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Friday, September 12, 2003
01:36 - Politics from the Land of Make-Believe, with flowers and bells and leprechauns and magic frogs with funny little hats

(top) link
Still getting caught back up on all those newsgroup discussions. And lo and behold, on 8/6 there was an "anniversary" piece for the Hiroshima bombing. Centered around and juxtaposed with Bush's statement after we mistakenly bombed that wedding in Afghanistan.

"Fat Man and Little Boy Say: Civilian Casualties Are Unavoidable!", copperplated brashly in the circular border surrounding an iconic, eroticized "riding the bomb" image we all know from Dr. Strangelove.

Followups included deep sentiments like "Bush must be getting better at sticking feet in his mouth."

God, I'm getting tired of this crap.

Civilian casualties are unavoidable. Yeah, so? They bleeding well are.

Especially when the civilians in question are in the immediate vicinity of al Qaeda strongholds, and firing machine guns into the air when there are spotter planes about.

But no, it's all of a piece with Hiroshima. Which was itself just another piece of unwarranted American brutality, to be mocked and satirized and vilified fifty years on.

I honestly don't know what to make of these guys anymore. They seem to have just enough historical awareness to enable them to make accurate reference to dates and events and quotes artfully out of context, but they're totally lacking in the moral weights and balances that underly these decisions ensconced in their circumstances. I can't dismiss it all as simply people regurgitating sound bites they think are cute and visuals they think make for good irony; but nor can I believe that they have all the information necessary and yet have arrived at these dumbfounding ethical conclusions about America's role in the world and conduct during war.

Without knowing which case it is, I can't know whether these people simply want more tactical perfection and more moral consistency in US actions, or if they simply want the US to go away and take its poisonous history and culture with it.

On that note, I seriously need some sleep.


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© Brian Tiemann