Give Up Blog

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Good news from Baghdad.

Well, it's kind of a mixed bag. Apparently the massacre of civilians and subsequent cover-up by marines isn't causing that much of a fuss because the Iraqis are apparently numb to suffering and death.

After three years of war that has been fought in their streets and claimed the lives of tens of thousands of civilians, people in Baghdad could spare little more than subdued expressions of sympathy Sunday after hearing reports of a U.S. Marine massacre of 24 men, women and children in a faraway western town.
...
"So what if more innocent people were killed?" Abbas said of the reported massacre in Haditha. "Dozens of them die daily."
...
"We live in darkness,'' he said, fanning his face as the sweat rolled down. "What's the big news about Iraqis getting killed? We're powerless to change the situation."

"Were they the first...Iraqis to be killed for no reason?" Jayih said. "We're used to being killed. It's normal now to hear 25 Iraqis are killed in one day."

That's how you win hearts and minds. If you simply inflict enough suffering and death, eventually the entire population will become totally fatalistic and numb. Maybe this will be the 6th turning point in a forthcoming Bush speech. First we had the fall of Saddam, then his capture, then a couple of elections, then the meeting of a parliament, then the ratifying of a constitution, etc. Now we have a numb and population that doesn't notice massacres because everybody is already dead. They are ready for democracy! They're too tired to stay mad at us!

4 Comments:

Anonymous said...

I would call that a somewhat "mixed bag" as well; a real "the glass is only half full of cyanide" situation.

-JE

11:35 AM, May 30, 2006

Jim2 said...

Yes, and if it gets any worse in Iraq, it will be as bad as DC!

12:31 PM, May 30, 2006

Jim2 said...

Maybe I should clarify:

A. The 2005 civilian casualty rate in Iraq was lower than the 2002 murder rate in DC.

B. DC was a nice place to live even in 2002.

Therefore, it follows that:

C. The MSM's focus on "suffering and death" in Iraq is a distortion of reality.

4:00 PM, May 30, 2006

Rev. Dr. said...

Let's clarify Jim's problem:

A. He doesn't understand statistics.
B. He doesn't understand crime

Therefore, it follows that

C. His arguments are pointless and stupid and he'll believe anything he reads as long as it fits his ideology.

12:07 AM, June 01, 2006