It just got hit with all kinds of ordinance. Amazing. Technology is even worse now in it’s ability to neuter reality. I’m watching it live on M’s dad’s home theater system, and I swear it sounds just like scene’s from movies, and you don’t even get the nice hollywood touch of people being injured. Crazy stuff. Interesting though.
Ol’ Rummy pointed out that references to this attack on Baghdad to those of WW2 (I heard somebody mention Dresden) were off base. He went overboard in mentioning the care and humanity of our targeting, but I suppose he can’t suggest that if you’re a war reporter you should at least know something about the details of the history of it…
Also, I thought that they we’re misquoting the munitions used, especially on the first night. The 2000lb bombs that they say were dropped were Paveway LGB’s, and they are not the famed “bunker busters” as they said (they, Paveways’, were known before for their use in ruining air fields by penatrating the runway to some degree before exploding). Thw ‘Bunker Buster’ is a 4000lb special purpose weapon that was initially fashioned from spent 8in artillery tubes. I went about confirming what I already knew just a sec ago… I find it amazing that the people trusted to inform the uninformed are allowed not to know with certainty themselves.
This in a round about way ties into what Mark already knows about the media… Here’s something I came across (cut and paste)…
NBC’s Saturday Night Live (SNL) [recently] opened with a skit making fun
of the stupidity of questions posed by reporters at Pentagon briefings.
The skit featured a parody of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld….
With C-SPAN graphics on screen, the fake reporters posed these
questions:
— A male reporter: ‘We’re getting reports of U.S. special op forces
being dropped into Taliban areas with camouflage and night vision
goggles. This means the Taliban soldiers won’t be able to see our
troops, but we’ll be able to see them. Is that fair?’
— A female reporter: ‘With our military campaign stalled and the
opposition forces seemingly bogged down in a quagmire, isn’t there a
danger the U.S. will look like a weakling and thus lose the support of
the Afghan people?’
Rumsfeld character: ‘Isn’t that the same question you asked last week?’
Reporter: ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Okay, with our military moving so rapidly and
opposition forces easily overrunning Taliban areas, isn’t there a danger
the U.S. will look like a bully and thus lose the support of the Afghan
people?’
— Another male reporter: ‘We’re being told that Northern Alliance
forces are firing back at Taliban troops who have fired on them even
though the Taliban troops missed. Does the U.S. condone that?’
Rumsfeld: ‘Now what kind of question is that?’
Reporter: ‘Thought provoking?’
Rumsfeld: ‘No.’
Reporter: ‘Incisive?’
Rumsfeld: ‘No. Remember what I said about your question the other day?’
Reporter: ‘That it was idiotic?’
Rumsfeld: ‘And?’
Reporter: ‘And that I am an embarrassment both to myself and to my
newspaper?’
Rumsfeld: ‘That’s right.’
“If only the real Rumsfeld was that tough.”