April Showers bring May Showers and We're Still Numb to Numbers
Seventy-six in April. Twenty-four in the first nine days in May. Two-thousand four hundred twenty with eight pending. To most of us they are numbers. Even if you can put it together, that this is how many soldiers were killed in Iraq, well, it seems like they are still numbers. Where is the anger? Where is the frustration? Why aren't people begging for a solution? Why can't we feel more than mere numbers? The word ‘death toll’ itself even seems tactless. So, you're sayin', if you die in the war, you become part of a toll- just a tally. Or maybe you will be lucky and be killed on a day which marks the so-and-so thousandth death of an American soldier and you might get your face flashed across the screen of CNN.
The media beast has the power. They feed the American people. What they choose to be important will be spoonfed to us as a story. Gas prices. Immigration reform. Mining tragedy. Duke Lacrosse. Natalee Holloway. In return, the media outlets are nourished with their precious ratings and the sensationalized, cable news life cycle continues and grows stronger and more powerful. Blindly, we eat it up. Blindly, we become numb to the numbers. And foolishly, we fail to realize that the administration spits up these divisive red herrings like immigration reform and gas prices to catalyze the media's incompetent, pseudo 'journalists’ and talking heads who brainwash their viewers.
Every day, the situation in Iraq becomes increasingly similar to that described by Walter Cronkite in Vietnam, a "bloody experience" which "is to end in a stalemate". Guerilla warfare, like the insurgency, has beleaguered our efforts to create any sort of soundness in Iraq. Our leaders feel that if we leave, our efforts will be in vain and show a sign of weakness in this ‘war on terror’- a ‘war on terror’ which is beginning to feel more idealistic than ever - like a war on cancer- something almost impossible to contain. Pride is one of the seven deadly sins, and the death toll increase has become especially deplorable in light of our obstinate leadership with its clouded vision and no proffered solution.
With tremendous sacrifice and honor our troops have done all they are capable of in Iraq. No one here wants to leave without creating some sort of stability, but our continued presence has bred a new generation of hate for westerners, even though our intentions were for the good of their people. We failed to find weapons of mass destruction and the irony of our dismay is that our occupation in Iraq has proliferated weapons of mass destruction- weapons called suicide bombers and executioners who killed more than 1,000 Iraqi civilians in April.
The West and the Middle East fail to understand each other which makes for an extreme glitch in this fight. We are a just society. Our backbone is our conviction for freedom and democracy. Our choice of which religion we will follow is part of our fabric. Since the beginning of recorded time, the Middle East’s foundation has been its religion. Their being is their religion and the extremists will live and die for their god, which explains the civil wars which have been going on for thousands of years. Middle East peace remains an oxymoron and freedom is anything but a necessity.
We must be smarter and act less proud than our enemy, and the smartest thing right now is to realize and accept that a democracy cannot be forced on people who believe that beheading Americans is justified and sacrificing lives is the greatest gift they could give to their god. This should now be left in the hands of the Iraqis and their elected officials to take over and to run the defense of their country for it is time for our country to close this chapter in our history and focus on repairing our international relations, protecting our borders, and reuniting our country as we were after 9/11. The animosity between our two parties has divided us to the point where we appear to be a mockery for the freedom and democracy we preach.
"We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds...For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate. To say that we are mired in a stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion."
- Walter Cronkite
The media beast has the power. They feed the American people. What they choose to be important will be spoonfed to us as a story. Gas prices. Immigration reform. Mining tragedy. Duke Lacrosse. Natalee Holloway. In return, the media outlets are nourished with their precious ratings and the sensationalized, cable news life cycle continues and grows stronger and more powerful. Blindly, we eat it up. Blindly, we become numb to the numbers. And foolishly, we fail to realize that the administration spits up these divisive red herrings like immigration reform and gas prices to catalyze the media's incompetent, pseudo 'journalists’ and talking heads who brainwash their viewers.
Every day, the situation in Iraq becomes increasingly similar to that described by Walter Cronkite in Vietnam, a "bloody experience" which "is to end in a stalemate". Guerilla warfare, like the insurgency, has beleaguered our efforts to create any sort of soundness in Iraq. Our leaders feel that if we leave, our efforts will be in vain and show a sign of weakness in this ‘war on terror’- a ‘war on terror’ which is beginning to feel more idealistic than ever - like a war on cancer- something almost impossible to contain. Pride is one of the seven deadly sins, and the death toll increase has become especially deplorable in light of our obstinate leadership with its clouded vision and no proffered solution.
With tremendous sacrifice and honor our troops have done all they are capable of in Iraq. No one here wants to leave without creating some sort of stability, but our continued presence has bred a new generation of hate for westerners, even though our intentions were for the good of their people. We failed to find weapons of mass destruction and the irony of our dismay is that our occupation in Iraq has proliferated weapons of mass destruction- weapons called suicide bombers and executioners who killed more than 1,000 Iraqi civilians in April.
The West and the Middle East fail to understand each other which makes for an extreme glitch in this fight. We are a just society. Our backbone is our conviction for freedom and democracy. Our choice of which religion we will follow is part of our fabric. Since the beginning of recorded time, the Middle East’s foundation has been its religion. Their being is their religion and the extremists will live and die for their god, which explains the civil wars which have been going on for thousands of years. Middle East peace remains an oxymoron and freedom is anything but a necessity.
We must be smarter and act less proud than our enemy, and the smartest thing right now is to realize and accept that a democracy cannot be forced on people who believe that beheading Americans is justified and sacrificing lives is the greatest gift they could give to their god. This should now be left in the hands of the Iraqis and their elected officials to take over and to run the defense of their country for it is time for our country to close this chapter in our history and focus on repairing our international relations, protecting our borders, and reuniting our country as we were after 9/11. The animosity between our two parties has divided us to the point where we appear to be a mockery for the freedom and democracy we preach.
"We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds...For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate. To say that we are mired in a stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion."
- Walter Cronkite
posted by Riley at 8:45 PM
