While I was in college during the Viet Nam war, I took a class called the culture and history of Viet Nam. The instructor said something that has stuck in my mind ever since. She said that technology has allowed America to act further than it's eyes could see. She was speaking of bombs and missiles that were fired from such a distance or altitude that the person firing the ordinance could not see where the munition was exploding. A soldier firing a cruise missile from 300 miles away or a bombardier dropping a bomb from 10,000 feet could not possibly be aware of what the situation on the ground would be.When a soldier operating a drone from Las Vegas or Tampa drops a bomb on a suspect entering a building, could he really know who was in the building? Could there be innocent women and children in there? Could the drone operator be 100% sure that this was the right person entering the building? Would the operator ever see first hand the results of the explosion?During the horror of the attack of Iraq, we were shown on television the bright flashes and loud explosion of weapons, but never a close up look at their devastation. Our leaders have been very clever at keeping our eyes from seeing the massive destruction of this war. We see no flag draped coffins. We see no body counts of the innocent. We see no desperation of the 5 million refugees who have been uprooted from their homes. We see no young daughters who have turned to prostitution to support their families. We see no lakes of raw sewage, no lack of electricity, no starvation, no homelessness, no overcrowded hospitals, no brutality. In this way, the people of America are making decisions without seeing what these decisions are causing first hand. We hear about precision weapons and collateral damage, but never really see them first hand. Thus, we make decisions from information that is further away than our eyes can see.
The media, whose role in a democracy is to inform the citizenry, have failed dismally at their task. Journalists have become nothing but purveyors of corporate talking points. They would rather make flag lapel pins a major issue than shinning light on the desperation in Iraq. The President approves of torture and is it on the front page? No, you have to search the internet to find out the story. But the President claiming that the "surge" is working is on every journalists lips.
Very few Americans are able to make decisions based on what they see because so much has been hidden from their eyes. It is the responsibility of the media to let our eyes see the destruction that our technology can cause from so far away. Hopefully, if Americans could see this horror first hand, if they could see the mangled child's body, they might react differently to an action that takes place so far away.
