War toll a 'horrific cost' (RMN, neurosurgeon speaks out)

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

Physician, Iraqi offer views of a conquered country

By Bill Scanlon, Rocky Mountain News
December 1, 2004

Soldiers missing limbs. Young men with massive brain injuries and severed spinal cords.

Neurosurgeon Dr. Gene Bolles saw the "horrific cost" of war as he tried to patch up American soldiers injured in Iraq.
When he came back to the United States in February, he switched on the news and found that Americans were obsessed with a huge breaking story: Janet Jackson's exposed breast.


snip>

Joining Bolles was Ibrahim Kazerooni, imam of the Islamic Center of Ahl Al-Beit in Denver. He fled his native Iraq at 15 after being repeatedly imprisoned and tortured by Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime for his opposition to the government.

Kazerooni has had frequent contact with friends and relatives in Iraq. He says with each new foray, the United States is losing the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.
snip>

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_3365681,00.html

MKJ

[UpInArms]

1. as with almost 290 million people, the good doctor

doesn't understand what happened to the Fairness Doctrine - so there you have all those dumbed-down people fixated on Janet's breast.

When he came back to the United States in February, he switched on the news and found that Americans were obsessed with a huge breaking story: Janet Jackson's exposed breast.

"I saw things that made me sick to my stomach - kids with one arm and two legs missing," said Bolles, 68, a former flight surgeon in Vietnam. "I came back and all I heard about was Janet Jackson. I said to myself, 'Is this all the American public is interested in?' "

It's like all those television stations in Venezuela running "I Love Lucy" reruns without commercial interruption while the USoA attempted the 2002 coup against Chavez.

If you want to know the news, turn off that freakin' tube.

[Judi Lynn]

2. At what point should we have started suspecting we were being duped?

Somewhere in time we actually started being handed the "absolutely NOT news," and learned our actual expected information is going to be blocked.

Do we have a dependable alternative? Can we hope that the _Bush administration won't be able to sabotage our internet access to news from outside the country?

We have only recently learned that the gummint started actively shooting bogus news stories into mainstream media during Reagan's time, via Otto Reich, hard at work ("It's hard work") in the Office of Public Diplomacy, as he created completely false stories and planted them all over the world, along with bogus letters to the editors, creating a deep, complex lie to befuddle Americans.

So glad the doctor has spoken out on this. Hope he reaches a lot of ears before they destroy his reputation. If they don't try, it will be the first time.

[UpInArms]

3. I think I was slow on the uptick

about noticing the lack of real news.

I remember getting my daily paper and wondering why there seemed to be such a dearth of information in the early 90s.

By the late 90s and with all of the blathering about the "blue dress" I was freakin' furious. I was calling the networks and bitching because it really was not "news" - there were just "allegations" and "smears". No response. I was writing and calling my elected representatives and getting very little reality in return. I then just got pissed.

Now I am beyond that - some nebulous area of disgust and dismay. Anger at my fellow citizens for being so freaking stupid and brainwashed. The lack of critical thinking skills is so huge, I don't even know where to begin.

[Judi Lynn]

5. If this happened to some imaginary "enemy" society, it would be funny.

Too bad we're all in this together!

Rightwingnuts still bitch and crab that there is ANY negative info. trickling through about their grub leaders. It's not NEARLY the way they want it, yet.

Hearing the Washington Post is going all out for shorter, less informative stories really ties it all together nicely. It seems to be a trend.

The Cuban "exile" publisher of the Miami Herald, Alberto Ibarguen said, when he was hired, that he wanted fewer stories being so long that they had to be "jumped" to a page deeper in the paper. That was years ago. He must be so proud that his front page stories almost begin and end on the front page!


Mr. Journalism's on the left

Looks as if he's started a trend.

[bemildred]

7. To those of us who lived through VietNam it is no surprise.

They lied like troopers then, just like now. They view us a pawns
to be manipulated for their benefit. Anyone who trusts the government
to tell the truth about anything is a fool.

[flygal]

6. I live overseas and flew to the US a few days after the Janet Jackson

thing, you could have knocked me over with a feather. I couldn't believe it was such a big deal. My friends back in Germany were just shaking their heads about it.

I'm so glad over here I get all of my news from the internet. I remember calling my mom before the election and asking her what the top news story was - I knew it would be the THK remark about Laura Bush and sure enough. She said it was the big headline on all the cable news shows. sick.

[rodeodance]

4. thanks for this story---I will email to all i know

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

10. You're welcome, amazingly even though the RMN is generally RW

Every once in a while a great story like this sneaks in.(even though they had to have "opposing view points" at the end). MKJ

[indepat]

8. I wonder if only soldiers have missing limbs, massive brain damage,

severed spinal cords. I wonder if even 10% of we the people ever ponder such as this. But I sometimes get cynical and fail to keep things in perspective, fail to see the bigger picture, fail to realize all this carnage is but a small sacrifice necessary for our greater good.

[Barrett808]

9. "The Iraqis sure don't like being occupied, but they love being free"

This perfectly expresses the Bush regime's delusional, tautological, fairy-land logic:

Not everyone shares the views of Physicians for Social Responsibility. Paul Dooley, senior U.S. adviser for Iraq's Ministry of Health after the invasion, is a strong supporter of the U.S. presence in Iraq.

He told reporters last month: "The Iraqis sure don't like being occupied, but they love being free."

Dooley also talked about how much America has improved health care in Iraq. The Iraqi Ministry of Health is spending $38 per person on health care this year, compared to less than a dollar per person in 2002, before the invasion, Dooley said.

[SharonAnn]

11. Sounds like those are Halliburton prices. Doesn't mean they're

getting more health care. Just means they're spending more money.

And, with all the bombings and shootings of civilians there, they probably need more health care.

(Tongue being removed from cheek now)

[Maraya1969]

12. Isn't this an oxymoron?

3/4 down the page it says:



Not everyone shares the views of Physicians for Social Responsibility. Paul Dooley, senior U.S. adviser for Iraq's Ministry of Health after the invasion, is a strong supporter of the U.S. presence in Iraq.

He told reporters last month: "The Iraqis sure don't like being occupied, but they love being free."


Is it just me?



:shrug:

[struggle4progress]

13. kick

:kick: