Lara Logan at the 33rd Annual American Women in Radio and Television Gracie Allen Awards 5-28-08
CBS Chief Correspondent Lara Logan has been in Baghdad since the beginning of the war in Iraq. In a candid interview with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, Logan says the American public has become numb to what is going on and that the soldiers feel forgotten.
Stewart: Then have you been exposed to gunfire and explosions and that type of thing.
Logan: Sure. Well, that morning in Baghdad, I looked at the clock, and I thought, Well, okay, I can have half an hour more, because I’ve only had 3 hours, went back to sleep, woke up, sat on the side of the bed thinking, I’ve gotta get up! and then it’s like “Boom!” and the hotel blew up underneath me, so… They blew up the building. I think they were trying to kill some sheikhs, but, you know, they got a few other people, including a 5-year-old Iraqi girl.
Stewart: See, even that — the idea of that to me — if that happened in this country, that would be the biggest story for the next two years. It’s as though we’ve become numb. I mean, there were 51 people killed today, in a Shi’ite neighborhood in Iraq — are we just numb? Have we lost our humanity with this entire situation?
Logan:Yeah, we have. You know, I was asked once, “Do you feel responsible for the American public having a bad view — a negative view — of the war in Iraq?” and I looked at the reporter, and I said, “Tell me the last time you saw the body of a dead American soldier. What does that look like? Who in America knows what that looks like? ‘Cause I know what that looks like, and I feel responsible for the fact that no one else does.” You know. That’s what I feel responsible for: that nobody really understands, and the soldiers do feel forgotten. They do, no doubt. From Afghanistan to Iraq, they absolutely feel — it may be — we may be tired of hearing about this 5 years later, they still have to go out and do the same job. I was in Sadr City, when it was just going absolutely hell for — I mean, Sadr City was like Armageddon, and there were soldiers there who’d been in-country 9 months who’d never seen combat like that, just thrown into it. You’re talking about convoys ambushed with 5, 6 armor-piercing bombs, rocket-propelled grenades, everything — 9, 10, 15-hour battles.
Regardless of where you stand on the war, there are men and woman fighting for the freedoms you enjoy, in conditions most of us cannot possibly imagine. They rightly deserve your support and respect. (Climbs down off soapbox)
View video of Lara Logan on The Daily Show below.
photo: Wenn