Shock And Awful
March 27, 2006


From time to time over the past three years, I would come across the
photo and look at the white smoke billowing up into the Baghdad night,
pushed by the orange and yellow glare of exploding rockets, bombs and
burning buildings.

While it's forever said that a picture is worth a thousand words, it is
the three words printed in big, white, all-capped letters that makes the
most enduring impression.

``SHOCK AND AWE."

Shock And Awful
March 27, 2006


From time to time over the past three years, I would come across the photo
and look at the white smoke billowing up into the Baghdad night, pushed by
the orange and yellow glare of exploding rockets, bombs and burning
buildings.

While it's forever said that a picture is worth a thousand words, it is
the three words printed in big, white, all-capped letters that makes the
most enduring impression.

``SHOCK AND AWE."

Something about the words on the cover of that March 31, 2003, issue of
Newsweek struck me then and strikes me now as promiscuously cavalier, as
shamelessly promotional - like the advertisement for a video game, like
the promo for one of those slam-down wrestling federation matches, like
the nickname for some young, hot-shot prizefighter.

``Announcing, in this corner, George W. `Shock and Awe' Bush!"

``SHOCK AND AWE."

These are the words the administration approved to serve as the
introduction to this war. These are the words that made the cover of
Newsweek three years ago.

I saved this issue, as I do select other issues of magazines and
newspapers that cover major events in the life of the nation, the world,
the city or the people I know and care about.

It's a way to look back and gauge how things got to where they are, how
things turned out or what the heck folks were thinking.

I saved that old magazine for the message it sends, for the moment in time
it captures and reflects.

Last week, I came across it again. This time I viewed it in the context of
three years of war and thousands of dead soldiers - ours and theirs - and
thousands of dead civilians - mostly theirs.

Now, too, it is in the context of our distinguished president's drum-roll
proclamations about the war's success as he states his intent to leave
America's troops in Iraq for some future president to pull out.

Instead of the ``Hell no, we won't go!" said by another generation against
another war, it's ``Hell no, they won't come home - not as long as in the
White House I roam."

That's George W. ``Shock and Awe" Bush's three more years. That's the
duration of his term.

It will be up to some other administration to clean up this one's mess.

I think about the American troops who are in Iraq now; I think about those
who will be there in the next three years while Bush remains in office.

``We will bring freedom to others and we will prevail," Bush said as he
addressed the nation as the war began three years ago.

A lot can happen in three years. A lot of lives have changed, a lot of
lives have been altered, a lot of lives have been lost.

Victory is not at hand, civil war seems a matter of interpretation, and
now the administration wants to blame the news media because of the
pictures they show and the news they put out.

``SHOCK AND AWE."

We've spent the last three years in shock and awe - not at our nation's
prowess in waging war, but in the spin put out by those in the White House
to explain where we are in this mess.

And the clock keeps ticking. And the spin keeps spinning.

From here on, every American soldier over there is a lamb placed on George
W.'s altar. Every American soldier is a war offering to George W.

They are war offerings to a president stuck on pride, frozen in principle,
shocked and awed beyond all shame and decency.

If our president would truly like to shock us and awe us in a good way,
there is something he can do: RESIGN.

And take the vice president and the rest of his men and women with him.

Frank Harris III is chairman of the journalism department at Southern
Connecticut State University in New Haven. His column appears every
Monday. He can be reached at

Shock And Awful
March 27, 2006


From time to time over the past three years, I would come across the photo
and look at the white smoke billowing up into the Baghdad night, pushed by
the orange and yellow glare of exploding rockets, bombs and burning
buildings.

While it's forever said that a picture is worth a thousand words, it is
the three words printed in big, white, all-capped letters that makes the
most enduring impression.

``SHOCK AND AWE."

Something about the words on the cover of that March 31, 2003, issue of
Newsweek struck me then and strikes me now as promiscuously cavalier, as
shamelessly promotional - like the advertisement for a video game, like
the promo for one of those slam-down wrestling federation matches, like
the nickname for some young, hot-shot prizefighter.

``Announcing, in this corner, George W. `Shock and Awe' Bush!"

``SHOCK AND AWE."

These are the words the administration approved to serve as the
introduction to this war. These are the words that made the cover of
Newsweek three years ago.

I saved this issue, as I do select other issues of magazines and
newspapers that cover major events in the life of the nation, the world,
the city or the people I know and care about.

It's a way to look back and gauge how things got to where they are, how
things turned out or what the heck folks were thinking.

I saved that old magazine for the message it sends, for the moment in time
it captures and reflects.

Last week, I came across it again. This time I viewed it in the context of
three years of war and thousands of dead soldiers - ours and theirs - and
thousands of dead civilians - mostly theirs.

Now, too, it is in the context of our distinguished president's drum-roll
proclamations about the war's success as he states his intent to leave
America's troops in Iraq for some future president to pull out.

Instead of the ``Hell no, we won't go!" said by another generation against
another war, it's ``Hell no, they won't come home - not as long as in the
White House I roam."

That's George W. ``Shock and Awe" Bush's three more years. That's the
duration of his term.

It will be up to some other administration to clean up this one's mess.

I think about the American troops who are in Iraq now; I think about those
who will be there in the next three years while Bush remains in office.

``We will bring freedom to others and we will prevail," Bush said as he
addressed the nation as the war began three years ago.

A lot can happen in three years. A lot of lives have changed, a lot of
lives have been altered, a lot of lives have been lost.

Victory is not at hand, civil war seems a matter of interpretation, and
now the administration wants to blame the news media because of the
pictures they show and the news they put out.

``SHOCK AND AWE."

We've spent the last three years in shock and awe - not at our nation's
prowess in waging war, but in the spin put out by those in the White House
to explain where we are in this mess.

And the clock keeps ticking. And the spin keeps spinning.

From here on, every American soldier over there is a lamb placed on George
W.'s altar. Every American soldier is a war offering to George W.

They are war offerings to a president stuck on pride, frozen in principle,
shocked and awed beyond all shame and decency.

If our president would truly like to shock us and awe us in a good way,
there is something he can do: RESIGN.

And take the vice president and the rest of his men and women with him.

Frank Harris III is chairman of the journalism department at Southern
Connecticut State University in New Haven. His column appears every
Monday. He can be reached at