Wednesday, March 26, 2003

Truth and war A good article in the Boston Globe (which may not be available without charge by the time you read this) about dramatic differences between Western and Middle Eastern media images of the war. To quote: "The Arab world sees pictures of bloodied bodies of young children. They watch scenes crowded with corpses, including gruesome images of dead American soldiers. Americans see almost none of that. Their view of the war in Iraq, through television and print, is dominated by long-distance photos of bombs going off in Baghdad and intimate battlefield scenes conveyed by reporters who are traveling with US and British soldiers." 10:36:31 AM     comment [] IBM or Digital? I'll admit it. Last week, like the stock market, I got taken in by the assessment that this war could be over quickly. It won't. Is it really true that the Bush team got taken in by their own ideology and believed that despite Europe's disbelief in "America the liberator" enough Iraqis would believe to send Saddam packing? Now what's clear is a substantial number of troops would rather fight any invader no matter how "freedom loving" and that those who might rise up are cowed by memories of what happened last time they rebelled . . . and our President's father made a u-turn and left them hanging, many literally. To continue with my business analogy of the 23rd, it's like the Bush team is a big corporation trying to market products to a demographic who's buying patterns are simply outside their comprehension and analysis. Can elephants learn to dance? Do we have an IBM White House? Or is this Digitial Equipment Corporation? I wonder if our President has read Lou Gerster's latest book. 5:35:30 AM     comment []

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