Well, yes, we have a free press -- much good it does us, though, when reporters don't do their jobs, for whatever reason.
Bob Herbert's column in the NYTimes today is about what those of us who have been following the Iraqi War on the blogs -- and no, not on the 101 Fighting Keyboarders' Blogs, either -- have known for some time now: the abuse of Iraqi soldiers and citizens by some of our soldiers is out of hand: this is documented, among other things, in photographs, and those photographs have not been given play by the mainstream media. That is to say, mainstream reporters have ignored them: deliberately.
Aidan Delgado is working to get the truth out.
His goal, he said, is to convince his listeners that the abuse of innocent Iraqis by the American military is not limited to "a few bad apples," as the military would like the public to believe. "At what point," he asked, "does a series of 'isolated incidents' become a pattern of intolerable behavior?"
The public at large and especially the many soldiers who have behaved honorably in Iraq deserve an honest answer to that question. It took many long years for the military to repair its reputation after Vietnam. Mr. Delgado's complaints and the entire conduct of this wretched war should be thoroughly investigated.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/05/opinion/05herbert.html?
48 minutes ago
1 comment:
I like to think that our military is honorable, that the men and women doing the president's bidding are going to treat the Iraqi prisoners humainly and that the civilians will be protected. Unfortuantely, I have read about the people who live in war zones and how they are eventually seen as a burden and then as less than human. It has to do with the psychology of the soldier being far from home and missing his family thereby holding a grudge and eventually he sees those he is sent there to protect as the ones keeping him away from his own life. Then there is the group rape mentality where they are all together and one sees or does something that the others feel they have to follow suit. It's almost like the way that slave holders dehumanize the slaves so they could justify their treatment and keeping them in bondage. Where slavery corrupted the family, religion, morals, and all of the other characteristics of good in both the master and the slave, I believe war corrupts. A normally decent individual goes to battle and soon, he or she sees everyone in that particular society as the enemy and their life as having little worth. How else could they kill their enemy? And just like Vietnam, the press is keeping the people here in the United States safe from the horrors that are going over there because if we knew, we might protest louder and with more vigor those things that we are already really pissed off about. Namely sending our troops to fight a war so that the stupid bushwackers can get more oil, revenge, and have a name in history as being a really good, good ole boy.
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