Monday afternoon finds Anne Garrels swimming in Blackwater. Of this nascent praetorian guard all Garrels can say is "…they have a reputation for being really tough. When they’re on the streets people back off" (she forgot to mention or get shot). I love the matter of fact way she describes the supposed government of Iraq's authority over the US legion of blackshirts; "It’s not clear that the Iraqi government has any authority over Blackwater or that Blackwater has had to have a license…” I guess embed Garrels is the "liberal" perspective on Blackwater because to analyze the situation NPR does a hard right over to Mark Hemingway of National Review Online. As you can guess, not a peep about the Christian militarist leanings and history of Blackwater. Is is NPR or National Review? Hard to tell...
Friday, September 21, 2007
Blackwater, Blackshirts
Monday afternoon finds Anne Garrels swimming in Blackwater. Of this nascent praetorian guard all Garrels can say is "…they have a reputation for being really tough. When they’re on the streets people back off" (she forgot to mention or get shot). I love the matter of fact way she describes the supposed government of Iraq's authority over the US legion of blackshirts; "It’s not clear that the Iraqi government has any authority over Blackwater or that Blackwater has had to have a license…” I guess embed Garrels is the "liberal" perspective on Blackwater because to analyze the situation NPR does a hard right over to Mark Hemingway of National Review Online. As you can guess, not a peep about the Christian militarist leanings and history of Blackwater. Is is NPR or National Review? Hard to tell...
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2 comments:
I was sick of Anne Garrels long ago. I don't care what percentage of her reportage is valid. That affected 'tough' voice delivery betrays a person who's having the time of her life, diggin' every downbeat story like it's better than sex. She's like those journos that Robert Young Pelton talks about in 'The World's Most Dangerous Places', that's all #%*@ed up from trying to be heroic and humanitarian at the same time. Pulitzer-diggers, I'd call them.
You can tell she digs the Blackwater trip, too. I'm sure many of the embedded ones have huge crushes on those psycho Christian soldiers.
But they're OUR privatized soldier-of-fortune thugs. And that makes it okay.
(gag)
PS: I'm waiting for the first Iraqi punk band to emerge. With their breakthrough tune "BBQ in Fallujah." What greater marker of "democracy" than a punk band?
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