Comments on: Comments, corrections, clarifications, and c*ckups

By: paddy

paddy — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Thanks for your comments on the Basra road massacre Guy.
You put my feelings into words so much better that I can.

By: Marsali Mackinnon

Marsali Mackinnon — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Re ABC Radio National: As just one of many millions of tax-paying Australians who own the ABC, I am fed up with the arrogance of successive ABC boards and senior executives (and Federal Governments) over recent decades, who seem to feel they have an inalienable right to foist unwelcome and foolish staff and program changes and funding cuts on us - the ABC’s target audience - without any prior consultation. Nowhere have I seen/read or heard of any audience research, surveys or feedback to justify the latest idiotic attack on RN’s program content. OK over to you Sue Howard and Mark Scott - where’s the evidence to support your plans?

By: Diana Simmonds

Diana Simmonds — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Coca Cola and the Krazy Kerry campaign. I’m a little surprised that there has been no comment on the decision by the great health drink purveyor to use Kerry Armstrong as its spokeswoman in the Trust and Credibility campaign. Kerry Armstrong’s public image is as a fruitloop (no added sugar) and flake (no added chocolate or sugar) rather than the kind of woman other women would trust to choose their kids’ arvo tea snacks. Why would anyone pay attention to what she has to say? Why would Coke’s ad agency think we’ll swallow any of it? Too much sugar does that to your grey cells, maybe.

By: guy rundle

guy rundle — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Both comments on the Basra Road massacre are indicative of an unexamined moral gap that has arisen in modern warfare. As the philosopher Rai Gaita noted, the signal innovation of the (second) Iraq war was a shocking - and evil - callousness, towards the death of men (and women) in uniform. This was a paradox of the increased humanitarianism regarding the deaths of civilians in war - that people in uniform could be regarded as fair game.
No moral person can sustain this. To murder a retreating army, an army that presents no threat and is conscript, is radically evil , and to use the fact that they are in uniform to shield yourself from what was done in your name is morally corrupt.
In the decades to come, the Basra Road massacre will be seen as one of the great war crimes of the twentieth century - because it was wanton, superfluous, unreflected upon and had no strategic or protective justification.
These were young men, conscripted, with homes, families, lives to go back to. In one afternoon, the US - Powell and Schwartzkopf - killed more of them than Saddam killed in five years. It’s necessary to look clear eyed at what’s been done with our silent consent - anything else is pure moral cowardice

By: Daniel

Daniel — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

As Robert Fisk notes, even the SS who died fighting in Bastogne were allowed marked graves. No such “luxury” was awarded to thousands of Iraqi soldiers, who were often buried in mass graves.