Yet another inconvenient truth

In the coming days and weeks, as media coverage of the events at Haditha intensifies, so will wingnut complaints about the media coverage of the events at Haditha. Here's why.

The violence of Iraq is horrific, but it's the media that makes it intolerable. Indeed, the violence is horrific only by modern standards. To truly cow a colonial population (as in British India in 1857, or on the American plains in the late 19th century) requires mass murder on a far larger scale. The presence of the media makes this most inconvenient.

From James K. Galbraith, "Withdrawal Symptoms," Mother Jones, April 2006.