He is right about some things. The crusade is not in the interest of the US. Iraqis are united in opposing invasion and occupation by a horde of brutes.
But he is wrong when he says that this condition came about as a result of the Abu Ghraib photos. And he is wrong when he says that the problem can be solved by shifting the gunmen to one or more nearby “bases” where they will remain poised, guns trained, coiled like a python ready to strike. That may be freedom from occupation in the eyes of Americans, but no one should deceive themselves that the populations of the target region will have the same view.
Murtha has a lot of company in this notion that somehow what the US corporate media shows the American public is the problem.
Out of sight, out of mind, say some. Just take the whole thing underground, make it a “covert” crusade. By far the most popular suggestion for better crusade management (not specifically mentioned by Murtha, but loudly championed by others: outsource the wetwork. Rent some expendables from whichever “leader” is the biggest dollaho and watch those “US casualties” taper off.
I will be the first to acknowledge that doing that would have a dramatic effect on US public opinion. No one can deny that media reports of war crimes, graft and profiteering have impacted mainstream Americans, and inspired some questioning of their country’s policies.
Granted, the internet and other advances in technology present new challenges to keeping covert operations covert, but the US controls the internet, and can merely shut it down in countries where it conducts its covert operations, and undertake similar measures to restrict use of cell and satellite phones and other communications to US operatives and selected in-country collaborators.
And it would certainly be possible to crack down on US media, make sure that Mr. and Mrs. America see nothing but Rendonews, and any reports of US activities are confined to local, far away newspapers that are not even in English.
Just like the doings at the Ghraib, and the details of the Fallujah massacre were originally. Just unreliable reports from terrorist propaganda organs. And just like most of what the US does outside its borders still is. The policy implementation depicted in the Abu Ghraib photos may have been news to Murtha, but it was not news to the victims and their families and friends.
I guess you could make the argument that under the circumstances, it doesn’t matter much. The corporations are going to do what they are going to do, regardless of what the American people want. There is still plenty of money to be made from the crusade, and it is not likely that any of the entities who are making all that money are going to say, well I guess we will just forfeit that next billion or so, because some of the public saw some pictures of melted children on a website and heard a disgruntled ex-employee of somebody on a television program.
Regardless of all the political shenanigans, regardless of all the internecine beltway feuding and jockeying and backbiting and airblowing, and regardless of whether it is televised or Pentagon-briefed or published in the Washington Post, American tax dollars are going to continue funding the slaughter of Iraqis, and the stuffing of the pockets of war profiteers, and the threat to the safety and security of ordinary Americans that all that entails will continue to march apace.
Keeping it all out of the press and on the down low might provide, no, it definitely will provide an immeasurable amount of psychological comfort to a sizeable percentage of the American public.
However, the thoughtful should keep in mind that simply because CNN or WaPo does not report it, and therefore the mainstream US public does not know of it, that does not change the larger reality, and it is that reality that determines the safety of Americans, not the doings of politicians and media companies.
The questioning, the debate, such as it is, that takes place among mainstream Americans about how best to impose US will on the oil producing region may be a perception problem, from Washington’s point of view.
However, from the point of view of the victims, it is not a perception problem, but a reality of military aggression problem, a colonialism problem, a murder and maiming and kidnapping and torture problem.
And it is in the hands of those victims, and their surviving friends and family, as well their neighbors in the region, that US has chosen to place the security of American citizens, and the future of American children.
