Posted on 04/06/2026 4:42:30 AM PDT by MtnClimber
There’s nothing really new in the uproar surrounding the loss of a USAF F-15E Strike Eagle over Iran this past weekend. Media hysteria over the downing of a single U.S. aircraft has become a commonplace schtick in coverage of American wars over the past three decades.
During WW II, the U.S. lost over 23,000 planes in combat. I kid you not, playmates: 23,000+ – and that’s only combat losses. Overall losses, including accidents, amounted to 65,164. The media talking heads would have had to be carried out in straitjackets if they’d been active at the time.
Losses dropped sharply following WW II. In Korea, the USAF lost 147 shot down out of a total of 1,000+ losses. During the Vietnam War, 67 USAF planes were lost to North Vietnamese MiGs. The majority of the 1737 lost in combat were targeted by SAMs and anti-aircraft artillery.
Media acting out over relatively miniscule losses began in 1991 with the First Gulf War. On January 17, 1991, the opening night of the war, an F/A-18 piloted by Lt. Scott Speicher was shot down over Iraq, the war’s first fatality.
SNIP
As this piece is being drafted, word has come down that the WSO of the downed F-15 has been rescued by Special Forces troops after a dramatic battle with IRGC forces. A fine gift on this Easter morn.
Not that the Left, within the media or out, is going to appreciate it. That’s not what they want. They want American aircraft downed by the bushel. They want Navy ships ablaze in the Gulf. They want our troops captured, battered by mobs, and tortured. But if they can’t get that, they’ll do their best with the occasional aircraft downing.
We haven’t heard the last aircraft shootdown frenzy.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Watch the first 10 minutes of the video at the link I provided and let me know what you think about the media distortion about what is happening in Iran.
I don't understand the language that Tousi is translating, but Iran does not have a single language. Persian (Farsi) is only spoken by less than 2/3 of Iranians. They could be speaking Arabic, Kurdish, Dari or Pasto as well as many other languages. I also don't know what languages Tousi understands, but he does his videos in English.
From 2004: Sensitivity and the Journalistic Mission
Mike Wallace of CBS News' 60 Minutes opened the final session by addressing the question offered by the session organizers, "Are we journalists first or something else? We are journalists," he argued, and as the session played out, the implications of that answer took on a growing importance."It was one of those Fred Friendly seminars on television and the hypothetical was that Peter Jennings and Mile Wallace, got the opportunity to go out on patrol with .. a North Vietnamese patrol in the Vietnam war .. with a camera crew and so forth. All of a sudden about 150 yards away, they suddenly realized there's a South Vietnamese patrol coming and with them maybe half a dozen American advisors.
"Now here you are. You're an American, you're a reporter, you've finally gotten the opportunity to cover this story, and suddenly you see South Vietnamese and more important ... Americans there too. The questioner, Charlie Ogletree, a Professor of Law at Harvard Law School .. said to Mr. Jennings, "Peter, what do you do?" Peter thought for a full 10 or 15 seconds and then said, "Well, I'd probably lose my life for doing it, but I would call, I would shout, and I would warn my American countrymen what was about to happen to them, that they were about to walk into an ambush."
"Charlie turns to me. "Mr. Wallace, what about yourself?" Well, I am a contrarian by nature. Mind you, this is live on tape, and it's going to be broadcast and you're thinking oh, come on. I say, "I'm a reporter. I'm a reporter here to cover this story." It didn't occur to me at that moment that I'd undoubtedly get killed the way that Jennings thought he was going to get killed if he were to shout. But when you are covering a story of that nature or any nature, what are you first? You are, in my estimation, a reporter."
"Incidentally, I was sitting beside, on the panel, General William Westmoreland who looked at me like a hair in his soup."
"Jennings listened to me and said, 'You know something? I'm sorry I didn't think it through correctly. Mike was right. We are reporters first.'"
Charles Gibson: "When you said, 'I am a reporter first,' tell me what you meant."
Mike Wallace: "I'm not an American first, I'm a reporter first. What Jim Fallows was saying. Hey, Americans hate the press because of journalists' feeling that their job is holy. (His implication is that) your responsibility is to save those Americans out there. Forget about getting the story. Forget about getting the story. Be an American. Save those people whom you conceivably can save from being ambushed.
The mind of the American journalist has only gotten worse since then.
-PJ
For the left wing in the western world, the only thing that matters is who is running the war, not who our enemies are. They were for World War II because FDR was running it; I seriously wonder whether they would’ve been the same way if Wendell Wilke had won in 1940. They are traitors.
That’s a better way of saying it.
You have found wisdom, grasshopper.
: )
Of course it would be my guess that you already knew that.
I've never heard it stated that way. Interesting.
As a Conservative, I believe the possibility for evil exists in every human being, and I have always believed that.
I have always considered myself to be reasonably well read, and I realized that I cannot say that if I have not read the Bible. I grew up as a Catholic, and I don’t recall that I was ever encouraged to read the Bible, so what I did know was from readings in Mass, and pieces of Sunday School.
So, In the last few years, I have made it a goal to read it from cover to cover. And it was a difficult read for me. Very interesting, but...when I am reading, I will sometimes read faster and faster to get to the next important part, but I realized that while that might be okay for a novel or a biography, it wouldn’t work well for the Bible. I felt I would miss too much if I succumbed to that.
So I have had a lot of picking up and putting down, and that ribbon marking the place for me has been very valuable.
I have always viewed this concept of evil in the human race to be a cleavage point between Liberalism/Leftism and Conservatism, one of those places where you can place a chisel and with one hammer blow, split Liberals/Leftists from Conservatives.
We as Conservatives believe that, and the Founders of this Nation clearly thought that too, otherwise the Constitution would never have been written as it was, to limit the power of men as governors of others to do evil to those they are ostensibly governing.
The Constitution was made to protect us from powerful men, to whom the innate evil inherent in all of us as humans might most effectively find fertile ground to take root and grow.
Liberals and Leftists feel very differently about this. They view humans as perfectible. In their eyes, society is a corrupting influence, and the things found in every society such as poverty, ignorance, and disease can be vectors of infection to the inherently good and perfectible human organism.
They feel that if they can eradicate things like poverty, ignorance, disease, and disparities between people, that a utopia can be achieved. And they believe this so strongly that they think they can legislate, teach, mandate behavior, enrich and remedy disparities between people to the point that bad will not be able to take root, and a utopia will be achieved.
It is utter nonsense, because there will always be poverty, ignorance, disease, and disparities of all kinds physical, mental, situational, and financial, but the true believers think that if they rule humans with an increasingly iron fist, forcing them to think in uniform ways (their ways) and smashing down every unorthodox nail that sticks its head up, that humans will be able to live in harmony.
And to them, the goal of a utopia wholly justifies the evil they would visit on those who won’t willingly be subjugated by their ideas and plans. And it also explains why Liberalism and Leftism are predicated on the rejection of Christ. In their Liberal/Leftist world, Man becomes the center of the Universe, not God.
So, when I read the Bible, I already knew this potential for evil in my heart, but to read it in actual words from authors long dead, those very descriptive words, the expressions of evil that result from the potential evil that exists in all of us was...illuminating to me.
Technology and Tools may change, but evil in human nature does not, and it must be actively guarded against.
It is the reason I have embarked on my journey to Christ.
In this world, I see the belief in and acceptance of Christ as the best way to ensure I personally do not succumb to the evil inherent in all of us...including me. This is an interesting time of my life, I am gratified to say.
Yeah, and our press to NOT wallow in Hitler’s success... they were Americans back then - like the rest of us.
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