G_j Donating Member (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Wed Jul-20-11 12:19 PM
Original message
1 Million Dead in Iraq? 6 Reasons the Media Hide the True Human Toll of War -- And Why We Let Them
http://www.alternet.org/world/151703/1_million_dead_in_... /
AlterNet / By John Tirman
1 Million Dead in Iraq? 6 Reasons the Media Hide the True Human Toll of War -- And Why We Let Them
Human Toll of War -- And Why We Let Them
Most Americans turn a blind eye to the violent acts being carried out in their name.
July 19, 2011 |
As the U.S. war in Iraq winds down, we are entering a familiar phase, the season of forgetting—forgetting the harsh realities of the war. Mostly we forget the victims of the war, the Iraqi civilians whose lives and society have been devastated by eight years of armed conflict. The act of forgetting is a social and political act, abetted by the American news media. Throughout the war, but especially now, the minimal news we get from Iraq consistently devalues the death toll of Iraqi civilians.
Why? A number of reasons are at work in this persistent evasion of reality. But forgetting has consequences, especially as it braces the obstinate right-wing narrative of “victory†in the Iraq war. If we forget, we learn nothing.
I’ve puzzled over this habit of reaching for the lowest possible estimates of the number of Iraqis who died unnecessarily since March 2003. The habit is now deeply entrenched. Over a period of about two weeks in May, I encountered in major news media three separate references to the number of people who had died in the Iraq war. Anderson Cooper, on his CNN show, Steven Lee Myers in the New York Times Magazine and Brian MacQuarrie in the Boston Globe all pegged the number in the tens of thousands, sometimes adding “at least.†But the number that sticks is this “tens of thousands.â€
Cooper, Myers and MacQuarrie—all skillful reporters—are scarcely alone. It’s very rare to hear anything approximating the likely death toll, which is well into the hundreds of thousands, possibly more than one million. It‘s a textbook case of how opinion gatekeepers reinforce each other’s caution. Because the number of civilians killed in a U.S. war is so morally fraught, the news media, academics and political leaders tend to gravitate toward the figure (if mentioned at all) that is least disturbing.
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http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1530498Funny thing about that is, in 2004 they were claiming that we had killed 1 million people in Iraq, and Jeb's Ice truck hid the bodies. Now here we are 7 years later and the number is still at 1 million?
BeFree (1000+ posts) Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Wed Jul-20-11 12:30 PM
Response to Original message
1. Just following orders, mate
"Some time in 2002, Bush admitted that he hadn't been giving Bin Laden much thought."
Go **** yourself, how dare you compare our troops to NAZIs?
defendandprotect Donating Member (1000+ posts) Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Wed Jul-20-11 01:27 PM
Response to Original message
5. 80% of Americans want an end to the wars Obama/Dems have been keeping going 5 years now! Updated at 2:52 PM
They always use 80% just like 0bama claiming 80% agree with him.
