Monday
11/18/03
Maybe Ignorance Isn't Bliss
I realize that using the conceit that I’m perpetually in the dark about things as an opener is getting old, yet it remains true. Take, for instance, the fact that I was the last to find out that Rosie O’Donnell is gay. Really, no kidding. And worse yet, having just read those words to myself out loud, the notion of a gay Rosie is becoming less pleasant by the second. Yikes.
But anyway, there really doesn’t seem to be any end to the things it hadn’t occurred to me to wonder about, many of them actually important. This story was sent to me this morning and woke me to something that I think we all know but don’t want to think about; namely that the White House is doing its very best to ignore the terrible price our troops are paying in Iraq.
When I think back to the autumn of 2001 it seemed we were awash in funerals and memorial services of every kind. Some of the WTC victim’s funerals were even televised, and by the end of the month there was literally a call for volunteers to attend the services that the fire and police personnel had become too exhausted to attend. Each day the civilians killed were mourned as innocent victims, and the cops and firemen were lauded as fallen heroes. And each day, their sacrifice seemed to strengthen our resolve.
Yet today, two years on, we find ourselves in a sorry situation in Iraq which can only remain politically viable as long as our government steadfastly ignores the same sort of heroes we so recently and so publicly honored.
In short, now that we find ourselves in a bed of our own making, we can’t be allowed to see the body bags. And, as always, I’m left with far more questions than I started out with… just who is bearing the brunt of burying the dead? The families? The military? Where is the press in all this? Is there no-one in the administation who wishes to acknowledge the price they and their families have paid? Has that man in the White House attended even a single funeral?
Bush likes to publicly thank “our brave troops” every chance he gets, but apparently that only counts if you’re still alive. Bushchenyrumsfeld have certainly learned well the most important lesson that Vietnam had to teach us. And you might suppose that lesson is to avoid unnecessary wars from which there is no escape, but of course we know they didn’t learn that one. No, the most important lesson is simply keeping the TV cameras away from Dover AFB. (Note the lag between the production and air dates of this story... and then nothing since.)
Oh yeah, and I’m not even going to start on how oblivious the White House is to the price the wounded have paid. Have you seen even as much as a snapshot of a wounded soldier, much less even know where they are? I didn’t think so.
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Maybe Ignorance Isn't Bliss
I realize that using the conceit that I’m perpetually in the dark about things as an opener is getting old, yet it remains true. Take, for instance, the fact that I was the last to find out that Rosie O’Donnell is gay. Really, no kidding. And worse yet, having just read those words to myself out loud, the notion of a gay Rosie is becoming less pleasant by the second. Yikes.
But anyway, there really doesn’t seem to be any end to the things it hadn’t occurred to me to wonder about, many of them actually important. This story was sent to me this morning and woke me to something that I think we all know but don’t want to think about; namely that the White House is doing its very best to ignore the terrible price our troops are paying in Iraq.
When I think back to the autumn of 2001 it seemed we were awash in funerals and memorial services of every kind. Some of the WTC victim’s funerals were even televised, and by the end of the month there was literally a call for volunteers to attend the services that the fire and police personnel had become too exhausted to attend. Each day the civilians killed were mourned as innocent victims, and the cops and firemen were lauded as fallen heroes. And each day, their sacrifice seemed to strengthen our resolve.
Yet today, two years on, we find ourselves in a sorry situation in Iraq which can only remain politically viable as long as our government steadfastly ignores the same sort of heroes we so recently and so publicly honored.
In short, now that we find ourselves in a bed of our own making, we can’t be allowed to see the body bags. And, as always, I’m left with far more questions than I started out with… just who is bearing the brunt of burying the dead? The families? The military? Where is the press in all this? Is there no-one in the administation who wishes to acknowledge the price they and their families have paid? Has that man in the White House attended even a single funeral?
Bush likes to publicly thank “our brave troops” every chance he gets, but apparently that only counts if you’re still alive. Bushchenyrumsfeld have certainly learned well the most important lesson that Vietnam had to teach us. And you might suppose that lesson is to avoid unnecessary wars from which there is no escape, but of course we know they didn’t learn that one. No, the most important lesson is simply keeping the TV cameras away from Dover AFB. (Note the lag between the production and air dates of this story... and then nothing since.)
Oh yeah, and I’m not even going to start on how oblivious the White House is to the price the wounded have paid. Have you seen even as much as a snapshot of a wounded soldier, much less even know where they are? I didn’t think so.
