(7/27/03) "Mission accomplished"? "Bring 'em on"? Five more US
GIs were killed in Iraq within the last 24 hours. For
what? Meanwhile, Fortunately, the "US mainstream news
media" has found it either impossible or unacceptable
(even for them) to ignore the guerilla war which is
taking the lives of our soldiers daily. But
unfortunately, it has fed right from the _resident's
Brain's hands in its reporting (if you can call it
that) of the Congressional report on what didn't
happen before 9/11. Of course, sadly, the "US
mainstream news media" has apparently completely
ducked the burning truth at the center of the 9/11
scandal, that the major choke-point in the pre-9/11
"intelligence failure" wasn't in Langley or at FBI HQ
or at Fort Mead but in the Oval Office (or more
accurately, Waco since that's where the boy king spent
most of his time that summer), where the _resident,
the VICE _resident and the White House au pair IGNORED
what was placed before them at the August 6, 2001
intelligence briefing (among others) because they had
a DIFFERENT AGENDA. When the Congressional report was
referred to by the propapunditgandists (the Margaret
Carlsons as as well as the Tucker Carlsons) they
talked about how there was "no smoking gun." Well, of
course, that is not the point (as well as being
untruthful) -- the point is that we still do not know
(officially, publicly) whether there is a "smoking
gun" in the Oval Office or not, BECAUSE the most
important aspects of the investigation were blacked
out and worse yet refused to even to the Committee
itself. Where is the "US mainstream news media"? No,
you are not alone in your outrage.. What has not
happened on the US air waves is not lost n
everyone...Here is a excellent article from north of
the border, where the US's fundamental values and
policies are still in tact...
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1059171011351&call_pageid=968867495754&col=969483191630
Spinmeisters in need of fodder
ANTONIA ZERBISIAS
TORONTO STAR
It's almost as if the U.S. Army 101st Airborne Division in Iraq didn't get the memo.
Not to take away from its successful shredding of the
evil spawn of Saddam Hussein, Uday and Qusay, but
could it have timed it any worse?
Tuesday was all set as the White House's very own
production of American Idol, the return of Pfc.
Jessica Lynch, 20, to her West Virginia hometown.
She's that — let me plagiarize myself from April 7 —
"archetypal, blonde-in-peril, made-for-TV movie coming
to a ratings sweeps period near you."
The media Lynch mob should have been enough to divert
attention away for at least a day from the slow but
steady sinking of U.S. President George W. Bush in the
polls, as well as his administration's fudging of
yellowcake and the making of other cow pies that led
to war and the sad state of his economy.
What? You think it was pure coinkidink that, on
Thursday, when that blacked-out 9/11 commission report
was released that (1) so were photos of the very dead
Brothers Badenov; (2) the government staged a very
videogenic Al Qaeda attack drill, or; (3) that
Vice-President Dick Cheney finally slithered out of
his nest to speechify about how no president has
fought terrorism like Bush has?
The Lynch coverage was predictably over the top — and
so remiss in recalling that the original Courage Under
Fire rendition of her capture and rescue was as
fictitious as Saddam's nuclear arsenal. Even Dan
Rather outdid himself by reciting the "almost heaven,
West Virginia" words to John Denver's "Take Me Home,
Country Roads."
The continuing heroification of Lynch was so big that
it temporarily wiped out the zeroification of Los
Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant, who stands accused of
rape — a gift to the all-news networks who needed
something to, you should pardon the expression, sex up
the summer.
Anyway. Tuesday morning, there was a Lt.-Gen. Ricardo
Sanchez confirming the deaths of the Hussein boys,
confining Bryant to the newscrawl for a whole day
while raining on Lynch's homecoming parade.
They could have scheduled it better, allowing America
to bask in Lynch's return while ignoring the
continuing casualties among the 150,000 other poor
southern kids still sweating it out in Iraq.
Which brings us to Spc. Shoshana Johnson, 30, the
Texas cook and single mom in Lynch's company whose
members were captured and/or killed. Before Lynch
became the fair-haired poster child/cover girl of the
war, it was Johnson who was the face of Bush's cannon
fodder, thanks to the Iraqi video of her terrified
visage, which ran on Al-Jazeera television — outraging
U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who invoked the
Geneva Convention's prohibition against the public
airing of pictures that might humiliate a combatant.
So, by the end of last week, there was his
toss-your-cookies video of the stitched-up sons of
Satan, er, Saddam, which Rumsfeld justified as
necessary to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis not
yet convinced that it was curtains for the regime.
("Let the joyous news be spread, the wicked old witch
at last is dead," trilled the good witch of the north
in The Wizard Of Oz. Except, by my count, this is the
fourth time they've been killed.)
To me, it's Johnson's face that has always been the
single most enduring image of the war, beating even
that beheaded Saddam statue, yet another event that
proved to be little more than a photo op.
Her life has many parallels with that of Lynch,
including how they both enlisted because they could
not afford college educations or health care. But, as
many have pointed out, Johnson's story is a much
richer lode for TV movie mining than the
just-out-of-high-school Lynch.
Of course, as I predicted on the day of her rescue, it
would be Lynch who would have the agents, anchors,
show bookers, producers, publishers and press beating
a path to her hospital door. That column earned me an
avalanche of hate mail, which charged me with tarring
the American people with racism.
And yet I was just reflecting on how, in the words of
the Independent's Deborah Orr, America has "a
hierarchy of life, with pretty blondes at the top,
black Americans and Native Americans further down."
As it turned out it was true, since one woman we
almost never hear about is Pfc. Lori Piestewa, a
single mom of two and a Hopi Indian, who did not
survive whatever happened to Lynch. Will we ever learn
her fate — or see her bio on A&E?
Nah.
So now that Lynch is home and the Hussein boys are
"really most sincerely dead,'' the White House
spinmeisters will need yet another diversionary,
dog-wagging tactic.
Yet another terror alert is not likely to do the
trick. Besides, we've seen that show before.
Additional articles by Antonia Zerbisias