OT: Border Towns

Q

Quadro151

Joined
Oct 8, 2001
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68
Just thought y'all would enjoy this. I was watching (I think it was MSNBC) about 5 minutes ago, and they were showing a town that the Marines had just liberated. People were dancing iMarine was tearing down a giant larger than life size mural of saddam, an had everything but above his neck torn down. One Iraqi citizen, apparently unable to contain his excitement and distaste for the dicator, ran up, took off his sandle, and danced around as he pounded saddam's face with one of the largest you-know-what eating grins I have ever seen.

Quad
 
That looked like Mr. Hussein isn't really that well liked all over Iraq. "What goes around comes around". The man has some hard times coming. His soldiers are giving up at a pretty high rate. It sounds like he sent some of them out to fight with an empty belly.:)
 
What we're not seeing on our TV channels are the civilian casualties.

There have been civilians killed and wounded. I don't know the numbers, but you have to watch the BBC or other non-U.S. based channels to see them.

So, we're shown a guy dancing, but we aren't shown the 11 year-old girl wounded during the U.S. airstrikes.

S.
 
Yeah WTF!:mad: You better not be calling the troops "baby killers"! This war will save so many lives in time. Lets not start another flame war on the forum!:mad:
 
please keep calm
I think what spence wanted to say is that we only get selected pieces of information. It has always been like this to keep the patriotism high. There is (very obvious) disinformation from the Iraqi side and every bet there is disinformation from allied side (just think of the "Kuwaiti nurse" in 1991 that reported baby-killings by Iraqui soldiers in Kuwait - she later was identified to be the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador in Washington - just a very well known example). I guess it needs to be that way. Each party tries to save their soldiers' lives by manipulating and disinforming (or not informing) the public (and the enemy). The first thing to die in a war is the truth.:(
BTW as we are on the topic: does anyone know the http://www.disinfopedia.org -site? Ironically I do not know if everything is correct what they say - but some things are quite interesting.
Andreas

Edit: skeletor - reading the line at the bottom of your post - do you really think war is sport?
 
Did I say anything about the U.S. troops?

What I object to is the fact that we in the U.S. are only being shown one side of the story. All of those impressive explosions carry a human cost. But, either by accident or design, only the "positive" aspects of this war appear on our T.V.s.

I don't shed any tears for Saddam and his cronies. The world will be a better place without them in it. That said, I believe that all of us have a moral duty to try to understand the impact that our actions carry - both as individuals and as a nation.

This is especially so as I've begun to hear rumbles of possible follow-on campaigns against Iran and Syria. Before we're so quick to advocate the use of force, we need to see what force means. Dead soldiers, yes. Dead women and maimed children, too.

It's one thing to understand this intellectually. Another to see it in living color.

S.
 
I wonder how many women and children Saddam had killed over the years. I'll bet A LOT more then this war will kill.
 
Pan Tau: Yes, I think war is like a sport. Generals are coaches, different groups within the military are comparable to QBs and kickers etc, and the countries that send their men to battle are like the crowds that cheer for their home team. In football two maneuvering forces try to take territory from the other team, there are lots of similarities. I just think that it's an interesting perspective.
 
Originally posted by mattjerom
www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/22/sprj.irq.war.casualties/index.html
I guess free speech works in America!!!!! I don't see any disimformation here.
Click to expand...

I can't get the link to work, matterjom.

Some of the civilian toll is starting to appear in the general U.S. media. It may not be what we want to see and hear, but it's a good thing.

It is informative to note the differences in how the subject of civilian casualties is covered. The Arab media sensationalizes the suffering of the wounded. The BBC simply reports the numbers and shows clips from Arab TV. NPR has a reporter on the scene who has actually seen and spoken with some of the injured. She gives the Iraqi numbers, too. However, she adds that the casualties appear mostly to come from Iraqi AA activity.

S.

Edit - Ok, now the link is working.
 
Yes, I think war is like a sport.
Click to expand...

You say "is like", not "is" as your bottom line.
I accept your view, but cannot share it. Of course there are the parallels you mention, but sport is recreation - and war is destroying creation in my eyes. War is evil but as we are not living in a paradise sometimes it is necessary.
And about manipulation or disinformation - still remember Jamie Shea? He covered the Kosovo-war as NATO-speaker. I think he is capable of "selling" bad news as victories without telling lies. It is the nature of disinformation that you discover the real thing later. In times of war information is a weapon and not necessarly the "truth" (if there is something like truth anyway...).

Andreas
 
I monitor the war pretty closely courtesy of CNN and I've seen quite a few pix of civilian casualties.

War is hell and shouldn't be but as I've mentioned before we don't live in a perfect world.
 
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