{"article":{"id":60953,"heading":"Lights, camera, rescue","author":"C\/O Diogenes","created":"2003-05-31 14:47:44","modified":"2013-11-11 00:22:48","last_modified":"Mon, 11 Nov 2013 07:22:48","article":"

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER

http:\/\/seattlepi.nwsource.com\/opinion\/124210_ourplace30.html<\/a>



Lights, camera, rescue

Friday, May 30, 2003

By STEVE LUDWIG

GUEST COLUMNIST

Contentious at its inception, confusing in its execution and devastating in its effect, the invasion of Iraq reeked of impending disaster. Iraqis resisted, sandstorms slowed the advance, \"smart\" weapons hit markets and residences and U.S. soldiers were taken prisoner. An impending humanitarian crisis loomed, as Basra and later Baghdad were deprived of water and electricity.

Then the miracle occurred. The damsel-in-distress was rescued (Pvt. Jessica Lynch) and the evil tyrant was pulled down and beheaded while joyous Iraqis celebrated (Saddam Hussein's statue at Baghdad's Firdos Square). It was a feel-good ending to an otherwise disturbing script.

The press raved: \"This story is 'Mission: Impossible,' but it's real\" ... (an NBC official commenting on the Lynch rescue in reference to a possible made-for-TV movie on the affair). \"After Saddam's tumble, Americans could finally gaze enthusiastically at their TV screens,\" (Post-Intelligencer columnist Joe Copeland).

We do want to feel good, to believe that we are good. We want to be seen as virtuous liberators, not conquerors. Yet these two signature stories from the invasion of Iraq are, in fact, too good to be true.

Shortly after the world was wowed by TV coverage of the toppling of Saddam's statue, doubts were raised. A Reuters photo of the square was circulated showing a much smaller crowd than the close-up TV footage implied. Eyewitness accounts belied the news coverage of a \"jubilant\" crowd: \" ... it happened at only about 300 meters from where I was, and it was a very small crowd. The rest of the square was almost empty, and when we inquired as to where the crowd came from, it was from Saddam City (a poor neighborhood some distance away). In other words, it was a rent-a-crowd\" (Rev. Neville Watson, interviewed on SBS-TV, Australia).

British columnist Robert Fisk, writing from Baghdad on April 11 for The Independent, described the statue episode as \" ... the most staged photo opportunity since Iwo Jima.\" And this from David Robie, senior lecturer at Auckland University of Technology: \"I watched BBC World in the lead-up to the toppling. The square was largely empty except for three strategically positioned U.S. Abrams tanks and an armored personnel carrier plus a small paltry crowd of 100 or so, many of then apparently journalists. A BBC World news presenter kept asking, 'Where is everybody?' \"

As for Jessica Lynch, her \"heroic\" rescue seems also to have been a sham staged for the media. \"It was like a Hollywood film. They cried 'Go, go, go,' with guns and blanks and the sound of explosions. They made a show -- an action movie like Sylvester Stallone or Jackie Chan, with jumping and shouting, breaking down doors,\" said Iraqi Dr. Anmar Uday when interviewed by the BBC. Apparently the hospital staff even tried to deliver Lynch to the Americans prior to her \"rescue,\" but their ambulance was repelled by gunfire from a U.S. checkpoint (available from the BBC online and reported in the May 17 P-I).

Truth and objectivity suffered other blows in this conflict but if these two \"defining moments\" were just staged photo ops, what are we left with?

*\tAn ugly, cowardly war visited on the long-suffering people of Iraq who were already in dire circumstances from two previous wars and 12 years of sanctions.

*\tA war on terrorism that \" ... is not over and may never be.\" \"In a world in which there is a single super conventional military power, random acts of terror with rudimentary weapons will be a reality of life.\" (P-I editorial, May 14).

*\tA military whose only means of fighting terrorism seems to be by responding with even more devastating terror. (Do victims really care if the instrument of their demise was a \"smart\" bomb or a pipe bomb?)

*\tAn administration that will fabricate news to deceive its own citizens while flouting world opinion and international law to attain its chosen ends.



No feel-good here. Yet there is a silver lining. Out of the ashes of Iraq, a movement has arisen. A huge majority of the world's people oppose the use of pre-emptive force. This movement expressed itself on Feb. 15 in the largest anti-war rallies this Earth has ever known.

As the movement grows, we will see an end to the use of mass murder as a means of social engagement. Bloated military budgets will be cut and cut again. The freed resources will spark revolutions in health care, education, food production and distribution, transportation, energy and environmental protection. Ending poverty will become a realizable goal. The reign of terror can be broken at last. Let this be our true and enduring Hollywood ending. Another world exists!

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Steve Ludwig is a member of Sound Non-violent Opponents of War and works with SNOWFremont; www.snowcoalition.org Submissions for Our Place in the World, of up to 800 words, can be e-mailed to editpage@seattlepi.com<\/a>; faxed to 206-448-8184 or mailed to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, P.O. Box 1909, Seattle, WA 98111-1909.

© 1998-2003 Seattle Post-Intelligencer\n","contact":"","link":"","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/plain","summary":"Everybody is lookfing for a figleaf a way to "feel good" about killing a few thousand people and taking their resources. "Saving Private Lynch" was made to order for "good War PR".\r\nAnother Bush Junta LIE.","numcomment":13,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2003\/05\/60953.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[{"id":60957,"heading":"Oops! The Junta's PR is goin sour...","article":"...time for another staged terrist' attack.\r\n\r\nI wish I could laugh at this but there has been too much blood spilled.\r\n\r\nSo much for the "Support our Troops" Crowd. They are still perfectly content to allow our young people to die so that the Bush's and their Patrons can obtain more mere material wealth and power.","author":"Diogenes","parent_id":60953,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-05-31 14:50:50","modified":"2003-05-31 14:50:50","fileurl":""},{"id":60959,"heading":"I prefer semen","article":"I don't care much for spilled blood. I prefer baby batter.\r\n\r\nwww.kobehq.com","author":"KOBE SBM","parent_id":60953,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-05-31 14:52:24","modified":"2003-05-31 14:52:24","fileurl":""},{"id":60962,"heading":"Well me too!","article":"Thanks for posting on my thread KOBE! I've been looking for new boyfriend. Let's go out on date and get to know one another...","author":"Diogenes","parent_id":60953,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-05-31 14:56:05","modified":"2003-05-31 14:56:05","fileurl":""},{"id":60969,"heading":"I'm a freakazoid","article":"If you're looking for a new BOYfriend, you need to look elsewhere. I'm a hermaphrodite who only likes little boys.\r\n\r\nwww.kobehq.com","author":"KOBE SBM","parent_id":60953,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-05-31 15:00:49","modified":"2003-05-31 15:00:49","fileurl":""},{"id":60971,"heading":"That's fine with me.","article":"I don't discriminate. I'm kinky like that. I'm not a young boy though. I'm a crusty old socialist. But don't knock it til you've tried it big boy!","author":"Diogenes","parent_id":60953,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-05-31 15:02:39","modified":"2003-05-31 15:02:39","fileurl":""},{"id":60974,"heading":"Dio imp","article":"Sorry. I need the tightest of rectums. Little boys are the only ones who fit that bill. I need to fuck very tight rectums because my penis is so tiny.\r\n\r\nwww.kobehq.com","author":"KOBE SBM","parent_id":60953,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-05-31 15:05:10","modified":"2003-05-31 15:05:10","fileurl":""},{"id":60975,"heading":"Oh well you wouldn't like me then Kobe imp","article":"My rectum is very loose. Very very loose. Quite.","author":"Diogenes","parent_id":60953,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-05-31 15:06:41","modified":"2003-05-31 15:06:41","fileurl":""},{"id":60977,"heading":"Dio imp","article":"Look out!! The "Kobe imp" is outside your window!!! You need a straightjacket, you nutcase.","author":"anti-psycho","parent_id":60953,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-05-31 15:08:08","modified":"2003-05-31 15:08:08","fileurl":""},{"id":61010,"heading":"KOBE","article":"If you hate Arabs, Muslims, Blacks, Latinos, and Koreans, come to Computers N.L.A. for a purely Aryan shopping experience. No funny accents at our shop. Just red blooded Americans.\r\n","author":"KOBE SBM","parent_id":60953,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-05-31 16:04:29","modified":"2003-05-31 16:04:29","fileurl":""},{"id":61038,"heading":"You should be shot.","article":"You have no right to speak out against the US military. Only military people have rights. Go back to Palestine where you belong, terrorist!\r\n\r\nYou can write to me at KOBEHQ:\r\n\r\nhttp:\/\/www.kobehq.com\r\n","author":"David J. Young","parent_id":60953,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-05-31 17:48:30","modified":"2003-05-31 17:48:30","fileurl":""},{"id":61039,"heading":"Hey Dave, sex with you is just like mastrubating.","article":"When I think about myself, I touch myself.","author":"KOBE SBM","parent_id":60953,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-05-31 17:49:45","modified":"2003-05-31 17:49:45","fileurl":""},{"id":62679,"heading":"Help me","article":"I'm mentally unstable.","author":"Eric","parent_id":60953,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-06-06 16:32:43","modified":"2003-06-06 16:32:43","fileurl":""},{"id":62921,"heading":"?","article":"Don't you care?","author":"Eric","parent_id":60953,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-06-06 17:19:57","modified":"2003-06-06 17:19:57","fileurl":""}]}