Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Fox's Brit Hume Minimizes U.S. Iraq Casualties to Deflect Flack Directed at Bush
Major mainstream media figure Brit Hume, Fox News Channel anchor, has stated that the deaths of 2000 American soldiers in Iraq was not really a big deal. Such a statement is an outrageous affront to our troops and a belittling of their sacrifices.
On the October 13 broadcast of Special Report, the show he regularly hosts, Hume said of U.S deaths in Iraq, "by historic standards, these casualties are negligible."
What history is he talking about? Of course, U.S. deaths were substantially higher in World War I and II, Korea and Vietnam--major wars fought either against major world powers or against well-armed states backed by superpowers. But when compared to other conflicts in its category--wars and counterinsurgency operations against comparatively weak, isolated nations and guerrilla movements--the death toll in Iraq is strikingly high.
Fox failed to mention that in the first four years of the Vietnam War (1961-1965) roughly 2250 US servicemen died in Vietnam. And, the Iraq War has only been going on for two and a half years-- and will almost certainly surpass the four year toll in Vietnam in another couple of months. So, even in comparison with a major war, and the most traumatic in American memory, the casualties in Bush's war are hardly negligible. And some US military leaders in Iraq are talking in terms of a ten year war.
If Vietnam War protests started in earnest much sooner, that war might have been halted early on and we wouldn't have that big black wall in Washington. But, of course the corporate war profiteers would be much less richer. It is something worth considering in respects to the Iraq War.
*************************************************************************
Major mainstream media figure Brit Hume, Fox News Channel anchor, has stated that the deaths of 2000 American soldiers in Iraq was not really a big deal. Such a statement is an outrageous affront to our troops and a belittling of their sacrifices.
On the October 13 broadcast of Special Report, the show he regularly hosts, Hume said of U.S deaths in Iraq, "by historic standards, these casualties are negligible."
What history is he talking about? Of course, U.S. deaths were substantially higher in World War I and II, Korea and Vietnam--major wars fought either against major world powers or against well-armed states backed by superpowers. But when compared to other conflicts in its category--wars and counterinsurgency operations against comparatively weak, isolated nations and guerrilla movements--the death toll in Iraq is strikingly high.
Fox failed to mention that in the first four years of the Vietnam War (1961-1965) roughly 2250 US servicemen died in Vietnam. And, the Iraq War has only been going on for two and a half years-- and will almost certainly surpass the four year toll in Vietnam in another couple of months. So, even in comparison with a major war, and the most traumatic in American memory, the casualties in Bush's war are hardly negligible. And some US military leaders in Iraq are talking in terms of a ten year war.
If Vietnam War protests started in earnest much sooner, that war might have been halted early on and we wouldn't have that big black wall in Washington. But, of course the corporate war profiteers would be much less richer. It is something worth considering in respects to the Iraq War.
*************************************************************************
Comments:
Post a Comment
