Swingin' With David Petraeus

Nice to see General Petraeus — taking time out from putting Sunnis on the U.S. payroll — celebrating the grand opening of a USO facility at the air base in Balad, Iraq.  I mean, if our fighting men and women are going to be there another hundred years, they are sure going to need some place to unwind between that 33rd and 34th tour of duty.

The real stumper to me, though, is the video game of choice here.  What happened to Halo, Left Behind: Eternal Forces, or even 9/11: The Video Game?  Could it be that Public Affairs got to choose?

Besides the phallic association (oh yeah, and there’s also the gun propped in the corner), I love the situation on screen.  It’s like a mirror of the Administration’s almost five year old story line: We may be in the rough at the moment, but in the next shot, we’ll surely be on the green.

Kill Or Convert, Brought To You By the Pentagon (The Nation)

Playing ‘outside the wire’ (msnbc.com)

Propaganda Propaganda (this week’s earlier piece of mis-direction – BNN)



(image: Anja Niedringhaus/A.P. Feb. 7, 2008. Balad, Iraq. via YahooNews)