The Media's Casualty Obsession and Historic Context

Here a well-written piece on Iraq and the media's exploitative casualty obsession. It expresses a view rarely voiced or printed in German media.

Comments

[jlwb]

Thank you for your comments and this link! As the mom of a soldier who has served 2 tours in Iraq it was nice to see that somebody “gets” it!

[Unbel1ever]

It would be foolish to think, that anyone with a political agenda in the media would not try to influence the public by pointing to facts/statistics supporting his/her cause. Any medium will to some degree be biased - it can't be helped. That's why in my opinion it's so important to look at an issue from different points of view.
The author of this article tries to justify the victims by pointing that their sacrifice prevented greater evil. In my opinion that's a disturbing point of view. Today the US are trying to prevent terrorist attacks or totalitarian states from becoming to powerful - but what about tomorrow ? If you go down this road it becomes more dangerous every step. For example should I prevent my 80-year old neighbour from driving his car and potentially killing other people ? The risk is there. How would I go about something like that ? Would I slash his tires or would I go to his house and kill him ?
The war in Iraq sent no signal of strength from the US to it's enemies. Quite the opposite is the case - the US has weakened the bonds to it's allies. The goals in Iraq and Afghanistan have not been achieved, despite a prolonged struggle. Now, the support for the US goverment at home is failing and it'll be a lot harder to justify another possibly necessary war.

[WhatDoIKnow]

The goals in Iraq and Afghanistan have not been achieved, despite a prolonged struggle

I must have missed it, but *when exactly* where the "goals" supposed to be "achieved". Was there a timeline given by Bush?

The war in Iraq sent no signal of strength from the US to it's enemies.

What's this claim based on? The Left's evaluation? Any other indicators, like...hard facts...?

Keep one thing in mind, perception is not necessarily reality.

OT: Unbeliever, you're kind of late to the party. This blog used to be extremely lively a few years ago. The claims you make are nothing new, they have been made by others in the past, and have been heavily discussed here. Nowadays, most people are just too bored to deconstruct your claims. People just get bored of reheating yesterday's soup ad infinitum.