Gerty Might Be Right . . . .
Image by Jason Eppink. Some rights reserved.
Gerty thinks I am naive.
She points out that the title, tone, and message of the NY Times article I quoted below are all inconsistent with my view that Americans don't know that "our troops" are killing civilians.
The authors of the article know that U.S. troops are routinely killing civilians but don't consider it significant. Gerty is also correct that the problem, as the authors see it, is not killing innocents, it is that killing innocents creates political difficulties. (Our allies, at least, still object to killing civilians.)
Civilian Deaths Undermine War on Taliban
By CARLOTTA GALL and DAVID E. SANGER
Scores of civilian deaths over the past months from heavy American and allied reliance on airstrikes to battle Taliban insurgents are threatening popular support for the Afghan government and creating severe strains within the NATO alliance.
Moreover, Gerty says, it's not just the authors of the article. Anyone who reads this article must know that "our troops" are routinely killing civilians.
Hard to say she's wrong.
Comments:
· http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/ I don't buy your assertion that the authors of this article don't believe it's significant that American troops are routinely killing civilians -- unarmed civilians at that.
Look who they're writing for. They have to choose their words and phrases very carefully, and they are working under severe editorial constraints.
Carlotta Gall has been reporting this sort of story for a long time now and it's been getting almost totally ignored.
But finally she's been able to report that the killing of civilians is undermining the war against the Taliban and her article is getting picked up by a number of other papers, talked about on blogs, and so on ...
Unfortunately in post-democratic America you have to package little bits of truth in very clever ways if you want to see them in the mainstream media. And Carlotta Gall is a very brave, very bright woman. Put two and two together with me here, ok? ;-)
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05/16/07 @ 18:35 
