Fighting the War on Error

"You measure a democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists."
- Political & Social Activist Abbie Hoffman (1936-1989)

Monday, May 26, 2008

Olbermann on war crimes by W's cabal


This one's a little old, but it still merits a mention. Just under a few weeks ago, Keith Olbermann unleashed a tirade against the Bush administration for its conduct in Iraq. After thinking about it, Olbermann clarified his remarks backed up his proverbial bus, and ran over Bush and his war-making cabal again, calling some of them (including Bush, and presumably, Dick Cheney) "cold blooded killers." I won't apologize for agreeing with him.

Bush and many in his cabinet (but not all, as Olbermann rightfully points out) almost certainly deserve to be tried for war crimes. It's a pretty sticky issue that many would take offense to - so be it. But, any American who can possibly even try to evaluate and analyze the War in Iraq objectively would almost certainly come to the conclusion that if Bush were the leader of another country, invading a neighbor, the U.S. would most likely be up in arms, beating the drums of righteous indignation, calling for a war crimes trial. Oh wait, haven't we already done that? Slobodan Milošević and Saddam Hussein are two recent examples that come to mind, specifically Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, an invasion we went to war over. Desert Storm was a farce in many (but not all) ways. We certainly weren't liberating a democracy, that's for sure. But, I digress.

Anyway, it's important to note that neither Olbermann nor probably the overwhelming majority of liberals (including me) lump our troops under the statement or thoughts behind his label "cold blooded killers." Olbermann in the footage above rightly classifies them as the heroes they truly are, and on this Memorial Day, it's worth mentioning again that we can and must give them the resources they will need, for the rest of their lives, to confront, combat and conquer the physical and emotional obstacles that await them once they return home from battle.

This administration and those who support it make great sport of constantly repeating, over and over, the slogan of this war by many on the home front: Support the Troops. Well, Supporting the Troops is going to take a lot more than putting a ribbon on your car in the coming years. Yet, thus far, this administration has done little more than just that for returning troops, and for many troops in the field, some of whom have had to go without adequate body armor, etc.

At the end of his Special Comment, Olbermann takes one final swipe at two of his critics by saying, "Laura Ingraham and Mark Levin, why do you hate our troops?" I don't know what he's specifically referring to there, but that's bound to stoke the flames of partisan bickering in the weeks and months to come, which will surprise no one. But, in the end, Olbermann is spot on for calling out this administration for its massive, criminal negligence in not giving our troops what they need.

Olbermann truly is a voice in the wilderness - an island of reality in a sea of diarrhea that passes for what many call our "free press," which should be called what it really is - our corporate media. Frankly, it's a miracle that NBC lets him air his show at all. Make no mistake - it's only because there's money to be made, not because of his political views.

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