April 09, 2003

Observe This Mary Riddell mocks

Observe This

Mary Riddell mocks "the brave 'rescue' of Private Jessica Lynch from the hospital ward where she was being treated with all available medical skill."

Of course, as Steven Den Beste points out in a characteristically sharp and prickly essay, Lynch's "treatment" appears to have involved torture. And it seems clear that, had the tip-off and rescue raid not interrupted the skillful treatment, the patient would have ended up dead.

"All available medical skill." Well, I suppose Ms. Riddell's understanding of the nature of medical treatment might conceivably have been influenced by her own experiences with the NHS...

But seriously:

Surely there must be a decent supply of anecdotes which actually are morally ambiguous, from which a determined Observer columnist might, with a bit less of a stretch, draw the urgently desired lesson of moral equivalence between Saddam's goons' behavior and ours? Surely there are items on show in the media which are more deserving of derision and mockery than the rescue of a brave young woman from a torture chamber? Surely Riddell could have made her case (about the Anglo-American evil underneath the feel-good propaganda) to the satisfaction of her largely already-persuaded audience without resorting to an outright, easily-spotted lie?

Posted by Dr. Frank at April 9, 2003 09:17 AM | TrackBack