Hate for Hate: Joystick Justice By Gene Marx

This article, which cites WikiLeaks to claim that the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq caused more than 285,000 civilian casualties and which contains other disturbing figures on such deaths in Afghanistan and elsewhere, was published May 4 but was only recently brought to my attention by an alert member of this forum.

May 4, 2011

http://www.vfp111.org/topics.htm

Hate for Hate: Joystick Justice

By Gene Marx

Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.

Dr. Martin Luther King

Last May Day weekend, with the 24/7 news cycle still squeezing the life out of the first royal kiss and “NATO’s” targeted assassination attempt of Muammar Gaddafi, killing his youngest son Saif Al-Arab and three young grandchildren, a mainstream media feeding frenzy was provoked, like none we've seen since Balloon Boy. The President would soon announce - within minutes, it was leaked - to a grateful, fearful, xenophobic nation that Osama Bin Laden had been taken out, double-whacked, by an elite team of American assassins in Pakistan.

As a jubilant mob of flag wavers on Pennsylvania Avenue were gathering within earshot, a somber Obama took the mike and delivered the goods, short on details, long on rhetoric.

“No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties.”

AP reports disputed casualty counts at Bin Laden’s compound from the start, but let’s give Obama the benefit of the doubt. Let’s say a Special Forces sniper or two surgically removed the devil incarnate from North Waziristan with a head shot, a pink mist burst clearly visible, without additional “bug splat,” another one of the Pentagon’s more compassionate references for civilian casualties, as if pink mist wasn’t dehumanizing enough. Real Xbox Call of Duty: Black Ops stuff. A military recruiter’s wet dream.

And when did Obama start worrying about civilian casualties or collateral damage estimates anyway? His Hellfire missiles have been raining down on al Qaeda operative suspects since the first Afghan or Pakistani wedding parties were taken out within weeks of his Inauguration.

"And yet we know that the worst images are those that were unseen to the world. The empty seat at the dinner table.”