Grazing the cable news channels this morning I settled on a program called Inside Iraq on Al Jazeera. I watch it occasionally as it seems to be the only channel that reports the war in Iraq, warts and all. Yes, there is still a war raging in a country that once was the cradle of civilization and by which stood, on the banks of the River Euphrates, one of the seven wonders of the world. Other than the odd suicide bombing or a fleeting photo-op engineered by a beaming US politician to demonstrate that the surge is "actually" working, most news channels are contented to regale viewers with hefty doses of infantilia: what could possibly matter more than the potty habits of an assortment of impetuous, jaded entertainers? Ratings. As Murdoch would tell you, nothing matters like the bottom line!
Iraq, in many, many minds has become a sideshow: eclipsed by the primaries it has somewhat acquired a status similar to the forgotten pimple on the ass of history, or closer to home, it has become an irritant just like that annoying cousin who has suddenly discovered cell telephony and can't stop pestering all around him. Candidates fom both parties have refrained from even mentioning the word Iraq in their main speeches, but I digress, let me tell you what I've heard this morning.
The theme of the segment was "Is Iraq becoming less newsworthy in the eyes of the American electorate?" I came in as the question asked was "why isn't the Americans public concerned about the continuing amount of US casualties and the cost of its sustained occupation?" (or close to that effect) One "pundit" from an American Institute (can't remember which one, possibly Brookings), a cleancut middle-aged man with the look of someone who'd rather be somewhere else answered the host with calculated disdain: "because it's working, it's that simple, and the issue is secondary to what matters most to Americans: the economy". Yep, it's working. Never mind the destruction, the loss of lives and the haemorrhaging of the that economy, it's working, Ladies and Gentlemen, nothing to report here. Hey Presto! Centcom has achieved a near impossible trick: that of having been able to camouflage the war, rebrand it and and trot it out as the son of a cakewalk! Having silenced the other two guests (also American, who were shaking their heads in disbelief) he rhapsodized on the merits of winning the defining war of all wars: "the American people want a victory not a hastened Democratic pullout."
At that precise moment the ticker spurted out the following: "Dozens killed in Iraq market blast. A car bomb has killed up to 33 people and wounded another 25 in a market 75km north of Baghdad."
I got up and turned off the television in disgust. I went to my room and logged on. The first news on Iraq is this: In Baghdad, Gates Sees Signs of Progress. Well, that's comforting. The SoS is probably ambling the streets of the capital, helmetless, keenly scouring the bazaars for rug bargains and whatnots. This catches my attention:
Gates likened the challenge of passing an Iraqi provincial powers law to the U.S. founding fathers' struggle to find a constitutional compromise on how to share power in the Congress between big and small states.
The boundless audacity from the GOPhers knows, well, no bounds. Comparing the founding fathers to a bunch of incompetent, half-assed stooges chosen expressingly for their acquiescence is akin to comparing Vlad the Impaler to Ghandi, IMHO.
One of the chief reasons why US casualties are down is because of the generosity of a man called GW Bush: every Sunni insurgent (there are some 70,00 of them) is bought with your tax dollars, $300 a month, or as a wag said, a tenner a day ($21 million a month). I'm not certain that you can buy loyalty but I suppose you can rent it for a while. Then what? Wait until they turn against the US army? My little girl enters the room and asks why I looked so "serious". I explained that there is a war going on somewhere in the world and it does not look like it's going to end anytime soon. "Well", she said (she's 7) "if they kill them all then it's all finished, there is no war anymore." So there it is, Mr Gates, we have the answer. Kill them all! Then invade another country.