Ten Years and Counting

Though I'm usually bad at dates, March 19, 2003 is one I can't forget.

Sam Seder, on this year's March 19 tenth anniversary. Sam makes the important points: about how ten years ago the media screened out anyone who was right about Iraq; how it's as true now as then, that "experts" are used to shut out those who've been right all along; how media treatment hides its own role in ginning up war fever, as well as skipping over the lack of accountability for the Bush administration.

Sam also spoke with much passion about Janeane Garofolo's bravery in speaking out against the war ten years ago. He notes that hers was the only anti-war voice allowed on TV—because she was viewed as a lightweight who could be mocked and used to discredit the case against war. More of that story, from a 2003 interview.

At the other end of the spectrum are the voices with unlimited access. In case anyone were to doubt the truth of Sam's points about access, plenty was heard this week from those whose only post-2003 public speaking should be at the International Criminal Court.

Thanks to various media enablers, there were uncritical forums for the likes of Richard Perle and Stephen Hadley, for instance.

I haven't heard the latter, but was subjected first thing in the morning to the former—

Montagne: Ten years later, nearly 5,000 American troops dead, thousands more with wounds, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead or wounded. When you think about this, was it worth it?

Perle: I've got to say, I think that is not a reasonable question. What we did at the time was done in the belief that it was necessary to protect this nation. You can't, a decade later, go back and say, 'Well, we shouldn't have done that.'

The usual reality-based sources could be relied upon to write more critically of the PR effort. Charles Pierce, for one: on John Yoo, as well as media pundits' anniversary noting, represented by Johnathan Chait's anti-Pierce column bemoaning the loss of "open and rational debate."

The comments added much to the short post; a couple of typical ones—

Michael Cotter
I don't recall "let's have a more open and rational debate" being said much in the winter of '02-'03, do you? Let's ask Phil Donahue.

Matthew Pensinger
Chait seems to miss the fact that a truly "rational" debate wouldn't be "open" to the idiots who beat the drums for the fulfillment of PNAC's Strangelovian dreams.

It's a hard read, but the dying Tomas Young's last letter—an open one to Bush and Cheney—and Chris Hedges' interview with Young get at the reality of what those cool and calculating Strangelovians unleashed.