Dude, Where's My Country_ - Michael Moore [34]
One thing was clear though, for the second time since September 11, American officials were scratching their heads and wondering how another prime evildoer had gotten away.
While these same U.S. officials were killing Iraqi civilians, they left the counting to others. A British-American research group in London announced estimates of civilian deaths due to the war at between 6,806 and 7,797. That’s a lot of accidents when you are talking about “precision-guided” weapons. Of course, the Pentagon doesn’t like to talk about the search-and-destroy missions, or the cluster bombs.
Each 1,000-pound cluster bomb delivers 200 to 300 “bomblets,” which in turn can spread hundreds of fragments over an area equivalent to several football fields. The bomblets, which can look like little toys to children, by the Pentagon’s own estimates, fail to explode upon impact 5-20 percent of the time, and so they sit on the ground until some unsuspecting child picks one up.
Of course, just because the bleeding hearts at Human Rights Watch say that it’s an “outrage” to use cluster bombs in urban areas where they remain dangerous for years doesn’t mean we don’t care about civilian casualties. No, we will make sure that our media doesn’t disrespect the poor Iraqis by showing us disgusting images of maimed children at dinnertime. We promise only to show the bullet-ridden bodies of Saddam’s sons, Uday and Qusay. Once, twice, a hundred times. That’s all.
Because so many of our soldiers have been shot since Bush declared the war over, the soldiers have been understandably jumpy. Every civilian looks like a potential killer. Thus, innocent Iraqis have been shot by our soldiers. Like the ten women and children killed by U.S. soldiers when their van failed to stop at a checkpoint. They apparently thought they were heeding a U.S. order to evacuate TOWARD the checkpoint. Sorry about that, said Gen. Richard Meyers.
This kind of environment is never going to get better, not as long as we are the occupiers and they are the ones wondering where the electricity is.
#8 Whopper, Hold the Mayo: “We are there to protect the oil fields of Iraq!”
Um, this one’s true.
#9 Double Whopper with Cheese and a Coke: “The American media has brought you the truth about Iraq!”
If you’re going to sell a mess of Whoppers, you need a good advertising campaign. Corporations pay big money for that kind of marketing, but the Bush administration didn’t have to spend a dime when the supposedly “liberal media” joined forces with the White House field office at Fox News to create a well-oiled, pro-war propaganda offensive that was almost impossible to avoid.
And it worked—even vegetarians were gobbling down these whoppers. Accompanied by round-the-clock patriotic, march-to-war music and flag-inspired graphics on the sorry-excuses-for-news channels, the images were relentless: Tearful farewells from proud families as brave soldiers headed overseas; heroic American girls rescued by daring American guys; smart bombs doing their brilliantly destructive work; grateful Iraqis toppling the Saddam statue; a united America standing by Our Resolute and Determined Leader.
Then there was the footage beamed directly to us from the harsh Iraqi desert, where reporters “embedded” with the ground troops were given great leeway to report without interference from the Pentagon (as we were supposed to believe). The result? Lots of up-close-and-personal stories about the hardships and dangers faced by our military—and virtually nothing examining why we had sent these fine young people into harm’s way. And there was even less said about what was happening to the people of Iraq.
So unless you ignored U.S. news entirely and only watched the BBC or CBC or Le Journal from France (with its convenient English subtitles for an American audience too lazy and poorly educated to have learned