I remember the first Gulf War when a minor controversy erupted over a cockpit video of an American pilot in a dogfight.
The original audio captured the pilot's frustration trying to get a bead on his opponent: He said, "Shit, I can't get the tone [slang for radar-lock]."
When the video was aired on CNN, though, the expletive had been masked over with a burst of static.
Well. Much huffing and harumphing from the Canadian press. War's a nasty business, see, and CNN's got no right to censor those potty-mouthed Yankee imperialist aggressors.
Journalistic integrity and all that.
Fair enough, I suppose, but there are probably a lot of things men say in combat that we can do without while trying to explain war to the kiddikins.
So CBC last night, in its very objective and impartial fashion, presents a documentary showing how sloppy, dishonest, and evil the U.S. military is.
Back to Gulf War I then. The CBC, like the generals it thinks it knows and knows it despises, is always fighting the last war.
As always, I paraphrase: "[grainy video, with American officer commenting] And here we have SCUD launchers . . . 11 of them . . . they're loaded and ready to go . . . right, we've got a hit . . ."
CBC: "But they weren't SCUD launchers. They were . . . Jordanian fuel trucks."
They certainly brewed up like it.
But the CBC cannot let this dramatic moment pass without a little creative splicing of its own.
When the trucks go BOOM, so too does the soundtrack.
Funny, that. Guncamera shots aren't miked for Dolby-enhanced KABLAMMO.
So the CBC demonstrates to us the perfidy of the Americans (without any evidence that they consciously lied about the incident).
With a doctored tape. Oh, my.