This is what 'liberation' looks like
I came across some disturbing images while surfing the Internet today.
You won't see such images in the corporately controlled mainstream American media, which do not report the whole, awful truth, but only mindlessly, dutifully parrot the propaganda that the Bush regime spoonfeeds them regularly.
If Americans were shown such images, they might actually come to regard Iraqis as -- gasp! -- human beings, and they might actually be able to make -- gasp! gasp! -- an informed decision on whether to support the Bush regime's unprovoked, illegal, immoral and imperialist attack upon Iraq for oil and money.
If Americans were shown such images, they might actually stop thinking of this unprovoked, illegal, immoral and imperialist war as a fucking movie or videogame. But we couldn't have that.
Without further ado:
This Iraqi tyke was liberated from both of his arms when the "coalition forces" destroyed his home with a missile:
He also was liberated from his parents when the missile made him an orphan. "It was midnight when the missile fell on us," he said. "My father, my mother and my brother died. My mother was five months pregnant....
"Our house was just a poor shack. Why did they want to bomb us?"
See the full story here.
This Iraqi tot was liberated from at least one of her feet (if indeed she is still alive):
This Iraqi toddler was ultimately liberated:
And we wonder why they hate us.
I am ashamed to be an American.
Update (April 12, 2003): Better late than never. On April 11 salon.com posted a story titled "Sanitized for Our Protection," about the mainstream U.S. media's refusal to show the American public unpleasant images from the Second Bush Gulf War for Oil. On April 11 Salon also posted some links to Webpages that show what this war really looks like.
Another decent piece on this topic is "The Real Face of War" at alternet.org.
Coherent, intelligent and pertinent comment to this post: Art Jacobson of the Salon weblog Ojo Caliente e-mailed me on April 11:
Dear Robert,
As unpleasant as they are, I appreciate your posting of the pictures of the innocent victims of the war. They raise a question that few of us want to face: To what degree are we, as Americans, morally responsible for the death and mutilation of children? I have no answer myself, but I think it is an important question to ask. I also believe that it is an incredibly difficult question to explore with any hope of dispassionate rationality.
It was a question that a publication I write for thought too "delicate" to raise when emotions about the war are so fierce.
I do want to make a point clear: I have written professionally for about 20 years. I have had more than one piece "spiked." Editors and publishers are in the position of "the man who pays the piper"; they get to "call the tune." I wrote an entirely different piece. There are always more words.
Still, for all that, good or bad, I'd like someone to read what I wrote, and I'd like to discuss the moral question. I've posted the article on my blog, in the Baja Arizona section.
(And as an aside, I don't think I have ever been ashamed to be an American. Take the bad stuff with the good stuff; I think there has always been more good stuff about America. Even if there is plenty to be embarrassed about.)
Good blog,
Art
I reply to Art:
I'm glad you like my blog. I try.
I have a journalism degree and I also have experienced the politics of the media. Just one example: At one small Arizona newspaper I wrote for the publisher was a Republican businessman (that's redundant, isn't it?) who killed left-leaning editorials.
Capitalism has its tentacles quite wrapped around the American media. I've watched journalism progressively worsen in the 13 years since I earned my journalism degree. It's to the point that the television networks present their own lowest-common-denominator programming, such as "American Idol," as news. And it has to be a sign of the Apocalypse that Fox has given Monica Lewinksy her own TV show.
I can't help but be embarrassed and ashamed to be an American. We have an unelected, illegally installed "president" who is waging an illegal, immoral, unprovoked and imperialist war against a relatively defenseless nation. It seems to me that anyone who is awake and has a conscience could not feel otherwise.
Because we Americans have let the Bush regime do what it wishes -- from stealing the White House to subverting the United Nations in its attack upon Iraq -- yes, we are all responsible for the deaths of the innocent Iraqis, including the Iraqi soldiers who, like our own soldiers, had little to no choice but to fight their dictator's war.
I will check out your writing on your weblog, Art.
Thanks for writing.
Robert
7:05:12 PM 
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