While cleaning out my house last weekend, I found newspapers that I'd saved from Gulf War I... and found the contents startingly contemporary.
This, naturally, amused me to no end. Supposedly one of the rags has run a similar story recently. Well, Saddam did supposedly request the services of a plastic surgeon in the last days of his rule, according to the New Yorker...
Less amusingly, there was this issue of Good Times, a weekly paper in Santa Cruz. You can click to see a larger version.
Two letters, "How Many Iraqi Dead?" and "Protestors Shame the Nation" jumped out at me. Except for the date in the lower right corner, you'd never think that these were published on March 14, 1991. The "Protestors Shame the Nation" letter is particularly choice. "I am totally supportive of President Bush. I am not anti-war. I am pro-America." (Huh?) She ends by accusing protestors of "trying to start another Vietnam." (Huh, again?) One wonders if this writer had any slight discomfort at the deja vu all over again that has been Gulf War II.
The writer of "How Many Iraqi Dead?" might find some small consolation in the fact that this time around, we have better information on how many people have been killed (see the Iraqi Body Count box on the front page?), but not much anywhere else. "The war is apparently over, the truth about this war can no longer by covered up by the need to manipulate public opinion in the name of national security." Weeelll....
