Images of Bush's War Don't Ring True"The fact is, no war goes as planned. All wars have their snafus and fiascoes...But sometimes they are a necessary piece of business, and last week's images prove this one is such. " - David Yepsen
by Trish Nelson
Des Moines Register columnist David Yepsen devoted his Sunday column to the "powerful images" in the media lasf week surrounding the Iraqi election. Gushing with patriotic fervor, Mr. Yepsen bloviates that the week in pictures demonstrates once and for all how the suffering is SO worth it! Finding "solace" in images of hugs and ink-dipped fingers, Mr. Yepsen suggests that those who have lost loved ones in the war can find comfort in these images as well.
I have to agree with David Yepsen on one point. Last week was indeed a week of images. In fact, it's been almost two long years of images, starting with a staged public relations event, the toppling of the Saddam Hussein statue (remember that?) which was orchestrated by a U.S. public relations firm (The Rendon Group) in order to sell the war to the American people. Great pre-fab photo op that was. Utterly inspiring it would have been, had it been real.
And what about that doctored picture of the little girl on the American soldier's lap, looking adoringly up into his face, (found on a website owned by the chair of the Republican party in Hamilton County, Iowa)? In order to conceal the fact that this little girl had just been wounded (her father was also wounded and her mother was killed), the image of her real facial expression was erased and a happier expression superimposed. What the soldier in the picture actually said about this incident was, "If anything good comes from this nonsense, I haven't seen it yet." Everybody happy? Not so much.
And of course, the most ironic photo op of all, the "Mission Accomplished" hoax, designed to make it look like the war was over, supposedly marking the end of major combat operations, but in reality it was the opening ceremonies for the rest of the war.
Maybe Mr. Yepsen lives in fantasyland where happy pictures equal truth, but most people don't have that privilege, certainly the Iraqi people do not. And maybe, just maybe, if people in Mr. Yepsen's position were not so easily taken in by pictures, and instead demanded the facts behind these feel-good images, our nation might have a better chance of getting out of this sad, tragic war.
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