Thursday, November 02, 2006

Seymour Hersh - If Americans knew the full extent of U.S. criminal conduct, they would receive returning Iraqi veterans as they did Vietnam veterans, Hersh said.  “In Vietnam, our soldiers came back and they were reviled as baby killers, in shame and humiliation,” he said. “It isn’t happening now, but I will tell you – there has never been an [American] army as violent and murderous as our army has been in Iraq.”

Hersh is promoting an argument that Americans are evil.  The theme travels across both generations and presidents.  That's all there is to it.  It's not so much the evidence that he presents which bothers me (and I'll believe it when I see it), it's the lack of perspective and the broad brush he uses to paint our whole society as worse than anyone else's.  He thought that when our fighting forces consisted of a lot of drafted young men and he thinks that when we have a volunteer army which probably has more women and older men with families than previously.

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A reporter at my alma mater's newspaper, the Daily Pennsylvanian, has a rather unpleasant experience covering Democrat candidate Bob Casey.  I think the communications director needs to a copy of How To Win Friends and Influence People.

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A Hamas spokesman is given propaganda space in the New York Times and several readers write back - "Are you kidding?"  Except the one from France of course, where Muslims and non-Muslims live in peace and harmony.  Not.

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