Fox Correspondent Calls Fallujah "Heart of Darkness"

[akropiss]

yes Fallujah is the heart of darkness, now let's drop willy pete all over the civilians and expose them to depleted uranium.

[jgil23]

the contractors probally deserved what they got!! maybe not, gotta look at the whole picture.

[MatthewPA1972]

Well, Fallujah was where contractors were bruned alive and then it was celebrated... so yeah, heart of darkness is apropos.

I just wish we could've put all the liberals here who object to that term in Fallujah in 2003. Ah, well... can't have everything, I guess...

[Wnicorn]

that doesn't surprise me...faux news also called barack obama's famous knuckle bump the "terrorist fist jab" lol

[VinceOmega]

Heart of Darkness? Oh shit, we need a keyblade!

[Geneva009]

Faux News never ceases to crack me up with their blatant bias reporting.

What's scary is that so many people out there actually believe they're "fair and balanced".

[bounce559]

faux sucks

[bullsfan102]

Should have left saddam alone

[fractalsq]

It's like Cache-22, or Tipping Point More reference it than read it. Which is sad, but yeah... the irony being, if someone read it, they'd know this is a pejorative remark to make-- it doesn't exactly speak well for colonialism, and doesn't end well. that's what TPM is trying to make obvious.

The Economist did a magazine cover, about Bush's actions in the Congo... using the Heart of Darkness imagery in a political cartoon... but The Economist isn't staffed by communications majors.

[TheDude82x]

fuck fallujah

[Doggieman1111]

I'm waiting for a fat ghost of Brando to come waddling out of a Fallujahn hut.

[studio7manga]

Fox news, Krazy Konservative Khristians.

[brawnymike]

jkerouac02,

I tend to agree with you. It seems a rather over-literate reference to throw out to the average Fox News viewer, and not an especially clear one, if intentional.

A case of too much buck for too little bang or, alternatively, an elusive allusion.

[kcp12304]

was she refering to Conrad??

[EdugeBDroN]

What does she know about iraq anyway ?

[dstangarone]

Look up "Presidential Shaving Cream" for a good perspective on the candidates

[irontonremy]

¸¨°º¤ø„¸¸„ø¤º°¨ „ø¤º°¨

¨°º¤ø„ OBAMA „ø¤º°¨ Copy and paste

¸„ø¤º°¨ROCKS! ....°º¤ø„¸ If you believe in the

ø¤º°¨¸„ø¤º°¨¨°º¤ø„¸¨°º¤ø FUTURE OF AMERICA

[melonbarmonster]

eh...

[poop121]

Wierd. I guess they have to pander to the Christofacist POV on Fox.

[peacehonesty]

After 911, the Taliban in Afganistan said they did it. Invasion was a just response.

However, it has been proven repeatedly that Iraq was a predetermined Aquisition for revenues and political controll in the region. There were no WMD's, nor any other evidence giving the administration justification to defy the Constitution or U.N Charter.

Iraq is a WAR CRIME for corporate profit!

So on the issue of Falluja...we should not be there in the first place.

Corruption, never vote Republican!

[F33bs]

I'm unfamiliar with whatever the reference is, so would anybody mind telling me what horrible comparison was made here?

[brawnymike]

F33bs,

I'm not exactly sure WHY the reference was made, but the reference is to the novel "The Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad (wikipedia has an entry for this, at Heart_of_Darkness). The novel (which is about an ill-fated trip through up-river through the heart of the African jungle to the hideout of a military leader gone mad) was adapted into the screenplay "Apocalypse Now." In the movie, the setting was Vietnam and Brando played the insane Kurtz.

[F33bs]

Ok thanks.

Some people who posted seemed angry at the comparison, I was wondering if the reference was somehow alluding to something deeper.

[youfave]

Fox News..the body of darkness..

[mw2000]

Does this mean David Petraus is Mr Kurtz?

[Roshibear]

That question doesn't even make any sense? If Fulluja was the Heart of Darkness why would Kurtz role be analogous to Petraus?

[mw2000]

They're just the two most prominant characters in their respective dramas. It was more of a quip than a serious statement.

[Francebrasil]

This is not-acceptable from a network news.. What a bunch of crap...

[thielenm]

ok.

[MisterEKOownz]

PEANUS

[dogstar7]

Fallujah was a war crime.

The town was flattened during almost a year of retaliation for the gruesome death of 3 private Blackwater "contractors" (read: mercenaries).

W. Somerset Maugham himself would have been shocked and insulted by the comparison.

[keedaman]

isnt that an overstatement? the killing of the 3 mercs was a symptom of what fallujah had become, a stronghold for insurgent forces. sure the sledgehammer tactics that the marines used were probably unwise but the decision to retake the town was the correct one.

[dogstar7]

"a stronghold for insurgent forces"?

From Wikipedia "Battle of Fallujah":

Fallujah was one of the most peaceful areas of the country just after the fall of Saddam. There was very little looting, and the new mayor of the city, Taha Bidaywi Hamed, selected by local tribal leaders, was staunchly pro-American.

[dogstar7]

April 28, 2003. A crowd of 200 people defy the curfew and gather outside a local school to protest the presence of foreign forces in the city. This escalates as gunmen allegedly fire upon U.S. troops from the protesting crowd and U.S. Army soldiers, from the 3rd Battalion of the 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division return fire killing 17 people and wounding more than 70 of the protesters. There are no Army or Coalition casualties in the incident.

[dogstar7]

* March 31, 2004: Four American private military contractors are ambushed and killed in the city. Images of their mutilated bodies are broadcast. * April 4, 2004: U.S. Marines launch Operation Vigilant Resolve. * April 28, 2004: Operation Vigilant Resolve ends with an agreement that the local population would keep the insurgents out of the city.

[dogstar7]

My mistake: there were 4 Blackater mercs killed and hung from the bridge.

[dogstar7]

D'oh! ...and it was Joseph Conrad not Somerset-Maugham. Next time I won't surf before breakfast.

[Roshibear]

If you don't know that Joseph Conrad wrote the Heart of Darkness, it follows that you must not know either very much about the novel or of Conrad, himself. How then can you believe that Conrad "would have been shocked and insulted by the comparison"?

[dogstar7]

Stuff it, buddy.

I misspoke and corrected myself.

What's your point?

Do you have a personal stake in defending FOX news? Did I insult your opinion leader? Are you upset at literate people who have read both Somerset-Maugham and Conrad and can bring them into the context of an argument?

Run along, lurker.

[dogstar7]

The use of white phosphorus incendiary shells against civilian targets in Fallujah was a direct violation of the Geneva Accords and is generally recognized as a War Crime.

[canadianbeeph]

thanks for the info dogstar (thumbsup)

[KajiCarson]

The horror... the horror.

[Scatterpatch]

Maybe Kurtz will save us?

[SuziQ1953]

I watch Fox for a few laughs but when I saw this today, I went right back to MSNBC. Fox should lose their FCC license.

[baddmanaz]

what?

[xexkxex]

Huh?