The Bark that didn’t Dog

All the echoes in the news media echo chamber regarding Dick Cheney and his CIA adventures seem to be telling us a few things. For one, nobody is really upset that the CIA would actually murder people but rather that it was kept from Congress. Secondly, it seems obvious that as Leon Panetta named Dick Cheney as the prime villain that Cheney is slated to take the fall for Junior George. For further proof of this none of the news articles I have read have mentioned Junior George or if mentioned, only in passing. And thirdly, what possible difference does it make that we are killing people, mostly civilians, with drones or by sending the froggy boys in?

But perhaps even more importantly is that by calling for investigations the Democrats in Congress can put on their pompous show of indignant posturing and preening thus reassuring the public that yes indeed we have a democracy that works even if it is a hollowed out husk long emptied of any substance other than being purveyors of violence. Like everything else in our militarized and commercialized culture the symbolism is what’s important.

Every day and likely even as I write this the U.S. military along with its “friends” are killing innocent people in Afghanistan and Pakistan. War planes roar and swoop overhead dropping a rain of death that will not nor cannot distinguish between the Taliban or al Qaida and small children who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And keep in mind even if the “right” targets are hit there is still much doubt as to whether or not they were guilty of anything. In other words we are murdering people that have been merely alleged to belong to the Taliban or al Qaida much of it based on dubious evidence such as that given for monetary reward. So where is the pompous preening regarding these deaths? Where is the cry for justice? If reports from Pakistan are correct 50 civilians are killed for every supposed al-Qaida member blown to smithereens by a U.S. drone. Shouldn’t that be blasted out by the news media? Instead of focusing on the high civilian death rates the news prints stories about how the U.S. will now show more respect for Afghans by reducing the number of their deaths usually treated in a humorous tongue-in-cheek manner as if it is all just ever so cute.

I suspect that this outrage against Cheney will soon pass with little note. Forgotten and replaced with whatever piece of propaganda the government and the news media devises that can maintain the façade of a responsive democratic government.