The Bush administration has been expert at framing American deaths and injuries in Iraq as a strict numbers game. Thankfully, Cindy Sheehan and Rep. John Murtha have successfully personalized our losses, and therefore have presented impressive challenges to institutional deceit.
Now, with ABC’s Bob Woodruff seriously injured by a bomb, Americans have another reason to pause.
Christiane Amanpour on CNN’s Larry King Live last night:
We have to have an independent eye on these conflicts. The war in Iraq has basically turned out to be a disaster and journalists have paid for it, paid for the privilege of witnessing and reporting that and so have many, many other people who have been there.
And I think that’s terribly, terribly difficult for us and unfortunately for some reason, which I can’t fathom, the kind of awful thing that’s going on there now on a daily basis has almost become humdrum. So, when something happens to people that we identify, like Bob and like Doug, we wake up again and realize that, no, this is not acceptable what’s going on there and it’s a terrible situation.