the 1950's.
However, without them, we would know nothing. Think of all the major stories the press has had to give to us via leaks - not national security leaks mind you, but leaks from the administration, because they don't tell us shit.
I thought Republicans were for small government and more importantly, transparency in government? What happened?
Oh, they put Karl Rove and Dicky Hunter Cheney, in charge, that's right.
i may not be popular for saying this, All wars are cover ups. The gov't never lets it's citizens know the truth about what there doing. I am ok with that in a way if it gets the job done and keeps our boys safe. Then again right now I am ok with them checking my bags in the subway and the airport
dawn- it's ok for you to voice your opinion here. i disagree with you though. i am not advocating for the military to disclose genuine classified information- that would be stupid. i don't think that the government should use the issue in iraq as a smokescreen to take away our civil liberties. i think that we can balance our need for heightened seccurity with non-invasive government but no one has tried at this point. not to mention the fact that the 9/11 report that was issued declared that this country is no safer now than we were prior to 9/11.
anyhoo- as to the marines- well- i think that we have a right to know what the iraqis do in that regard. if our soldiers are murdering civilians for no good reason- we need to know. we don't really know that that is what happened at this point- but at the very least we need to investigate. this is not simply a casualty of war thing- this is a breach of human and military protocol. at the very least the Commander in Chief of america! should know before the press does. that to me speaks volumes.
If this story is true, the military will put the hammer down. Believe me, this ex-military man knows the crucible of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (U.C.M.J.). It makes regular civilian law look like a hand-slap. The military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas is full of soldiers incarcerated for crimes never exposed by the media. They take care of their own, but lay the lumber as well.
Having said that....
Not one of us (unless we knew the horrific stresses of war) can testify how we would react in a moment of life and death crossroad. Murdering innocent civilians (or opposition soldiers) is never justifiable. But in this humble man's opinion, the 24-hr cycle media has made the military fight a one-fisted fight.
War is attrocious, hard, unconsoling and yet a very necessary evil at best.
During the Berlin carpet bombings of WW2, you want to know how many civilians FDR's administration killed? Tens of thousands in Germany alone! Men, woman and children. Imagine the Army of that era having to consider the political impact of Media coverage in EVERY single instance of collateral damage. The war would have never been possible and victory would have never taken place with the parameters we have set for today's PC Army.
Mal-feasance is never justified, but to slay the Marines in an event of which we only know anecdotal evidence and the facts not yet fully known, is just a horrific a crime unto itself.
Its easy for us to quarterback from our Lay-Z-Boy chairs in front of the plasma-TV at the mis-givings of war. War is not "surgical", controlled or clean. It is a devastating and hell-raising experience most of us will never know.
But if we are going to fight, I say make it with full force of the Dogs of war, and give no quarter to circumstances.
Lastly, Imagine Harry Truman-Democrat, contemplating dropping 2 atomic bombs in Nagasaki and Hiroshima with MSNBC and TIME on his butt 24/7... It would have NEVER happened.
Japan suffered the experience of nuclear pulverazation so that we would not have to invade a nation sworn to die defending its homeland. The estimates of American deaths in such an invasion was 40,000!
War is hell, a hell never intended to be brought to you in living color to your living rooms, a hell never intended to be at the reviewing qualms of a free and dogamtic media,... a hell that we are making worse by pre-judgements.
What the hell do we really know anyway....
i think that we got far afield of my original comment- although i do agree that we can't second guess the soldiers at this point. my original point being that the COMMANDER IN CHIEF OF THE MILITARY- the man that was so hell bent to get into iraq- did not know about the alleged event but heard about it from the press. i guess i am thinking that since the shit hit the fan with this one- maybe rummy might have briefed him instead of making him look like even more out of touch.
Back at the time of the issue with Dubai taking over our ports, Jay Leno joked that Bush found out about it by reading the newscroll at the bottom of SpongeBob. :)
guerrilasinthemidst, I definately think the media chooses their words carefully. After Cheney shot his friend, I was listening to Air America and they were talking about how the media chooses their words carefully. The media constantly said that Cheney "peppered" his friend with bird shot. One especially ridiculous one was "he carried a load of bird shot". Why couldn't they just say Cheney shot someone?
Betmo,... my apologies for straying off-topic here,... stream of consciousness thing :)
I can never defend Bush on anything,... but you have to admit, how can we possibly expect Bush, or any president,..any body for that matter, to be aware of every single event of consequense that happened in the last 24 hours?... I'm just trying to keep myself calibrated to the realities of the office of the presidency. That a president has to be up to speed with events as they unfold is utterly unrealistic.
But to codify your point, yes; it does make him seem out of touch with current events and does nothing to rehabilitate his image of an idiot.
i understand your point truth-pain, and i agree- except that the incident allegedly happened in november and he was briefed in march and this is now may/june. unless my timeline is completely wrong- and it might be- i am relying on msm reports.
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