The General Tosses the Coin What was General David Petreus doing tossing the coin at the Super Bowl? It seems odd that the man who George Bush relied on to run the war in Iraq would appear like a wax figure at the nation's annual sports spectacle. I suppose the NFL producers of the Big Show thought it was a way to honor American service men and women by proxy, having their general determine who gets the kickoff. Yet, amidst the pomp and circumstance of the occasion, few seemed to care about the general's role in prolonging the conflict with his "stay the course" recommendations during his tenure in Baghdad. After more than 4,000 American lives lost and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead or wounded, after billions of dollars spent on a mistake, there is something profoundly unsettling about the inability of Americans to separate tragedy from entertainment.
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Showing posts from February, 2009