life not have value? War is not a sporting event. Yet our soldiers are elevated to the status of great warriors, even though a warrior today is not like a warrior of old and is every bit the product of an advanced technology.

No one is much interested in counting the dead in Iraq but the estimate is in the hundreds of thousands. Who apologizes to their families? The sanctions were imosed on Iraq to bring about a regime change not as punishment for the people of Iraq but the grand masters of strategy in Washington in their infinite wisdom believed that punishing Iraqis would force them to overthrow Saddam Hussein. When that didn't work the U.S. president George Bush decided on the ultimate punishment, to kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and force Saddam Hussein out using fear or by getting lucky by blowing him up.

"Sanctions are an insidious form of warfare, and have claimed hundreds of thousands of innocent lives." (Voices in the Wilderness) [See http://pnews.org/ for articles which go into detail on the damage caused by sanctions]

And the U.S. doesn't stop with punishing civilians and dropping weapons of mass destruction, i.e. munitions using Depleted Uranium, Cluster bombs and munitions, Napalm, Bunker Busters fuel bombs, etc.; it also targets independent journalists who dare to tell the truth. The U.S. intends also to fund an Arab television network to provide a pro-American position.

"Wars have a habit of turning normally sane people into cheerleaders, of transforming rational journalists into nastly little puffed-up fantasy colonels." [The Independent (12/04/03), Robert Fisk]

While in the previous war journalists had to get their news from official press conferences and a press pool this one was different with journalists who gave up their subjectivity (and journalistic neutrality) by being in-bedded with the troops. They became spokepersons and cheerleaders for the coalition troops. Each was a public relations officer with a separate battle unit. The Bush administration could not have had better PR if it paid for it themselves. So many were eager to be called combat journalists that they jumped at the chance to get assigned to a military unit in this war. This was also their chance at glory.

RIGHT WING TALKING HEADS

"I was with the 5th and 7th Marines as they entered Baghdad and were greeted by little kids walking up to them and handing them flowers. It is one of the most moving things I've seen so far in this war--children greeting their liberators with flowers and homemade American flags. We've seen it several times, and it's the kind of thing that gets you choked up because the people are so thrilled to get rid of this brutal regime." [Oliver North, the convicted Iran-Contral scandal liar AND talk radio host who was embedded with U.S. Marines]

Today's embedded journalists are the kind of journalists Washington likes and wants. They represent the state. They have dispensed with integrity and they have aided and abetted the fascist ruling elite.

Hank Roth http://pnews.org/