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October 06, 2005
Really, why on earth could they hate us?
What a puzzle, it all is. What could possibly be the reason?
Boeing and its joint-venture partner Bell Helicopter apologized yesterday for a magazine ad published a month ago — and again this week by mistake — depicting U.S. Special Forces troops rappelling from an Osprey aircraft onto the roof of a mosque."It descends from the heavens. Ironically it unleashes hell," reads the ad, which ran this week in the National Journal and earlier in the Armed Forces Journal. The ad also stated: "Consider it a gift from above."
The ad appears at a time when the United States is trying to improve its image in the Muslim world and Boeing seeks to sell its airplanes to Islamic countries.
And why is Boeing apologizing? What else do people think that piece of machinery is meant to do, deliver bread and roses?
And what is that throwaway line in the story, "the United States is trying to improve its image in the Muslim world"? Oh, is that what this Operation Iron Fist is about? Good to know.
Posted by zeynep at October 6, 2005 08:36 AM
Comments
My very right-wing mother keeps a photograph of a Stealth bomber on her refrigerator among the pictures of smiling relatives. I recently asked her why she, a nominal Christian, would display a picture of an instrument of mass slaughter. She just grinned smugly and changed the subject. And then there was the recent physical attack on a peaceful anti-war protestor of Pakistani ancestry, Tariq Khan, at George Mason University by cops and right wing students. When the protestor, in the midst of being beaten by these thugs, asked a right-winger who claimed to be an Iraq war veteran how many Iraqis he'd murdered, the right-winger said, "Not enough." Why do those benighted people in other countries hate the American people and not just the US government? I mean, we're only trying to help them by destroying their lives and cultures and forcing them to live in misery. They just aren't grateful enough and I can't figure it out.
Posted by: deang at October 6, 2005 02:34 PM
What I really like about this is how viscerally it expresses our war as a religious war on Islam, except it's not Christianity vs. Islam, but the true American heavy metal religion of death machines that rule the sky. Our god of war is here seen dominating the mosque - it is actually bigger than the building - and almost shitting soldiers onto the pathetic symbol of the enemy's impotent religion.
The image is reminiscent of movies like Independence Day where the looming monsters are always explicitly the bad guys. In a way, it is also reminiscent of Lynndie with the Leash.
I find it hard to believe that the artist(s) who created this image weren't aware of what they were doing, and being intentionally subversive. But they were probably following a directive from an executive of Bell or their own agency who may have come up with the idea in all sincerity. Of course, they're all probably searching the want ads now.
Posted by: mark at October 6, 2005 02:58 PM
``Iron fist'' and related attacks -- including blowing up bridges, invading hospitals, and creating refugees -- are in my opinion about killing, scaring, and otherwise immobilizing opposition amongst ordinary Iraqis in areas likely to reject the constitution. These ops. have little to do with the ``insurgency'', I posted a piece on this today using some references I found in Under the Same Sun. Thank you.
Posted by: Eric at October 8, 2005 05:09 PM
"just grinned smugly and changed the subject" -- I love it when they do that.
On a unrelated note to the topic, there is no way on earth an Osprey could do what’s depicted in that picture; they’ve been working on it for close to 18 years and all they have to show for it is a warehouse full of unflyable craft, a couple hundred million down the drain and something like 27 people dead [not all in one accident mind you, but rather spread out over a whole bunch of them]. They've been trying to iron out its problems for the past 10 or so years now but they're never going to get around its inherent mechanical faults, defects & limitations, inherent aerodynamic flaws, extremely limited weight restrictions, the vast number of environments it can’t fly in [generally not a good idea to fly it anywhere near loose soil or even worse, sand] and a whole lot of other things.
Posted by: LamontCranston at November 2, 2005 12:47 PM