<$BlogRSDUrl$>

"Pay close attention to that man behind the curtain!"

Wednesday, October 15, 2003

Operator?

Yes, can you give me the number in Baghdad where one could hypothetically phone in terrorist threats to the military? Yes, I'll hold...

While we're waiting for directory assistance, I'll tell you what prompted my imaginary phone call. It was this bit from an article on CNN:
"Coalition military sources said Wednesday that they have received specific threats against hotels housing Westerners in the Iraqi capital." ...

"Authorities received similar warnings last week about a possible attack on the Turkish Embassy in Baghdad, where a suicide car bomb detonated Tuesday afternoon. U.S. and Turkish officials said that the bomber was killed in the attack, the second such bombing this week."
What's that you say, operator? You don't have any such listing? Okay, thanks anyway. Sorry to trouble you.

These threats may actually exist, but an item like this appearing so soon after Bush rebuked the media for reports on Iraq which "emphasize the negative" shows just how fictitious this administration's statements are. (Remember, we're talking about the same Bush whose every other sentence seems to mention either "terra" or "terra-ists.")

To add to the drama, the above news comes right on the heels of more "astroturf" -- a neologism used to describe campaigns where people send identical letters to news editors all over the place in an attempt to create the appearance of a spontaneous "grassroots" movement, signing their own names when, in fact, someone else wrote the letter. Bush apparently thinks that if we just ignore the bad stuff (daily body count, no WMDs, no capture of Saddam, no electricity, no jobs), that everything'll just be peachy.

"The public will believe anything, so long as it is not founded on truth."
-- Edith Sitwell (1887 - 1964) English biographer, critic, novelist, & poet
Posted at 11:03 PM by: [Permalink]
eXTReMe Tracker
This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?