Root Causes

I can't even tell you the tangents I followed to stumble across this YouTube clip (cf. that one day during 1L when I was looking up something about the Rule in Shelley's Case [shudder] on wikipedia, and ended up reading about various queens' crown jewels for over an hour), but I am seriously amazed at how pro-war the media was back in 2003--even more so than I remember.

I recall being a relatively sentient being at that time too, but this intro clip to CBS coverage of the beginning of the Iraq war is the most cheerleadery thing I've ever seen. Actually, the intro graphics frame war as a video game. Military theme, US flag v. Iraqi flag, green night vision. Jesus. No wonder the vast majority of this country was so blase about invading a country without provocation. It was portrayed as an adventure!

This kind of media performance will be taught in propaganda awareness classes for the next century, assuming anyone ever thinks of teaching such a class. Take a look: