I can't say how much I respect Bill Moyer's and his Bill Moyer's Journal on PBS.
This week's episode is just another example of his integrity and critical examination of the issues. The guest was Leila Fadel, who's the Baghdad bureau chief for the McClatchy Newspapers (formerly Knight-Ridder).
You should go to the website (http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/index-flash.html) to see a full transcript or the video of the interview. Fadel focused on the human beings (both the U.S. forces and Iraqis) who are over there, and its frustrating and heartbreaking to see how many lives are being ruined because our leaders (and theirs) have to make a point, preserve their honor, or some such other rubbish justifying slaughter.
A telling anecdote is one Fadel related about her embedded experience with a U.S. squad that was squatting in an abandoned house in Sadr City. The owner showed up and wanted to move back in but the soldiers wouldn't let him. They wouldn't even allow him to come in to gather some things for his daughter; the translator gathered them and slipped them through the door. When Fadel asked a soldier what he would do if a foreign army occupied his house, the soldier said he would tear down half of it to get back in or take up arms against the occupier. When she followed up by asking him how this was different from what the Iraqis were doing, he replied, "But we're trying to help them." (I paraphrase here but the idea is the same -- we're the good guys and only criminals would even contemplate opposing us.)
It's frightening to see such a disconnect with reality and a lack of empathy.
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