More About the War, part 1

I have two stories that were in the news this week that I want to do my part to bring more exposure to. (Also, I have to make up for that blog about my shoes. So so so indulgent. But really, I do love my shoes. Utterly and dearly.)

Story one: I Don't Believe This Sh1t

Leading up to the Iraq War, the Pentagon began a PSYOPS program (psychologoical operation) with former military personnel, mainly generals, of wining and dining & feeding misleading or flat out false information about the danger America faced from Iraq. Even more sinister, it promised some former generals that, should the war be waged, they stood to gain financially because their companies--defense contractors, mainly--would be used in the operation. So, these targets of the PSYOPs went out into the media, spreading the word of the Pentagon as if it were the Gospel and did so on all the major television networks: CNN, NBC, even my beloved NPR fell victim to it. Meanwhile, dissenters of the war, in the coverage leading up to it, were often from far out marginal groups, and never anyone from a mainstream organization. (Granted, there weren't that many dissenters from mainstream organization--certainly not as many as there are now.)

And I really want to stress the utter sickening disgust over those retired military personnel who agreed to represent themselves as knowledgable and unbiased commentators and contributors on the national news for why we should have entered this, now so very obviously complete and utter disaster of a bullsh1t, war knowing that they stood to gain hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars should it be waged. Can you think of this? Can you picture this reverberation? Every man and woman who died fighting in this war, in part died for the greed of those people. Every innocent Iraqi child, grandmother, father, sisiter, brother, mother, teacher, doctor, librarian (yes, there are Iraqi librarians) who suffered or died, experienced that, in part, because of the the GREED of those people. Can you imagine? Every grieving wife, mother, friend, father, sister, son, brother, daughter who lost someone --physically or mentally--because of this waged war can, in part, blame the greed of those people.

This story has not been covered by the mainstream broadcast media, either. To cover it would be expose their grave & terrible mistake. How do they acknowledge that their analysts and consultants, who they so faithfully traipsed out onto the "war desk" for fair and balanced coverage and analysis were merely the puppets, while the Pentagon were the marionettests, pulling the strings behind the scene? How do they admit that they had so royally fucked us over? (And you know I'm not one to drop and f-bomb on the blog, but all's fair in coverage of the highly biased coverage of the war.)

No, no, it is much easier to continue coverage of the things like the endless Democratic campaign and all its manufactured controversies and the cult in Texas with the ladies and their stupid hair and pioneer dresses. Because how could they possibly admit that they too were duped? Were part of the problem? Contributed to this gigantic breach in the last shreds of democracy and freedom of the press?

They don't. They won't. But, at least we have blogs...