The Daily Grasshopper

I would not argue with anyone who said that the "Daily Grasshopper" is not the most accurate name for the essays I've been writing, especially of late. Yesterday, in spite of full-to-bursting editions of the New York Times and Boston Sunday Globe, all worthy of much scrutiny and reflection, I opted instead to take a break from war voyeurism (that's exactly what it is) and go on a long hike in the Blue Hills south of Boston. And then I helped a friend move a dresser. Such are the everyday pursuits that occasionally prevent me from churning out yet another - eagerly-anticipated, I'm sure - version of the "(not quite) Daily Grasshopper." Even in wartime, as we are constantly reminded, life goes on.

Which brings me to this little item that appeared in Friday's Boston Globe. For those longtime readers, you may have noticed that Friday is usually the day that I take off from writing. But there was one thing I have to share with you on the subject of "life going on" - this is from an article entitled "As strike unfolds, Bush swings back into routine."

As a disclaimer, I want to point out that Boston's television media have been routinely juxtaposing stories about antiwar protesters with stories of the war's early casualties, some of which were suffered by local families, as well as stories about anxious relatives of the men and women overseas. These stories often contain heartwrenching testimonies from parents of dead U.S. soldiers, such as the two young Marines from Maine who died in the chopper accident in Kuwait. The effect of this side-by-side treatment of the stories is not subtle - often the reporter will ask the grieving parent what they think of the demonstrators, with predictable responses being given. It is the rare reporter who asks an antiwar demonstrator if he or she has a message for the troops - the blanket assumption is that anyone opposed to war is, by definition, opposed to the people fighting it.

So, from the "turnabout is fair play" department, I offer you the quote from the Globe article (which appeared on page A25), and a link to a photo that has been widely broadcast throughout the Arab world, which will likely never see the light of day here (beyond media such as this e-mail).

The excerpt from the Globe story:

"'There is a real sense of relief, that the waiting is over,' said one administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity. 'There is also a sense of anxiety, in that, unlike other times, when you're reactive, this time we're proactive,' which means the onus is on the United States to succeed. 'But we have every confidence that will happen,' the official said.

There were even occasional moments of levity around the West Wing, suggesting that the mission was proceeding as planned in its beginning phases. CIA Director George Tenet emerged from an early morning meeting with Bush with what looked like a cigar tucked in his mouth. During a private meeting later in the afternoon, Bush and members of his Cabinet could be heard erupting in laughter, turning somber only when reporters were allowed in." (BG, 3/21/03, p. A25)

Now, let me say right off in my role as media critic that if a reporter can't say for sure if it's a cigar in Tenet's mouth, it may be better to leave that little detail out. And if reporters weren't there to see exactly who was laughing, maybe it's not a good idea to insist that the President himself was in fact enjoying a "moment of levity," unless the reporter, Anne Kornblut, knows what Bush sounds like when he laughs. She is, it must be pointed out, one of the Globe's White House correspondents.

Those two quibbles notwithstanding, the fact that ANYONE in the room was "erupting in laughter" in the immediate aftermath of the start of the "Shock and Awe" bombing campaign (the top headline is "Baghdad hit by bombs twice in 1 day") is an indication, in my opinion, of how morally bankrupt these individuals are. Here's the photo I'd like to juxtapose with the story of laughter "erupting" from members of Bush's cabinet (if not the president himself):

http://www.aljazeera.net/news/arabic/2003/3/3-22-26.htm

And the Reuters story discussing international reaction to the photos:
http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/Swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=1713217

To choose not to hit the link to the Al-Jazeera photo of the young girl whose skull was shattered, allegedly by U.S. bombs, is, at best, to disregard an important source of much popular hatred of our country abroad and, at worst, to be willfully ignorant of things that our government is doing in our name, with our tax dollars. I've already mentioned that people around the world are not being insulated from as many of the realities of this war as we are (to say nothing of all that led up to the war, during which time Americans were lied to with such devastating effect that half of us now believe that Saddam Hussein was directly involved with the Sept. 11 attacks, despite no evidence). How else to explain the worldwide opposition to what we and the British are doing? Can we go on believing that we are somehow superior to the other people with whom we share the planet, that everyone loves America and what we stand for unconditionally, and that, when it comes right down to it, it doesn't matter if they love us or not, because, to quote the Wall Street Journal, international law "essentially has meant whatever powerful countries say it does"? Is that how we like to think of ourselves?

The war planners in Washington act as though they have some kind of patent on the term "Shock and Awe," as though stupefying your opponent by an act of enormous savagery hasn't been part and parcel of the war business since the earliest days of man. I'd just like to point out that those of us who have been opposed to this war for a long time understood that shocking and awful things were going to happen on all sides, to combatants and civilians alike, and determined that there has got to be a better way.

It is starting to become more difficult to actively oppose this war. Just this morning, as I pushed my newspapers across the counter to the normally talkative clerk, who usually always asks me how the essays and the protests are going, I was greeted by an awkward silence. And then a whisper: "It's probably not the best day to be sharing opinions about all this." The front page of the Globe, with its photo of U.S. Marines carrying "a wounded comrade to safety," said the rest. Never mind the fact that antiwar activists have been arguing that by opposing the war, we support the right of the troops not to be put in harm's way by an illegitimate war. Truth is the first casualty - they try to make dissent the second.

But as long as the President's war cabinet is laughing, many of us are going to refuse to be silent.

PK
http://www.dailygrasshopper.com