Posted on 05/25/2004 7:03:39 PM PDT by Lorianne
To: the editors of almost every news report I've seen who quote General Mattis saying "I don't have to apologize for the conduct of my men."
As exhibit A, I present to you a verbatim transcript of the press conference in question.
As exhibit B, I further note the pertinent part of the conference:
Unnamed Reporter: What happened yesterday at 3 a.m. in Al Qaim? Was there a wedding on? A wedding celebration?
Gen. Mattis: You joined us a little late, as I said to the young lady here, I said how many people how many people go to the desert 10 miles from the Syrian border and hold a wedding 80 miles from the nearest civilization? Over two-dozen military-aged males... let's not be naïve. Let's leave it at that.
(Question unintelligible)
Gen. Mattis: I can't...I've seen the pictures, but I can't...bad things happened. Generally...in Fallujah, I never saw a Marine hide behind a woman or a child or hold them in their house and fire out of the building. I don't have to apologize for the conduct of my Marines.
As you can plainly see, General Mattis clearly shifted his point of reference from the site of the so-called 'wedding party' to Fallujah. When he said he did not have to apologize for the conduct of his Marines, he was contrasting his own Marines' tactics with those of the insurgents, who make a common practice of hiding behind women and children.
Contrast this with these accounts:
The Globe and Mail: "Bad things happen in wars," said Major-General James Mattis, the U.S. Marine commander in charge of occupation forces in western Iraq.
"These were more than two dozen military-age males. I don't have to apologize for the conduct of my men."
That's right, they blow the quote, they take the last sentence out of the Fallujah context and mix it in with the "wedding," and they don't bother with the ellipses normally expected of a journalist when he omits portion of the text of remarks.
From the UK Guardian:
Major General James Mattis, commander of the 1st Marine Division, was scathing of those who suggested a wedding party had been hit. "How many people go to the middle of the desert ... to hold a wedding 80 miles (130km) from the nearest civilization? These were more than two dozen military-age males. Let's not be naive."
When reporters asked him about footage on Arabic television of a child's body being lowered into a grave, he replied: "I have not seen the pictures but bad things happen in wars. I don't have to apologize for the conduct of my men."
Again, no ellipsis. They quote Mattis as saying he has not seen the pictures but in the transcript he says he had. And again, the last sentence is removed from its original context and placed in with the wedding stuff.
The New York Times:
Maj. Gen. James Mattis, the commander of the First Marine Division responsible for the remote stretch of desert where the strike was carried out, asked, "How many people go to the middle of the desert 10 miles from the Syrian border to hold a wedding 80 miles from the nearest civilization?"
At a news conference in Falluja, west of Baghdad, he said that two dozen men of military age were among those killed.
"Let's not be naive," he said. "Bad things happen in wars."
"I don't have to apologize for the conduct of my men," he added.
Again, the decontextualization from Fallujah. And I'm still looking for "bad things happen in wars" in the transcript.
Reuters:
"How many people go to the middle of the desert 10 miles from the Syrian border to hold a wedding 80 miles from the nearest civilization?" Mattis said in Falluja. "These were more than two dozen military-age males. Let's not be naive...Bad things happen in wars.
"I don't have to apologize for the conduct of my men."
Again, Reuters seems to invent "bad things happen in wars," skips the expected ellipses, and distorts the context of Mattis's assertion that he does not have to apologize for the conduct of his Marines. (Why are so many outlets distorting the exact same way? Are they not doing their own reporting, perchance?)
Agents France-Presse:
Asked about the footage, Mattis said: "I have not seen the pictures, but bad things happen in war."
In this case, AFP quotes Mattis as saying the enemy owes the world an apology. But bizarrely, they say he was referring to the Nick Berg beheading--NOT the alleged wedding party. Look over the transcript. There's no mention of the Berg beheading anywhere.
The Independent engages in perhaps the most egregious distortion of all:
"These were more than two dozen military-age males. Let's not be naive," Major General James Mattis, commander of the US 1st Marine Division, said. But he had no explanation of where the dead women and children in the video came from. "I have not seen the pictures but bad things happen in wars," he said cryptically. "I don't have to apologise for the conduct of my men."
Ummm, there's nothing "cryptic" about the General's comment to someone actually familiar with the source material, putz.
The Washington Post, to its credit, gets it right.
For the most part, though, the news outlets are committing the same sins: distorting the general's meaning by omission, by skipping the ellipses (in the same places), and by making the same mistakes.
Essentially, it looks like they're quoting each other, or some apocryphal Q source material. They're not quoting General Mattis. They didn't even show up at the press conference, and they didn't bother to get a transcript or listen to the tape. But all these reporters are passing their crap off as if they were right from the source material.
Absolutely, completely pathetic.
If this is what passes for news coverage, then they ought to fire their reporters and hire some boy scouts to write for them. At least they'll be honest.
Asshats.
Splash, out
Jason
See tagline
Thanks for the post and the info...with the all the mis-reporting going on out there in la-la land it's going to be a rocky road to victory.
If the real story were to get by the lib-press and the'Rats their whole existence would be in jeopardy...Let's Get The Word Out!!!!!!!!!!
Excellent bit of work you have done. Very, very good.
The media are taking a page out of clinton's playbook. They are lying so often and so fast that critics simply can't keep up with them any longer.
Good find.
Typical...
Better yet..send it to the boards of directors of companies advertising in those newspapers....
Just that title alone drew me to read the post. Thanks!
The reporting you see is the reporters they are graduating these days.
You haven't seen anything yet. Wait till after the election when the fishwraps that have been losing readers and the alphabet network's news hemorrhaging viewers, have to face the flowing red ink they made by their devoted leftist slant. They're going to plead with us to come back and promise to change their ways. But I'm in no mood to forgive them. I hope they all suffer a slow and painful business death.
In the good old days, AG compiled a wonderful collection of stuff on WJC. Is anybody studiously collecting all the documentation, such as this, and on other threads today? Also: Bump.
"We fart in your general direction!" (That is to say to you, dearie....they couldn't care less what you do or think.....after all you're not one of them.)
May I have your permission to send this to one who has a great many e-mail contacts, that this may be widely disseminated?
BUMP for truth and accuracy in reporting (as if THAT'll ever happen).
Propagandists, all.
Please disregard previous post. I see that I jumped the gun and did not notice that you are not the original source. My bad.
I subscribe to the hometown Pravda and read it faithfully every morning. But it's primarily to see what the enemy is saying.
Oh, and to read the Pearls Before Swine comic. That's a hoot.
No problem. But yes, please send to as many people as you can. We need to shame these liars out of business.
This is just beyond reprehensible! What a great job though of outing this scum bag media we have who are the enemy within every bit as much as the sleeper cells of Muslim terrorists among us! The press is a threat to our constitution and our security.
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