I guess you all know McKiernan has been rightfully relieved of his command.

One Point for Life.

One for Karzai and Obama

Now if our Congress was as democratic and wise as the Afghan Parliament we may have Peace.

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

Joseph Goebbels
29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945

"Naturally the common people don't want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same for any country."

Herman Goering to Gustave Gilbert at Nuremberg, 18 April, 1946

I rest my case.

In connection with this incident, and duly reported in our press, one American military spokesperson said that the reports of civilian deaths given from the Afghan side were "over-exaggerated." So are we to deduce that if the reports were "under-exaggerated" they would be true?

Orwell must spin in his grave like a bird in a rotisserie oven.

And the corporate media wonder why they are losing market share and credibility every day. Their lies are becoming all too predictable.

And, so it goes.

150 people are massacred by the US military, and the only sympathetic reporting that the contemptible corporate media can muster over how the elites got embarrassed by it. I guess the suffering of actual victims are utterly unworthy of mention much less any sympathy.

Oh yes, Amy Goodman, with a listenership comprising 0.0001% of the US population reported from the the victims perspective.

And so, why should we wonder, under this modern media mileau, why USAn's in general have become such uncaring, callous, self-absorbed, vile scumbags with hardly a redeeming quality to be found?

Media coverage such as that cited above, especially:

"Afghan Civilian Deaths Present U.S. With Strategic Problem" (Washington Post)

gives the impression that the media are right there in the Pentagon planning rooms involved in decisions and moving pins around maps. It is easy to imagine oneself like a croupier, pushing plastic soldiers across tables with the generals - squinting through the cigar smoke at the imagined outcomes of each move. This impression is in one sense correct - except the media is merely another weapon (perhaps the most important) on the board - to be deployed as the true strategists choose.

By extension this gives the public who consume such hard-boiled fiction the impression that they are also somehow engaged in the same project. Getting reports from the front. Worrying about nuggety strategic problems, biting their lips over a sneaky thrust from Afghanistan's subtle but mighty propaganda machine. It is then seductively easy to accept this flattery and begin to look at civilian deaths and blatant mass murder as through the eyes of a military commander stripped of all human and moral considerations devoted only to 'the mission'. Perhaps even with the prurient glazed stares of a Roman audience looking down on the massacre in the Colosseum cheered on by the sociopathic courtiers on Fox - such is the soulless decadence of much Western discourse today. This then makes perfect sense of the general public's blanket disregard of the crimes of their representatives - the government and the military.

This complements the Goebblesian quotations above and casts Americans, as someone else on this site recently observed as the new 'good Germans'. Is there any way to reclaim our humanity?

It does seem there is an increasing insanity in man;

Avoidance and disregard is the real virus that has reached pandemic proportions.

Symptoms to be on the watch for:

1)apathy

2)lack of compassion ie: anger at those victimized.

3)generalized pain but esp felt in heart region

4)deliberate avoidance of actions and pain inflicted upon others by the US Gov.

5)delusional belief same (gov) will be there or save you and your family.

6) Odd practice of giving perpetrators what they need in order to carry out

horrendous actions against other human beings.

this is a list that could be expanded....

And people wonder how Israel can be so callous in relation to the Palestinian people! They simply followed the lead of their lead from their mother- the USA!!!
For years the USA would have no rapprochement with Vietnam- not until and unless they apologized for the the enormous number of American deaths and casualties they caused. When the first soldier was killed in the recent Iraq invasion, GW got on the TV and shed a tear for him- without a single word of sadness in relation to the 1000's of innocent Iraqis that had just been blown into oblivion by US bombs. And the US media is in lock step with this measure of one's worth. If you're from a non-Aryan country, then the ratio is no less than 1000 of your dead = one dead American. And many Americans find nothing unusual about this. Well folks, guess what? It is EXACTLY that same formula that is being applied in relation to YOU in this economic meltdown! Saving one rich CEO is worth more than saving 1000 peons whose lifetime total income is less than one day's income for that CEO. One can only hope that the media meltdown begins soon. The newspapers are on the way out already. Hopefully the radio and TV media will follow.

No Afghan civilians have died at American hands. They are on vacation in the Barbados, drinking pina coladas and listening to reggae music, said Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Gunga Din.

It's the inherent flaw of counter-insurgency war itself that is at issue here. Indiscriminant bombing completely undermines the strategic goal-" nation-building"- because it alienates the sympathies of the people you are trying to save. The alternative- more or less the old "bite and hold tactics" undertaken piecemeal with carefully coordinated ground detachments manifestly gives "opponents" the tactic advantage, the bedrock of "guerilla war" and leads to much higher "allied" casualties, an anthema to the "bloodless wars" the political situation often demands.

The condundrum points to the inescapable flaw in Gen. Petreus's plan. It would be better to appoint someone who has opposed the "nation-building" paradign as "military malpractice" from the get-go, get our troops out and let the Afghan and other regional players settle "the problem" as best they can. Surely the flukish success of a tiny corpuscule of "Islamic radicals" on 9/11 can not be all that great an obstacle to a little bit of clear thinking on the matter.

Once again we see how the opposition ( if you can call FAIR that) talks beside the point and demands from the corporate media what they themselves will not provide.

FAIR is at again getting out the truth despite the US mainstream media circus routine, proving that "Truth crushed to earth will rise again."

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