There Is No Good News
Nov. 3rd, 2006 12:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
farlaSomething people say occasionally regarding the fact the media is liberal is 'because they're not reporting the good news from Iraq'.
Now, there's a long list of reasons why that's stupid, and a longer list of reasons why I hate you if you've ever said that. But I was mulling on it and I suddenly realized something.
What on earth would good news be?
I mean, when we were actually at war, you know, that point where the troops were marching, you could have good news - we took control of another town. A group of people surrendered. That sort of thing.
But right now, we control Iraq. Even assuming that we are properly outfitted and things were going correctly, there isn't good news. We're not accomplishing new stuff, we're doing the whole Red Queen thing. If something goes right, the news is along the lines of fewer people than usual died today! or maybe critically injured soldiers from yesterday's attack are expected to make it. We can have news like we killed a bunch of Iraqis too, but that's bragging about killing the guys we were supposed to be freeing, many of whom are attacking our soldiers because we have colossally fucked up. Today we killed three guys who attacked soldiers because we killed half their family in the bombing raids and then rounded up the surviving half to be tortured. We are awesome! is not good news.
Now, there's a long list of reasons why that's stupid, and a longer list of reasons why I hate you if you've ever said that. But I was mulling on it and I suddenly realized something.
What on earth would good news be?
I mean, when we were actually at war, you know, that point where the troops were marching, you could have good news - we took control of another town. A group of people surrendered. That sort of thing.
But right now, we control Iraq. Even assuming that we are properly outfitted and things were going correctly, there isn't good news. We're not accomplishing new stuff, we're doing the whole Red Queen thing. If something goes right, the news is along the lines of fewer people than usual died today! or maybe critically injured soldiers from yesterday's attack are expected to make it. We can have news like we killed a bunch of Iraqis too, but that's bragging about killing the guys we were supposed to be freeing, many of whom are attacking our soldiers because we have colossally fucked up. Today we killed three guys who attacked soldiers because we killed half their family in the bombing raids and then rounded up the surviving half to be tortured. We are awesome! is not good news.
