NPR is working overtime this week promoting the appeal of idealistic, mythic warrior culture while ignoring the hard news that they should be investigating. They are offering a "leadership" series that began on Monday with an interesting piece by Joseph Galloway who begins his piece by noting that he "loves soldiers." At least his piece brought out the callous and incompetent leadership at the top of the chain of command, but it still keeps up the image of the nearly holy status of the US soldier. The next two pieces have Steve Inskeep interviewing two US Marine officers on June 20,2006 about training/leading US Marines in Iraq and then again on June 21, 2006 about training/leading Iraqis. One of the most stunning aspects of these interviews is that one of the Marines led troops during the US assaults on Najaf in the summer of 2004 and the other led troops in the US assault on Fallujah in November 2004. Any serious news story on Fallujah would have to at least bring up the serious allegations that the assault/destruction of Fallujah was a war crime (see the scholar/author/reporter Helena Cobban's piece on her blog or just Google "Fallujah war crime". The people at NPR who are bringing us this pro-military schlock would do well to read Chris Hedges' book War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning and really wrestle with the issues of how war perverts human behavior on all sides of armed conflicts. Or they could just keep acting as an nPR outlet for the Pentagon.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
It Gives Us Meaning
NPR is working overtime this week promoting the appeal of idealistic, mythic warrior culture while ignoring the hard news that they should be investigating. They are offering a "leadership" series that began on Monday with an interesting piece by Joseph Galloway who begins his piece by noting that he "loves soldiers." At least his piece brought out the callous and incompetent leadership at the top of the chain of command, but it still keeps up the image of the nearly holy status of the US soldier. The next two pieces have Steve Inskeep interviewing two US Marine officers on June 20,2006 about training/leading US Marines in Iraq and then again on June 21, 2006 about training/leading Iraqis. One of the most stunning aspects of these interviews is that one of the Marines led troops during the US assaults on Najaf in the summer of 2004 and the other led troops in the US assault on Fallujah in November 2004. Any serious news story on Fallujah would have to at least bring up the serious allegations that the assault/destruction of Fallujah was a war crime (see the scholar/author/reporter Helena Cobban's piece on her blog or just Google "Fallujah war crime". The people at NPR who are bringing us this pro-military schlock would do well to read Chris Hedges' book War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning and really wrestle with the issues of how war perverts human behavior on all sides of armed conflicts. Or they could just keep acting as an nPR outlet for the Pentagon.
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