...I'm okay with being REALITY-based.




Tuesday, March 25, 2003
      ( 10:06 AM )
 
We Say Tomato...You Say...
Please read this Guardian Article on the Geneva Convention. This morning on my train ride in, I ruthlessly plunged my brain head-on into trying to figure out how this hypocrisy could continue unabated. The Geneva Convention thing is just one of the more recent obviously glaring hypocrisies this Administration has boldly thrown out to the world. I also notice that our US news media has no trouble airing the pictures of the two Apache pilot POWs in all their terrified glory, but somehow thinks this is not a contravention of Geneva's "don't put them on display for public curiosity" rule. The gray line the news media is walking has reached frightening levels.

I keep thinking that maybe, just maybe, the Administration has some kind of end-game in mind. That they have this ruthless, yet thought-out plan of how this is all going to work out for their benefit and wrap up nice and neat for them to be re-elected. But I can't figure it out. I don't think they HAVE a plan. I don't think they even have the ability to look into the future, to see a bigger picture. It's like they are unable to measure consequences, to strategically plan anything - to actually see reality. Do they even realize the hypocritical things that they say EVERY SINGLE DAY? How far are they willing to go? Are they just power-hungry egotists, or actually fascists? Do they have Messiah complexes - do they in their own minds truly feel altruistic about this? Do they seriously think that they can continue to blatantly lie and mislead us? Is the American public so willing to be lied to and misled? (witness W's speech this morning from the pentagon, tying the attack on that place to this war - just a calculated misleading of people).

I don't really focus much on the actual fighting of the war, I guess I have a more emotional response to the humanity of it all. But this morning, trying to wrap my brain around the situation, I wondered a couple of other things. It's interesting that the military "experts" on tv only focus on tactical issues of the war. I think that must be because it's the whole thing the media has about having to have flashy things to talk about so they can compete in the ratings. But no one seems to be discussing overall strategy. Is this subterfuge on the part of the military leaders and/or administration, or is it simply because strategy isn't as sexy as tactics?

I wonder now if the commanders are thinking that we really may NOT have enough troops out there to do the job since the securing of territory seems not to be taking as well as they first thought it was going to. And the more the guerilla tactics of the cells of Iraqi troops that are attacking from behind get little victories and more media coverage, the more other Iraqi troops may be galvanized to keep fighting. I worry that the Administration has built up everyone's expectations and their 11th-hour warnings that this war might take longer and cost more lives than we expect seem a little hollow. I also wonder how the need for more troops is going to be resolved, when it seems like we're at the breaking point, and that almost all Guard and Reserve units have already been called up. And if there is another attack here in the US, there won't be Guard or Reserves here to deal with that.

On another aspect of the war coverage, I find it interesting that the news channels feel their primary story is following every step of the troops. There is very little national or international news at all anymore, no stories about "homeland security", or other aspects of "wartime culture," not to mention non-war news (is there any?). Just constant shots of the desert and interviews with "imbedded" reporters. I suppose if the war drags on, there may be more of a balance, but it just seems over the top sometimes.




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