Although it only assuages the shame of not posting in so long for a brief second, I am choosing to frame the following quote from "Apocalypse Now" as further evidence to my theory that the current Iraq conflict is the first opportunity for Americans to serioiusly revisit the old debate of public discourse during wartime. Ah, that old Vietnam chestnut. Thought we had cracked it in Gulf War I, eh? Or Yugoslavia? So sorry, the clue was....Mogadishu....

Sooo....The Commanding officer told Willard (Sheen) in the "prawn/terminate with extreme prejudice" scene:

"Well, you see Willard... In this war, things get confused
out there, power, ideals, the old morality, and practical
military necessity. Out there with these natives it must be
a temptation to be god. Because there's a conflict in
every human heart between the rational and the irrational,
between good and evil. The good does not always triumph.
Sometimes the dark side overcomes what Lincoln called
the better angels of our nature. Every man has got a
breaking point. You and I have. Walter Kurtz has reached his.
And very obviously, he has gone insane."

As if I needed more proof that that movie pretty much said it all....

So anyway, Rumsfeld uttered the word "digital camera" this week with the same intonation one might utter the term "head lice".

I am most suspicious of his disdain, especially given the timeline of the reports of mistreatment and the arbitrary and willful neglect of the Geneva Convention (I mean come on - - selective interpretation or even temporary disregard with a group of like-minded Pentagon lawyers became something of a sport during the Cold War; blowing your nose with the Convention appears to be the new, more profoundly disturbing game).

But then, as anyone familiar with the tactics and strategy of the Israeli Defense Force knows, reality on the ground is a different universe from the war policy circles and even further from the rarified air of the Geneva negotiations.

But still, isn't this Rumsfeldian approach to international law akin to creating a lack of international norms as a pretext for unmitigated U.S. military intervention? I guess Rumsfeld/the neocons/the Bush War planners are pretty well convinced that the U.S. can monopolize both the use of force and the mass media in any given theater and that quaint "conventions" are nullified by such primacy.

Seems like a pretty risky bet to me, given those pesky angels that we have wrestled for awhile -as well as those pesky digital cameras that we are only just beginning to learn how to REALLY use.

Smile - this image of you will be on the desk of a 60 Minutes producer in a few minutes!

How can I resist the temptation to halting this entry to listen to a passing thunderstorm at my open window? No can do.


PS -
The other quote of the day: "We went to Vietnam thinking that we were better than we actually were and left thinking that we were worse than we actually were."

Off to the window.