Anybody See A War Around Here?

You might have missed it, if you weren't looking. Another couple of servicemen were killed in Iraq this weekend.

Did you read that? See it on the news?

That's in addition to the 24 dead and 58 wounded after four car bombings in Baghdad and Tikrit. In general, the level of violence in Iraq seems to be back on the increase. And in other news, George W. Bush just got Congress to pony up another $80 billion (borrowed money, of course) to finance the war and occupation. Remember when he promised this occupation would fund itself? Oh, never mind. And so, the numbers just keep climbing: 1,571 killed and 11,888 wounded, and financial costs of approximately $300 billion. (I'm expecting the Congress to rubberstamp this request, just like it always does.)

Hey, did you hear? We're Still At War! In fact, we're kinda losing it!

Was this news on the front page of any newspaper? Did it lead any newscasts? It wasn't even easy to find on the Internet.

Did you catch those great "elections" in Iraq back in January? It's been three months since then. Let me ask you a few questions about those great elections. Who ran for office? Who won? Who were you rooting for? Do you even know? Do you even care?

And now, three months after these great elections, this Glorious Victory for Democracy, where's the government? The fact is, they still haven't formed a government -- three months after elections!

(If you're still keeping score at home, 127 American service members have been killed and 1,118 wounded while we've been waiting for the Iraqis to form a government.)

Who's driving this clown car? Oh, wait: I already know.

We're now two years into the Second Bush War. It's been two years since "Mission Accomplished," and we're still bleeding over Iraq, literally as well as figuratively, blood and red ink in alarming volumes, and I'm still sitting here wondering just what the fuck was the reason to get us into this mess again?

And while I'm wondering that, it seems like the Iraq War has disappeared from the national news. Why do you suppose that is?

Have we just become numb to the steady drip-drip-drip of American and Iraqi deaths? Or has the news been squelched by the media, reduced to the minimum volume necessary so that they can still say with a straight face, "we covered it -- now move along"?

Well, on the one hand, broadcasting quagmire and failure is bad politics: it reflects badly on the liar and fool who got us into this mess, who is well-known to be nasty and vindictive to those who are seen to disagree with him or his party. We have abundant evidence that the mainstream media are either on the Republicans' side already (e.g. Fox News) or have been effectively bullied into meek submission to the Republican agenda (e.g. CNN). On the other hand, quagmire and failure is a real bummer: it just doesn't sell advertising, a lot of which is incidentally bought by Republican companies.

And so, it makes all kinds of sense that we have a steady turn-down of the news from Iraq. Slowly it is scrubbed from the news, and the air minutes and the column inches are fed a different diet. Instead of hearing about anything which actually has any bearing on our lives, the newscasts are led by Scott Peterson, then Robert Blake, then Michael Jackson, then Terri Schiavo, then John Paul II, then Charles and Camilla, then Michael Jackson again, then Cardinal Ratzinger Pope Benedict XVI ... Who's next? Who cares, as long as the public is sufficiently distracted?

And on and on and on it goes, while somewhere, in a far-off land, another American lies bleeding to death in the street. While you're watching Fox News tonight, his body will be secretly conveyed under cover of darkness back to the United States, safely shielded from any media attention, and he will be quietly buried and forgotten. His government, so eager to get into this war and now with no fucking clue how to win it or otherwise disengage, is keen to just forget the whole thing, and hopes that you will want to just forget it as well.

I guess it's just the Patriotic Thing to Do.