Media Manipulation

Like most things that go "viral" on the internet these days, I usually see it after one of my friends post it on Facebook. I'm not sure if this video was one of these but several people that I know posted it to their Facebook pages and commented how wonderful it is and how they got the warm fuzzies from it.

It is over ten minutes long but you only have to see a little bit of it to know how the whole thing goes:



So yea, it is a ten-minute montage of soldiers surprising their families - some moms and wives, but mostly kids - who didn't know they were coming home. Accompanied by shitty, new-age yuppie music (Praan by Gary Schyman, which appears to be this year's favorite montage music much like Solsbury Hill was several years back) it was created with the sole purpose of puling at your heartstrings. And I suppose it works. But I had a different reaction.

I tend to pride myself on saying that I don't get offended by anything. Sure things annoy me, piss me off or make me think, "what the fuck...?" But I don't think I get offended in the same way that people who use that word, like those who were up in arms about Janet Jackson's booby (almost) being flashed on TV. But this video might be an exception.

I think this manipulative piece of shit is the definition of offensive.

Some of these clips look like home videos, but it appears a good majority of them are from media outlets, both national and local. And I know from seeing some of these clips before that these surprise coming homes at kids' schools were set up by the media themselves and were not just cameras tagging along.

So what we've got is media corporations setting up these choreographed surprises of a kid seeing their dad for the first time in probably months, and maybe even a year or more. For what purpose? Well, ratings to be sure is one reason. But even more disturbing is how this type of storyline is used to change the narrative of war to something warm, fuzzy and patriotic from what war really is about. It is not much different than the schlocky movies that came out of Hollywood during World War II. It wouldn't be surprising to find out that the Pentagon had a hand in setting some of these up just as they had involvement in those movies from the 1940s.

And this is what the media does. Rather than investigate what a war is about, why it is being fought and the brutality that is happening, we get heartwarming homecoming videos and a heroic president landing on an aircraft carrier in a flight suit. And yet the conservatives of this country continue to to push the bizarre charge of "liberal bas" in the media.

Another purpose of a video like this is to prop up the conservative charge that to criticize a war or the (Republican) President is to "spit" on the "troops" and, by extension, their children. But who is spitting on the children here?

I just don't understand how people can look at this and have good feeling about it.

How dare they use children this way? These kids are going through what is probably the most emotionally fragile time of their lives. One of their parents has been halfway around the world for a long time (even longer to a kid) fighting a war and there is a good chance they won't come back from it. When this parent does come home someone thinks it is a good idea to surprise them in front of news cameras, at their school surrounded by their classmates? Who's to say how that might affect a kid? Do the producers even consider that? Do the parents? The principals and teachers who let it happen in their schools?

Another issue, do they check to make sure this kid is not in a class with the child of a soldier who maybe came home in a box and that maybe it wouldn't be a good idea to do this in front of them?
I don't think they give a shit as long as they get their ratings and get across the narrative they are selling. Fuck the children.

If anyone suggested that they have cameras there when they tell a kid that mom or dad are not coming home because they were blown up, nobody would think that an appropriate thing to do.

This isn't either.

People shouldn't feel warm and fuzzy from looking at this video. They should be pissed and be reminded of why these homecomings are happening in the first place. Because the media is not doing the job it is supposed to be doing.

If they were then maybe we would be living in a world different from one where soldiers get ripped apart from their families because of stupid, pointless wars started by a retarded Texan for the financial benefit of his pals in the military-industrial complex.

A New Season of War

Saurabh Das/AP

Remember Afghanistan? Think hard. I know other, more important stories have taken over our attention lately: the gushing geyser of oil threatening the eco chain in the Gulf of Mexico and beyond, the pseudo civil war in Thailand, the European economy in the toilet, Rachel dating Jesse St. James of Vocal Adrenaline...

But guess what tovarich? Spring in Afghanistan doesn't just mean a fresh, new field of fiery red poppies to refine into opium and heroin. No suh, you crazy trainspotters. May means we're back in the business of war, wa-hoo! Unlike most Americans who have so moved on with this story, yours truly is obsessed with the "Central Asian Roundabout." Maybe it's because, as the namesake of You Know Who The Great who failed to annex Afghanistan to his collection of real estate, I feel the need to vindicate my brother-from-across-the-centuries and pick up the slack--pen, not sword, you understand. Hey baby what can I say... I'm a lover, not a fighter.

Or maybe it's because somwhereabouts the winter of '79 your not so humble opinion writer was hanging around a disgusting pensione in Rome, waiting for his entry visa into the United States, and befriended an old Soviet emigré who proceeded to school yours truly on the catastrophic mistake the CCCP had just made, invading Afghanistan. And ever since, this always-curious writer has been shaking his head at just how idiotically analogous to the Reds, America's meddling into افغانستان has been. Maybe not.

In any case, Spring has sprung, the roads have defrosted, and it's back to the front we go. If you haven't yet heard, Taliban insurgents launched a brazen assault on the American base at Bagram Wednesday morning, sparking a "large and confusing gun battle that left at least five American soldiers wounded and seven guerrillas dead." (NY Times)

Taliban leaders claimed that seven suicide bombers had blown themselves up at the gates of the base, clearing the way for more than 20 other fighters to get inside. The Taliban reports appeared a bit conflagrative, as they often are. But American officials confirmed that the base, one of the largest in Afghanistan, had come under an "ambitious and unusual assault." (NY Times)

An American official confirmed that the base was bumrushed by as many as 30 insurgents, but that no one had actually breached the defenses.

The assault on Bagram comes on the heels of an attack Tuesday by a suicide bomber in Kabul, who rammed an explosives-laden bus into an American convoy, killing 18 people, including five American soldiers and a Canadian officer.

That attack — and the one on Bagram on Wednesday — appeared to be part of a larger campaign directed at the capital and its environs. In recent days, the Taliban have smuggled five suicide bombers into the area, an American military official said.

A last check still has the White House muttering something about packing up and getting out only after establishing a strong, local governance. Historically speaking...good luck with that. If the Achaemenid Empire, the Macedonian Empire, the Indian Maurya Empire, the Muslim Arab Empire, the Sasanid Empire, and the Great Soviet Empire couldn't tame the baby, chances look a bit thin for our broke-ass selves. But hey, have you heard? Fox is putting on Glee after the Super Bowl next year.

In a move to head off questions about its long-simmering tensions with Hamid Karzai, last week the Obama administration rolled out the red carpet for Our Man in Afghanistan, granting him unprecedented access to Washington's top brass and royal treatment denied to even the closest of US allies.

But don't be fooled by appearances. Tensions are still boiling just below the surface. For all the pomp and circumstance of the four-day visit by the Afghan president and his posse of cabinet ministers and senior advisors, the Obama administration is working hard behind the scenes to weaken his authority by reinforcing local governance to boost elusive stability of the war-torn country.

Stay tuned. This series is slated to develop very slowly. And more than likely, never end. But you know, in the wise words of Eric Arthur Blair (aka Georgie Porgie Orwell): "War is Peace."

A salam alaikum brothers, and pass the AK-47s.

The Short View

 
The more I delve into our documented, muddled, historical involvement in Afghanistan, the more incredulous I become at the short-sighted war mongering of hawks like William Casey (former director of CIA under Reagan and the man almost solely responsible for escalating the covert war against the Soviet occupation of the late 70s-80s), Robert Gates (current Sec'y of Defense and former director of CIA), Charlie Wilson (didja see the movie with Tom Hanks?), Michael Vickers, Michael Pillsbury, and a whole slew of self-professed communist slayers playing backroom politics during the Reagan years.

Short-sightedness seems to be America's modus operandi in anything and everything; from internal issues at the municipal levels of government to international foreign policy. We believe more in slapping on band-aids and hoping for a natural wound heal, than applying stitches and nurturing the rift with careful tractability.

To learn about the fervent, Mujaheddin hatred of communism and capitalism equally during the time of Soviet occupation, and to realize that Casey et. al for some reason either overlooked this fact, or didn't have the foresight to anticipate the quick about-face by their beloved, supported Taliban, is beyond mind boggling. It's egregious, political thinking; or lack thereof. It makes a regular citizen like me almost scream outloud: politicians, are you kidding me? You honestly had no idea that once the Soviet "infidels" would eventually retreat (or be defeated), the Mujaheddin or Taliban fighters would re-focus their efforts on the imperialist Gargantua that is the United States?

A lowly schmuck like me can see the Jihadi tsunami coming for miles; and I have nary a course in political science, much less a degree in it like all proper analysts.

Is there a resolution viable in this "graveyard of empires?" Militarily, no. But there might be a small chance of self-governance if both the United States and NATO commit to (wait for it Fox News)...nation building. Yes, the two most awful words in political vernacular since "healthcare reform."

In a way, it's what U.S. military presence has been obtusely attempting with local Afghan ethnic groups---Pashtuns, Tajiks, and Hazaras alike. But it hasn't been altogether successful. How could it be? The high command's version of "nation building" consists merely of hand shaking and exercising good, pro-U.S. public relations. But guess what? We cannot slip these people a couple of packs of chiclets and hope to coax them to our way of life.

The Taliban resurgence, particularly in the southern provinces and on the Pakistani border, has been a sobering by-product of our failure to connect with the Afghan people and provide them with the necessities of a decent life. Indeed, it's our responsibility to do that, if we're occupying.

I realize the prospect of "nation building" sits in the mouth of an American tax payer as snugly as a root canal without anesthetic. But given the failed history of potential conquerors of this geographically-challenging, complex country, we have little choice. If this tactic is not employed by both the United States and its NATO partners, history will once again repeat itself and claim countless lives on both sides as collateral damage.

(Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard) Sheverdnadze had asked for American cooperation in limiting the spread of "Islamic fundamentalism" (after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan). (Secretary of State George) Shultz was sympathetic, but no high-level Reagan administration officials ever gave much thought to the issue. They never considered pressing Pakistani intelligence to begin shifting support away from the Muslim Brotherhood---connected factions and toward more friendly Afghan leadership, whether for the Soviets' sake or America's. The CIA and others in Washington discounted warnings from Soviet leadership about Islamic radicalism. The warnings were just a way to deflect attention from Soviet failings, American hard-liners decided.
--Steve Coll, "Ghost Wars"