Anyone checked out this book Fiasco by Thomas E. Ricks of the Washington Post? It's currently #1 at Amazon.com (http://www(dot)amazon.com/gp/product/159420103X/104-9890345-4650358?redirect=true)
Just saw him speaking on CNN this morning and was impressed that he actually stated that high-level US military analysts have told him that Israel has deliberately left some Hezbollah rocket-launching installations untouched so that Israeli civilians can continue to be killed, therefore giving the perception of "moral balance" to the conflict (even as Israel continues its rampage and gives a dozen or more Lebanese casualties for each one Israel takes). Though we know here that this kind of thing is to be expected, that's pretty frank listening on mainstream media.
He was also involved in a discussion of propaganda, the PR war, the military use of the media to shape public opinion, and the reports by journalists that they are sometimes deliberate targets of the media on the battlefield. Though he casts blame on the media for failing to investigate the administration's claims of justification for the Iraq invasion, I was unimpressed that he was so soft, calling it more "a lack of information" that he says was inherited from Congress's failure to explore the war justifications fully. He didn't approach the issue of actual media complicity in the crime.
The book apparently indicts the Iraq war with more specificity than in similar works. I'm wondering if anyone here has read it and can comment on whether it's more armchair-after-the-fact criticism of the administration, Congress, and the media for what is obviously a failed policy, or whether he's turning up anything more deep, like that our leaders are psychopathic, self-serving, and bloodthirsty. Based on his comments, I'd guess he may be taking a tiny step forward towards the truth, uncovering the corruption to a slightly deeper degree, but not making any really significant leap toward greater understanding.
Just saw him speaking on CNN this morning and was impressed that he actually stated that high-level US military analysts have told him that Israel has deliberately left some Hezbollah rocket-launching installations untouched so that Israeli civilians can continue to be killed, therefore giving the perception of "moral balance" to the conflict (even as Israel continues its rampage and gives a dozen or more Lebanese casualties for each one Israel takes). Though we know here that this kind of thing is to be expected, that's pretty frank listening on mainstream media.
He was also involved in a discussion of propaganda, the PR war, the military use of the media to shape public opinion, and the reports by journalists that they are sometimes deliberate targets of the media on the battlefield. Though he casts blame on the media for failing to investigate the administration's claims of justification for the Iraq invasion, I was unimpressed that he was so soft, calling it more "a lack of information" that he says was inherited from Congress's failure to explore the war justifications fully. He didn't approach the issue of actual media complicity in the crime.
The book apparently indicts the Iraq war with more specificity than in similar works. I'm wondering if anyone here has read it and can comment on whether it's more armchair-after-the-fact criticism of the administration, Congress, and the media for what is obviously a failed policy, or whether he's turning up anything more deep, like that our leaders are psychopathic, self-serving, and bloodthirsty. Based on his comments, I'd guess he may be taking a tiny step forward towards the truth, uncovering the corruption to a slightly deeper degree, but not making any really significant leap toward greater understanding.