CNN-watching pays off every day. Every day there is something so utterly insane and unbelievable about the war or the economy that I can’t help but stare in disbelief at the screen, or just laugh my ass off. This morning, it was that second thing.
Anchor Don Lemon cut into his newsreading timeline to announce that the Pentagon was saying that it had killed the man who shot down that Chinook on Saturday in Afghanistan.
Yes, the VERY man holding the grenade launcher, whose projectile struck the chopper and took it down. Forgive them for at first not knowing what exactly was used to take it down. Forget that the presence of this anonymous man wasn’t even known by the very elite units that were killed in the crash. We’re supposed to believe that the same people who couldn’t find Osama bin Laden for ten years, a man whose identity, among many other facts, we knew inside and out, somehow found some rag-clothed fighter with a shoulder-fired thing and successfully KILLED HIM? And can say so with such certainty they could report it to news agencies?
Yes, ok.
Government is a fiction in so many ways, not least of all in how it literally just spins utter lies for the consumption of its useful rubes. Just think that for each of us who raised an eyebrow in disbelief — or total bemusement that they could think anyone would believe such a good-vs-evil fairytale so obviously crafted for the consumption of above rubes — there are 10 others going “America! F*ck Yeah!”
Update: More clarification comes this afternoon, with the Pentagon claiming that “intelligence gained on the ground” helped them find and kill the specific Taliban fighters. This is in a valley that was just shown to LOATHE the occupation more than the Taliban. And so, what, JSOC troops just sauntered around kissing the hands of the tribal leaders who hate their guts? And the locals just helpfully pointed in the direction of the hiding place of this shooter, whom they also witnessed actually shoot the Chinook down? Uh-huh.