You're kidding, right? - by Jon

Read the story here. Executive summary: The U.S. military was caught using the same quotation in two different incidents that occurred 11 days apart, from two respective unnamed Iraqi sources. According to CNN,

[The 24th of July's] news release said: "'The terrorists are attacking the infrastructure, the ISF and all of Iraq. They are enemies of humanity without religion or any sort of ethics. They have attacked my community today and I will now take the fight to the terrorists,' said one Iraqi man who preferred not to be identified."

The July 13 news release said: "'The terrorists are attacking the infrastructure, the children and all of Iraq,' said one Iraqi man who preferred not to be identified. 'They are enemies of humanity without religion or any sort of ethics. They have attacked my community today and I will now take the fight to the terrorists.'"

When it comes to the American penchant for optimism, I'm slowly moving past "aw, isn't that cute?" country and into "holy living fuck, just give it up"-ville. For the benefit of anybody reading this who lacks a 4th grade education, let me provide the Reader's Digest version of events: They're making shit up. Any quote you read in a newspaper from an 'unnamed Iraqi source" is from Bob. Bob's a Corporal in the Nebraska Army Reserve who's trapped in a basement somewhere near Basra. If Bob wants food or water, he has to churn out press releases to rally the troops and keep the wimmens at home's spirits high. Just last week, they gave Bob his first pencil: Before that, he had to scrape his stories into his arm using a sharp stick, and walk 10 miles to his command post to use the photocopier. Only 5 more years of this, and Bob gets to go to college.

And everybody in America is split into two groups: The people who know this and pretend not to know to save their asses, and the people who know this and pretend not to know to save the first group's asses. How long before somebody just comes out and says it: "Hey, President Bush? We know things are pretty shitty in Iraq. Can we just leave the country in turmoil, while Bob still has all of his original organs where they're supposed to be? Please?"

Okay, so far, I've laid blame on the Bush Administration for creating the bullshit, and the American people for not setting the White House on fire again because of it. Who's left?

Oh, yeah, the news media. Hey, CNN, I've got an idea for you. Why don't you try some investigative reporting? Right now, you're printing stories about how you managed to read some Army bulletins and found a discrepancy. That's fantastic; I'm really happy your reporters can publish quotes from other peoples' work. But do you think you could maybe, I don't know, FIND OUT WHO'S RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS? It's kinda your raison d'etre. It's like I'm reading the bulliten board at Ms. Jenkins' kindergarten class. "Hey, look, deceit and corruption at the highest levels of government, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of people! Hey, look, a bake sale on Tuesday! Neat!"

Is anybody else worked up about this, or is it just me?