[Audio] Report: Civilians in Other Countries Like Us Less When We Kill Several Hundred of Them for No Reason
July 13, 2009
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Transcript:
Overbearing: The inadvertent killing of hundreds of a country’s civilians by bombing or other means could make the citizens of that country like us less, according to a report released today by the Brookings Insitution, an influential Washington think tank.
John Loughlin is a foreign policy expert at the Brookings Institution, and contributed to the report.
Loughlin: What we see is that in country after country, a pattern has emerged. We kill dozens or hundreds of innocent civilians with an errant bomb or a poorly-aimed missile, and suddenly the people in those countries have very few positive things to say about us.
Overbearing: The report cites data taken from surveys of civilians in Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan, among other countries where the U.S. military has been accused of killing innocent civilians.
Loughlin: For example, in Pakistan, in 2004, in response to the question, “Are Americans Good, bad, not too bad, or terrible?” the most popular answer was “not too bad.” In 2008, in response to the same question, the most popular answer was, “I’d like to rip every American’s heart out with a dull spoon,” which was not even given as an option.
Overbearing: The report concludes with suggestions for how to improve the situation in the future. “It is the feeling of this panel,” its last sentence reads, “that one way to possibly reduce negative feelings towards the United States due to the killing of innocent civilians might be to kill less innocent civilians.”
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I happen to know for a fact that this so-called “report” is positively bogus on a least 2 counts:
Firstly, everyone knows that our “smart bombs” wouldn’t kill “innocent civilians”, or else they would have had to have gone back to school just like the rest of us, and pass their tests to get their diplomas, complete their master’s theses, or convince their doctoral dissertation committees that they won’t go out into the world all willy-nilly and blow good people up. Gosh, the way Mr. Loughlin is reporting this, our best and brightest (if not most volatile) graduates from our colleges of Arts, Sciences, and Mayhem, sound like they have dyslexia at best, or need to take frickin’ dumbbell English, and are a bunch of retards or something, at worst. Me thinketh this must-nor be Mr. Overbearing…are you with me so far?
Secondly (and this is absolutely a true story that can be researched) this study by the Brookings Institute can easily be refuted by the Coca Cola Company. You heard me right, that’s not a typo.
A couple of decades ago, the Coca Cola Company’s advertising slogan was “Coke adds life.” Sounds innocent enough, doesn’t it? Nevertheless, some yahoo, who really does need to go back to college, incorrectly translated this little slogan into the Chinese language, and voila, Coke sales dropped through the floor instantly!
It seems that this little Einstein had been a little too concrete in his thinking, and his interpretation of what “Coke adds life” meant to the Chinese was…”Coke brings back dead ancestors”. You catch my drift here? It’s merely an easy extrapolation to conclude that the Brookings study CAN’T be correct because foreigners obviously DON’T want their loved ones to be resurrected, whether they pass on through natural causes, smart bombs, or what have you.
So here’s the score: ME – 1 Point….BROOKINGS INSTITUTE – 0. Damn I’m smart.
Comment by Help Us All — August 23, 2009 @