Thanks for the ping.
This was the wake up call for me re Peter King's wake up call:
Media Has Blood On Its' Hands, Iraq GI Tells Rep.King
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1010199/posts Media Has Blood On Its' Hands, Iraq GI Tells Rep.King
Newsmax.com ^ | October 29, 2003 | Newsmax.com
Posted on 10/28/2003 9:57 PM PST by Lady In Blue
Reprinted from NewsMax.com
Wednesday Oct. 29, 2003; 12:12 a.m. EST
Media Has Blood on its Hands, Iraq GI Tells Rep. King
Rep. Peter King, R-NY, delivered a stark message on Tuesday from an unnamed U.S. military officer now stationed in Baghdad who believes negative press coverage of the U.S. war effort has cost American soldiers their lives.
While flying back to the U.S. aboard a military transport, King told nationally syndicated radio host Sean Hannity via satellite phone, "I promised an American colonel yesterday, an Army colonel, that [I'd relay his message]: 'There's blood on the hands of the American media.'"
"He's lost men because of the terrible reporting and it's just creating a terrible atmosphere," King said the Army colonel told him.
"The troops have tremendous morale. But unfortunately the terrorists are encouraged and the Iraqi people are being dissuaded from cooperating with the American forces because of the terrible coverage back here," King said.
The unnamed GI, who King said had two graduate degrees, shared his disturbing assessment as the two flew by helicopter from the Baghdad airport to the Al Rashid hotel.
Paraphrasing the Army colonel's words, the New York Republican said, "I just want you to know that there's blood on the hands of the American media; that my men and women are going to die because of them."
The GI's message continued, "We are winning this war and the only way we can lose this is if the American people lose their nerve and that's because of what's going on in the American media."
King said he concurred with the Army colonel's complaint, saying, "What I saw is totally different from what the American media is reporting."
Noting that he was in Baghdad during the wave of terrorist attacks this weekend, King said that, "in spite of all of that, life is virtually normal in Baghdad."
"What the media doesn't show is that the rest of Baghdad is traffic jams, markets open . . . you would have thought you were in midtown Manhattan," the New York Republican contended.
"Life is so different when you're there from the way it's being portrayed in the media."