Collateral Targets

[e_dog]

The news headlines have reported on a suicide bomber who killed many Iraqi children and some U.S. soldiers who were apparently handing out candy to the kids. The new headlines have titled this "suicide bomber targets children." Now, perhaps the attacker was targeting the children. That interpretation is pretty implausible in comparison to the assumption that he or she was targeting the U.S. soldiers. That of course would not make the killing of children permissible. not at all. but this case highlights the hypocracy of news coverage. Whenever U.S. helicopters or airplanes bomb and kill Iraqi kids it is called "collateral damage." Indeed, if the same standards were applied to covering the atrocities caused by the U.S. military as that applied to the atrocities caused by its enemies, then the headlines should read something like "U.S. soldiers using Iraqi children as human shields, luring them with candy" or something like that. Note that i am not at all claiming that such biased news reporting is "unfair" to terrorists; rather, it is unfair to the public to provide it with news that is thinly disguised propaganda, regardless of whether the public tends to agree with that propaganda. moralism is supposed to be distinct from information.

According to the ideology of objectivity, journalism should report facts, not evaluations. Let readers judge for themselves on the basis of facts. The intent of an actor is a matter of interpretation. I call this an ideology because in reality it is almost never followed by the press.

[jimboloco]

Also of course, the rampant coverage of London and Madrid, with London higher up on the emotional scale, and "not cowing" means more of the same from the Brits, they will stay in Basra long enough to make it look like they were not swayed by this bombing, but hey,

except for the kids killed by the GI handing out candy, whiich has a high emotional content, what about coverage of the over 120,000 Iraqis who have died since the war began, what about the lousy water and electricity and infrastructure there,

most good Americans are still thinking we are the saviors and they are the evil doers.....

we are all the evildoers, it is not working, and if they have not run out of conventional explosives by now, they probably never will.

Ah we got a talk show in Tampa Bay with thousands of listener-participants, "Radioactivity" at 1 pm EST on www.wmnf.org
http://feeds.feedburner.com/radioactivity
tomorrow is the american-arabic show, friday. the last two days with callins about the wart haus leaks.

i saw ten thousand large bomb craters in east Cambodia on a Sunday afternoon in August, 1971. no headlines about that either.

[stilltrucking]

so are you saying
You name it, you own it?
Collateral damage chilling to the bone
Happy hour at the wart house
down on our knees
did I make a mistake
not my fault
just history
I am redeemped.
Now there is a handy word to own
Hurray for god on our side

Hard to keep up with all the news jimbo
the world situation always so desperate
the the difference between what I been hearing on the BBC, the brits as you call the mad dogs and englishman that go out in the noonday sun, they are ready to face the music until then. We are not, three years or so to the next election, dirty deals that have been done, nothing new under the sun, three years to find a Lincoln.

Solidarity among north american mammals, things of the new world, columbia the gem of the ocean, land of the still free, and the faked out. If you are carrying pictures of Chairmain Mao, just want a fair election, just call be polyanna cowboy, can't become anymore of a farce, I ain't looking for a revolution, just throw the bastards out, find some less corrupt bastards this time, wake up america, I don't know, listening to Iggy Pop Corruption. Bottom line the biggest bunch of crooks to ever occupie the wart house