Open the newspaper on any given day and you are bound to find at least one news article documenting the political conflicts in Iraq. But the reality of the war is often glossed over by the media in an effort to keep from upsetting the public.
Television clips and photographs portray the war as a fight to free Iraqis, but images of innocent civilians caught in the crossfire are “tastefully” left out. “Iraq is very sugarcoated on the news,” said Tom Mason, a 20-year-old Temple student. Mason was stationed in Fallujah, Iraq, with the First Infantry from February to December of 2004. “They bombed for about eight hours straight,” said Mason, recalling the night before his division pushed into Fallujah. “At five in the morning, I stepped on a dead baby’s face. I will never forget the look on that baby’s face.”
Images of dead women and children are perhaps too graphic to show the nation, but these casualties play a larger part in the war than is portrayed by the media.
People deserve to know the truth. The nation supports a president who led their country to war, but have no idea of the sadness and horrors that have resulted from it. However hard it may be to learn of innocent women and children dying in the name of freedom, I would rather be exposed to an unpleasant reality than believe in a world of fiction. How can we, as a nation ,support or oppose a war that we know little about?
The loss of innocent lives is never old news. Perhaps the media are afraid of controversies that could arise if these horrific images were revealed. Or, perhaps they have simply stopped caring.