On Friday evening, Nightline devoted its whole show to showing photos of the dead troops with Ted Koppel reading off their names, one by one. This has caused an uproar as you can read about at this link: Uproar over `Nightline’ war casualties list grows
Personally, I was moved to tears as I watched the show. All these [mostly younger] people, with much of their lives still before them, dead and gone, sigh. Children left without a parent, husbands without a wife, wives without a husband, families broken up. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be a parent, to raise someone from birth, to watch them grow-up and then have them die for what I consider to be a pack of lies. As a country, what did we lose from the loss of these people? Was one of these people destined to be a future Einstein? A future President? Someone who would change the world we live in for the better? It left me feeling very, very sad.
And of course, this show only featured the AMERICAN losses. There are many, many others who have lost their lives both on our side and on the Iraqi side. Plus all the casualties - Soldiers and civilians, children and adults, who have lost arms, legs, hands, eyes, become disfigured, etc. What the hell is wrong with us?Where is Klaatu and Gort when we need them?
So, the question for debate is - do you think Nightline was right or wrong to do this broadcast? Why?
I think the fact that there is even an uproar about this speaks volumes. There seems to be a real attempt on the part of (some of) the war’s supporters to keep Americans from registering the fact that their young men and women are dying over there.
What? You must be kidding! Do you think the American public dolts? Only men who wring hands and whine and hide while men of hate plan agression are dolts.
No one I know wants war. Everyone I know wants to be protected from the atrocities of evil men.
Apparently the wisdom of this idea went over-the-head of many who post here, so this time I post it in red…
**A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. -
John Stuart Mill **
Did John Stuart Mill say anything about people who are willing to become the pawns of politicians who would throw away their lives for … oh, Halliburton profits, say, or simply the joy of going over there and finishing what the old man didn’t?
And lying about it?
And refusing to admit that any mistakes whatsoever were made by the administration in question?
There is no way in hell Bush did not know that Saddam couldn’t be any plausible threat to America.
And if we’re in the “stomp the dictator” business, why haven’t we carpetbombed the entire Middle East and South Korea, yet?
i was in tears, too, trying to imagine each of their family stories as the names kept gushing out. All ethnicities, both sexes, some teenagers and some in their fifties, and all for what? What should we be angry about, if not that waste? Here’s something to be angry about: the superciliousness, or is it callousness, of those who have never had to face the ultimate sacrifice, never thought of risking their own hides, feeling justified in having better men than they “pay the cost”.
But the OP asks about politics. I don’t see any problem at all with making sure that decisions about war, either by the pols or by the people, are more seriously thought through than is customary. If it helps anyone to see that the cost is in real lives, not abstract numbers, what could be wrong with that?
The only criticism of ABC and Koppel for playing politics that I could see is that they limited the list to victims of Bush’s Iraq war, not the unquestioned one in Afghanistan. If the intent is to honor their sacrifices and their memories, the Afghanistan dead deserve no less. But that military action’s cause is unquestioned, even on this board, with the only criticism that it doesn’t go far enough to root out Al Qaeda. To limit their “commentary” to Iraq only must have reflected the opposition and doubts about it - but while that’s a political statement of a kind, it isn’t a partisan one.
I also agree with the OP sentiment that it is distorted to show only the 737 American dead, not even any of the British or other COW dead, and certainly none of the multiple thousands of Iraqi and Afghan dead. Each of those is a wasted life and a destroyed family as well. To support the fiction that only our own dead are somehow real, and that anyone else’s are just numbers, perpetuates the problem that Koppel said he was trying to clear away.
Grand words, and I agree with all of them - but what’s the relevance to Iraq?
What is the great threat we’ve averted? (I can clearly see the ones *caused * by this war)
What are the high ideals upheld? (Don’t give me pious guff about “bringing democracy and freedom to the oppressed” - the total lack of plans for a post-war Iraq alone puts that to rest)
I’m no pacifist, but remind me, what did we start this war for?
(It had better be a damn good reason too; I’ve just been watching pictures of a 4 year old kid screaming in a hospital - an arm and a leg blown off by your would-be “better men.” The red was for real in this case)
Well, yes, of course. Would you care to enlighten us as to precisely what “atrocities” you think Saddam was about to deliver unto us? And with what instruments? His “military machine” was a joke. He had no intercontinental missiles. No aircraft worthy of the name. No nukes. No navy. According to The Rummy, he fired over 700 missiles at our aircraft, and never hit one. Not one, mind you! By what means do you imagine Saddam was going to project his evil machinations? Voodoo? Hate mail? A blistering speech in the UN? A sharply worded letter to the Times?
Of course we need to be protected from the “atrocities of evil men”. What we don’t need is to sacrifice our children to protect us from the fantasies of evil men.
Let us remember Koppels job is to get ratings…period. Should he or shouldn’t he is a question for his editors. My main problem with the telecast is he claims to be honoring these soldiers…nonsense!!! Honoring by listing…give me a break. Just be honest Ted…ratings are plummeting…sweeps are upon us…gotta do something. I know…let’s make a buck from the blood of fallen soldiers. Koppel and ABC should be ashamed all the way to the bank.
I’d also like to see a proposal for a method of honoring the dead that the pro-war folks wouldn’t object to. That little teary eyed prayerful sacrifice momoment-O-reflection gambit that the president pops up with whenever he’s asked about anonymous corpses is looking pretty cardboardy.
I think this war was the right thing to do. Still, it is obvious that this President has proven himself to be incapable of getting public opinion behind his efforts.
This was may or not be moral and correct, but the fact is we are a democracy and these issues have not really been debated.
I feel that victory is (or was) possible, and that the cost of victory has always been blood. The prize is worth it in my opinion. I am not afraid of debating this. It does seem that Mr. Bush is opposed to an open airing of the issues, and a clear accounting of the cost.
Has there really been an “uproar?” I’ve seen some people say it was as much or more a political statement as a tribute, but other than David Smith at Sinclair I haven’t seen an uproar – the Times re-ran a Reuters story saying that there was “outrage” but their only cite was Smith.
To be clear, I’m not asserting that there wasn’t – just that I haven’t seen it and if it’s there I’d like to be educated otherwise.
Why? They’re different wars you know. Afghanistan was two years ago. Should Koppel have also included Kosovo, Sudan and Gulf war 1? How far back does the respect have to go for you to declare it non-political?