I'm absolutely fucking disgusted. Their excuse is that "Soldiers have been dying since March 2003" and "Everybody in this country knows that we're at war"? What the FUCK? The soldiers have been dying, thinking they were defending YOUR freedom, and all you have to say is "They've been dying" - like it doesn't fucking matter? They'd rather talk about someone that killed themselves ODing on drugs?
How do you fucking sleep at night? Then you cut half the frame to squeeze in a clip from a Ledger movie? And when it's all said and done, you break for a commercial by saying when you get back, you'll talk about his book and Heath Ledger some more?

Maybe you would care a little more about that war if it was people you knew that were dying in it. Maybe you would tell your government to stop the war if you were the ones fighting in it.





Fuck you, Fox news.

Does it really surprise you that people would rather hear about an actor whose work they know and respect, rather than an anonymous soldier fighting in a war that they (statistically speaking) probably don't support? This may sound cold, but if they actually took the time to do a detailed report on every soldier who died, people would lose interest very quickly. I'm not saying it's right, just human nature.

applause for the first two posts covering all debatable positions. well done. not being sarcastic!!! go internets!

>> ^vairetube:
applause for the first two posts covering all debatable positions. well done. not being sarcastic!!! go internets!


Now that all positions are covered, I'm just gonna jump in and say FUCK FOX NEWS.

On another note, I might have considered this a bit of an attention seeking, self-righteous outburst anywhere else, but the fact that he did this live on Fox News makes it rock.

The only way I can deal with watching these presenters is by rationalising that they each must be thinking, behind that Fox facade, "Yes, this guy's fucking right, but I can't say anything. I'm gonna make some horrible point now, just to vindicate his remarks".

Oh, how I hope and pray this is the case.

So, Montel not a welcome guest again on Fox News LOL But bravo to the guy

I'm not saying that each one should have a detailed write-up - but would 15 fucking seconds really hurt that bad? Rank, name, location and event of death - Is that really so much to ask? Regardless if you support the war or not, you should still care about the troops.

I agree MG, soldiers dying in Iraq should ALWAYS be front page news even if it's at the bottom. I used to see blurbs almost everyday on the local news, now they don't talk about deaths at all because the economy is the big issue now.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'ledger, fox news' to 'heath, ledger, fox news, montel, williams, iraq, war' - edited by MycroftHomlz

A preemptive war against a pathetic little dictatorship has nothing to do with "defending our freedom". First it was about WMDs and 9/11, but that turned out to be false, then they changed course completely and said it was about freeing the Iraqis, even though most of the Iraqis don't want us there. Saddam's abuses are nothing compared to the posse ethnic cleansing that has been unleashed in the anarchy after his government was toppled. The only reason civilian deaths are down is because there's no ethnic cleansing left to do. The Sunnis have fled from Shia neighborhoods, the Shias have fled from Sunni neighborhoods, and almost all the Maronite Christians have either fled or been executed by fundamentalist islamic posses.

If we had a draft, I would sympathize more with the dead soldiers. Since we don't have a draft, the respect dead soldiers deserve is contingent on whether the war they're fighting is just, because they chose to fight it by joining / staying in.

Overthrowing Saddam was a great and lofty goal, but it hasn't worked out very well!

@MG; ... not a PBS watcher? NewsHour with Jim Lehrer closes with name, rank, age and hometown accompanying a picture of every fallen soldier as the news is broken and pictures are made available, each shown in silence for 5 or 6 seconds.

Yay PBS, die Fox.

jwray, it doesn't matter one bit that they chose to be there. Many of them have made it a career choice before the war began. Fact of the matter is that most of them believe they are there protecting yours and now my asses. Whether or not the war is justified has nothing to do with the respect that you and I owe them. It has everything to do with them believing they are doing it for us.

Telling my government to stop the war.

Ok..."stop the war".

Now what?

i told them in 2003. then what.

*1sttube *waronterror

Adding video to channels (1sttube, Waronterror) - requested by calvados.

If we had a draft, I would sympathize more with the dead soldiers. Since we don't have a draft, the respect dead soldiers deserve is contingent on whether the war they're fighting is just, because they chose to fight it by joining / staying in.

jawry, I loathe this war and the neo-cons as much as anyone on this site, but your comment is way off base. Whenever I hear comments like this from fellow liberals, I cringe.

Where is your humanity?

You should respect and sympathize with soldiers because they are human beings, just like you. They have little control over this war, and for you to hold them responsible for the actions of Cheney and co. is just callous and naive.

The 'dead soldiers' are victims of this war every bit as much as the dead Iraqi civilians. You are playing into Rovian 'Support the Troops' wedge politics with this arrogant attack on our brothers and sisters who have chosen the military as their means of gainful employment.

I think you should apologize to MG.

"The 'dead soldiers' are victims of this war every bit as much as the dead Iraqi civilians..."

Spot effing on.

A lot of truth in the comments for this video. Also, bravo Montel, fark faux.

I'm not a big fan of Montel, but I applaud his stand here.

MG, Scientologists believe their crusade against psychiatry is for the good of all mankind, including us. That doesn't mean we owe them anything. Whether or not they are actually helping is very relevant. What they are ACTUALLY DOING is more important than what they BELIEVE they're doing. Do you grok my analogic consistency check? I am appalled by the common obsession of glorifying the act of dying for one's country in an offensive war. It is not a great thing to die for Dick Cheney in an offensive war that has nothing to do with defending our freedom. "Support our troops" is nothing but an orwellian strawman fascist-enabler. The best thing we can do to help the troops is to bring them home.

Only nonwilling participants in something can be deemed victims of it. Informed consent makes it impossible to call the dead soldiers victims. They knew what they signed up for. It's a shame they had to die. They ought to have deserted.

^Interesting comments, I look forward to hearing responses.

>> ^cdominus:
I used to see blurbs almost everyday on the local news, now they don't talk about deaths at all because the economy is the big issue now.


Uh... So now we have a stimulus package. Want to take a guess at how much money we are going to print to hand out for now reason other than to dilute the USD? Want to take a guess at how much was spent in Iraq War last year. A good portion of the "economy" story is the fact that we are still in Iraq. The whole thing is criminal, and once upon a time, there would be riots. But there is no one reporting the news, so fat & happy keep on with the bread & circus.

>> ^jwray:
Only nonwilling participants in something can be deemed victims of it. Informed consent makes it impossible to call the dead soldiers victims. They knew what they signed up for. It's a shame they had to die. They ought to have deserted.


jwray, sure, if you think of all the enlisted soldiers as rich white suburb kids, then fine. Keep pretending they knew all the risks and what they were signing up for. They knew they would be living in a crappy desert and spending their days as policemen waiting for a bomb to blow them up. They knew they would be firing on crowds and shooting at kids holding ak-47s.

You might be naively forgetting about all the people who joined the Reserves to pay for their kids college, or maybe they need the income, or maybe they were patriotic and doing it for many years, even decades. Did they plan to be called up? Did they know about stop-loss and having to do three combat duties. Did they know they'd have to keep getting sent back to Iraq because the military is stretched so thin.

And what about the people who didn't have any options. Inner city kids with not many other options. People who are told they get their choice of 3 yrs in jail, or enlist instead. Who do you think are they ones coming home in bodybags? Informed consent? Did they know about PTSD? Did they know about how many people are maimed? Did the news report on this in the last five years? Did the military HIDE all the coffins? Did the US Govt prevent the media from showing ANY IMAGES? Do you know how many soldiers are coming back maimed and permanently wounded?

Forget about reporting the deaths. Just on numbers alone, how many are coming back with PTSD or missing legs, arms, hearing, vision? Do you know?

jwray, I hope you never join the service, even for a just war. You're untrustworthy and maybe even treasonous if you encourage anyone in our military to desert because of disagreeing with the cause. When I was in the service, I knew I had to do whatever was legally asked, whether I believed in its purpose, or not.

I've also been against the war longer than most people, but I still have a deep respect and thankfullness for our military. So I'll agree with Montel. But ironically I wouldn't expect much from ratings-based, commercial tv, not to mention I don't care what fox news does. Fox is the last place I'd go for anything "fair and balanced". I've decided!

Praise be unto NPR, and the News Hour. And by the way, almost 4000 people per month die in car accidents, and that's *never* a big story. We spend over 10 Billion dollars per month in Iraq. Just think of all the lives we could be *saving* here every freakin' day with that kind of money, besides saving soldiers' and civilian lives.

But to stay on topic... I want to THANK again our troops. I also wish Bush/Cheney et al (which consists of a *large* group of Fundamentalist Idiots) can "stay the course" until their road paved with good intention takes them all the way to hell. Pray that the rest of America gets a course correction from the next president. (Man, did I go off topic again!?)

>> ^acmetech:
Pray that the rest of America gets a course correction from the next president. (Man, did I go off topic again!?)


Where the hell have you been?? Course correction? WTF?!
Hilbama or McCain. Guess what??!! NO COURSE CORRECTION. These elected assholes will be occupying Iraq until the UN sends in troops to kick us out at the request of the Iraqi govt. Edwards was the last hope of leaving Iraq, so unless some miracle happens and the Paultards can pull out some miracle, the US is screwed. Iraq has ruined our economy, the military readiness, the opinion of US abroad, our domestic safety (the whole idea of occupying Iraq is a self-fulfilling prophecy... If we stay long enough, some crazies will be over here blowing up our cities, and hence the whole Iraq thing will be justified in their minds. Had we not occupied their country they would have no motivation to do so. And don't point to 911. FFS, those were SAUDIS. You know, Bush's rich friends.)

Any (sane) person who joins the military knows there's a chance they will die in the line of duty.

Acmetech, I think you're confusing trustworthiness with submissiveness.

The stop-loss program and all other forms of conscription are slavery (therefore prohibited by the 13th amendment). Laws against desertion also constitute slavery and a violation of the 13th amendment. I would encourage soldiers who want to avoid getting called up again to flee to a more civilized country in the EU. A truly volunteer military would effectively give the soldiers veto power over unjust war by allowing them to leave. No true war of defense would lack volunteers.

The fact that hundreds of times more Americans are dying from McDonalds than from the war in Iraq is another reason not to spend so much time glorifying soldiers who died for Dick Cheney's sake.

At least Obama voted against the authorization for the Iraq war. If we pulled out all troops immediately, there might be anarchy and more genocide. Clinton/Obama are just saying take it slow and let things cool down (like we did with Japan/Germany after WWII) USA did a pretty good job of reconstructing Japan back in the day. If we fuck it over like post WWI Germany, there may be somebody even worse than Saddam Hussein in charge in 2020.

post WWI Germany?? WTF dude. We ARE post-WWI Germany? Are you that ignorant of history. Guess what led to Hitler rise to power? Economic crisis and scapegoating fictious "bad people". Do I need to be more specific on the parallels or do you really honestly think the US is in Iraq to rebuild like Japan?

Do you know how long Japan reconstruction took? Do you know how much money has been spent towards "Iraq reconstruction"? How exactly does US occupation entail "taking it slow" or "letting things cool down". You are an lacking logical thoughts if you think pumping Iraq full of money and weapons and arming all the local militias (who currently are helpful) is a good idea. What about $200B in arms to Israel and then a matching $200B to Saudis? Is that helping cool things down?

How is giving nuclear technology to India, Turkey and Pakistan helping? You honestly can't see the bigger picture? How is threatening Iran fall under the "letting things cool down" picture?

Yes, I've read Naomi Wolf. Cheney took advantage of 911 like Hitler took advantage of the Reichstag fire, but Clinton/Obama seem different. During the previous Clinton administration not one American claimed we resembled post-WWI Germany, though 9/11 itself was blowback from Clinton and pre-Clinton policy. I never supported nuclear proliferation, nor threats designed to prevent it. Nukes are safe in India's hands, but not with Pakistan or Turkey. I never supported "pumping Iraq full of money and weapons". You are putting words into my mouth. Somebody has to stop the sectarian death squads in Iraq. Replacing US troops with UN peacekeepers is good because it would calm some of the jihadists. Total immediate withdrawal would probably lead to a 3-way civil war between the Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites and an eventual 3-state schism, and Iraqi Kurd independence would lead Iran and Turkey into the fray, and I can't say for certain that the total death toll of that would be higher than UN peacekeeping over festering wounds of sectarian violence, but it probably would. I wish the Iraqi Kurds could get a free state without Turkey&Iran making a fuss about the precedent that sets. Kurdistan is the most peaceful and least fundamentalist part of Iraq. I'm sufficiently uncertain about the difference in eventual effect between gradual withdrawal & UN peacekeeping vs. total immediate withdrawal that it's not really the most important difference between the candidates. The biggest problem in Iraq is the damn fundamentalist religion. They prefer to just blow each other up over an argument that started with who should succeed the ancient impostor Muhammad. Most Iraqis oppose total freedom of religion, even the ones who are afraid of being oppressed by a majority of the opposite sect. It's madness. Some days I wish someone would translate the complete works of Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and Richard Dawkins into Arabic and air-drop 100 million copies.