[Bill,
April 24, 2007]
Iraq
I haven't been writing about the Iraq War lately ... I've been watching and hoping for the best ... I support the troops and their mission and want the Iraqi people to establish a functioning democracy. Like it or not, Iraq is the front line in the war with Al Qaeda, the people who brought us the worst attack on U.S. soil in U.S. history.
In one of my last posts, I mentioned that the Iraq War isn't over until we decide it is. A commenter snidely nitpicked that that was true unless the Iraqis ask us to leave. So, more correctly, the Iraq War isn't over until we decide it is — unless the democratically elected government asks us to leave, which is not on their agenda right now. Right now, the Iraqi government wants us to stay, and we should continue to try to complete the mission.
I know it's been a brutal war, and that what we're doing is a long shot. But I believe we need to gut it out, maybe for several more years. It may be our best shot. John McCain seems like the candidate who best understands the stakes. Right now, I'll be supporting him.
******
I should also note that while I've supported President Bush's actions, in the sense that he's the man who makes the call on how to handle our reaction to 9-11, I'd again like to point out that I think we needed a short, extremely violent reaction to 9-11, not this long, expensive, disconcerting slog. Still, there are reasons to hope, and sometimes the answer is to just stubbornly hold your ground.
******
This all said, I don't pretend to have the answers now. The U.S. has some pretty serious dilemmas. There's a role played by the media in this war — I don't mean, liberal bias. I mean, that Osama Bin Laden and Cho Seung-Hui both know something — that violence and horror create a Show in our media culture — 9-11 gave birth to "The Al Qaeda Show," and Cho's suicide created, "The Virginia Tech Massacre Show."
Both Bin Laden and Cho have hit the soft spot in our culture ... which is that television eventually turns EVERYTHING, no matter how serious, into entertainment. And one of the greatest contributions to evil America produces is just that — serious events are trivialized as entertainment by television. Serious ideas are trivialized as entertainment. People's lives become sources of entertainment. And the biggest source of this evil is not entertainment programming, but TV news. Yes, I said evil. Television news is, with few exceptions, evil.
What Bin Laden and Cho did was turn this evil against ourselves.
The War on Terror is essentially this: The U.S. is trying to cancel the Al Qaeda Show, and Al Qaeda keeps trying to find ways to get an extension for another season.
But I wonder if TV execs can't just ax the program.
*****
Of course, the Internet has a role here, too. So it's not a question of a few TV execs in smoke-filled rooms deciding not to report any mass murders.
********
Of course, I could be wrong.
*******
But at least, this started out as The Al Qaeda Show. What this means is that the killing is done largely with an eye toward generating attention and ratings. Sorta.
In one of my last posts, I mentioned that the Iraq War isn't over until we decide it is. A commenter snidely nitpicked that that was true unless the Iraqis ask us to leave. So, more correctly, the Iraq War isn't over until we decide it is — unless the democratically elected government asks us to leave, which is not on their agenda right now. Right now, the Iraqi government wants us to stay, and we should continue to try to complete the mission.
I know it's been a brutal war, and that what we're doing is a long shot. But I believe we need to gut it out, maybe for several more years. It may be our best shot. John McCain seems like the candidate who best understands the stakes. Right now, I'll be supporting him.
******
I should also note that while I've supported President Bush's actions, in the sense that he's the man who makes the call on how to handle our reaction to 9-11, I'd again like to point out that I think we needed a short, extremely violent reaction to 9-11, not this long, expensive, disconcerting slog. Still, there are reasons to hope, and sometimes the answer is to just stubbornly hold your ground.
******
This all said, I don't pretend to have the answers now. The U.S. has some pretty serious dilemmas. There's a role played by the media in this war — I don't mean, liberal bias. I mean, that Osama Bin Laden and Cho Seung-Hui both know something — that violence and horror create a Show in our media culture — 9-11 gave birth to "The Al Qaeda Show," and Cho's suicide created, "The Virginia Tech Massacre Show."
Both Bin Laden and Cho have hit the soft spot in our culture ... which is that television eventually turns EVERYTHING, no matter how serious, into entertainment. And one of the greatest contributions to evil America produces is just that — serious events are trivialized as entertainment by television. Serious ideas are trivialized as entertainment. People's lives become sources of entertainment. And the biggest source of this evil is not entertainment programming, but TV news. Yes, I said evil. Television news is, with few exceptions, evil.
What Bin Laden and Cho did was turn this evil against ourselves.
The War on Terror is essentially this: The U.S. is trying to cancel the Al Qaeda Show, and Al Qaeda keeps trying to find ways to get an extension for another season.
But I wonder if TV execs can't just ax the program.
*****
Of course, the Internet has a role here, too. So it's not a question of a few TV execs in smoke-filled rooms deciding not to report any mass murders.
********
Of course, I could be wrong.
*******
But at least, this started out as The Al Qaeda Show. What this means is that the killing is done largely with an eye toward generating attention and ratings. Sorta.