The truth of victory
: From the international editor of The Age in Australia:
…a performance of sheer Orwellian perversity by Iraq’s Information Minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf[:]
With heavy artillery drowning out an impromptu press conference, Sahaf was shouting from a rooftop that Baghdad was safe, that the Americans had been slaughtered, and that victory was at hand.
At that very same moment, perhaps only a kilometre away, two GIs stood grinning beside their tank as they conducted live interviews on the cable networks. They waved towards Sahaf for the cameras, making the point that he could see them from his windows if he cared to look.
The ridicule inherent in that juxtaposition was as lethal as any weaponry in the arsenal.
The bottom line in this military confrontation has become only too apparent: for all the bloodcurdling effectiveness of this gangster regime in monstering and murdering civilians, and for all the tactics of terror used in its defence, it has been no match for a far superior military force that it can neither outwit or intimidate, much less hope to match on the battlefield.
The Pentagon had promised a campaign of a force and tempo never before witnessed. After all the second-guessing by the international media of a week or so ago, the strategy of Pentagon planners is now seen to be delivering emphatically.
So there.
: Josh Marshall calls all this a “jarring contrast of Monty Pythonesque dimensions:”
One almost expects before too long to see Al-Sahaf — with some embedded reporter’s videophone in hand — broadcasting from an American POW camp, telling listeners that reports of Iraqi battlefield reverses are vastly overstated.
