IF IT'S NOT ONE THING, IT'S ANOTHER
By Cori Dauber
Discussing Fallujah during the CNN show "On the Story," the gals can't discuss high civilian casualties, so now the new theme seems to be -- physical destruction of the city.
Says Barbara Starr, if you've been listening to the reports, you've been hearing about "massive destruction, a surreal scene [where the] civilians are largely gone. They're having to blow up everything, because if they don't, it's been booby trapped, and they take casualties." (In other words, the physical destruction is the fault of the enemy but, hey.)
Of course, what she doesn't bother to mention is that there is 100 million dollars set aside so that reconstruction efforts can begin virtually the instant the city has been declared secure, to guarantee the residents will have a city to return to as quickly as possible (and, to be honest, so that there's no opportunity for what was neccessary to beome a focal point of resentment.)
For those of you with a military background, you might also be entertained to know that in response to the question, "how much sleep do they get?" Ms. Starr says: it's "doubtful that they're getting sleep, they're getting hot meals, they're getting showers -- and it's been going on for a week!"
Everyone talks about honoring the sacrifices of the troops, but it's still the case that at a fairly fundamental level, most civilians have only the vaguest notion of what that means, beyond a kind of abstract sense that the work is dangerous and takes service members away from their families. (I know guys who went more than a month without a shower in Desert Storm, and I suspect it was about the same for Iraqi Freedom.) |
