Posted on 05/30/2004 7:50:00 PM PDT by Kaslin
What really happened in Fallujah was a great deal different from what was portrayed in the news media, said Robert Kaplan of The Atlantic Monthly, the only reporter embedded with the Marine company (Bravo, 1st Battalion of the 5th Regiment) that led the advance into the heart of the city in the pre-dawn darkness of April 6.
The Marines won the battle in the streets, only to lose it in the news accounts, Kaplan said in an op-ed article in The Wall Street Journal May 27.
"Whenever the Marines with whom I was attached crossed the path of a mosque, we were fired upon," Kaplan said. "By the standards of most wars, some mosques in Fallujah deserved to be leveled. But only after repeated aggressions was any mosque targeted, and then sometimes for hits so small they often had little effect. The news photos of holes in mosque domes did not indicate the callousness of the American military; rather the reverse."
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
US Marine Corps BUMP
Bush's fault!.. Of course he does admit that full on slide shows and explanations would probably not really help. These kind of stories don't fit the template the mainstreamers are looking for.
good article
What?
"The administration should have been holding dramatic slide shows for the public ... explaining how this or that mosque was being militarily utilized," he said. "And had the administration adequately explained to the public what the Marines were doing after Fallujah, there might have been less disappointment and mystification about quitting the fight there."
"Without a communications strategy that gives the public the same sense of mission that a company captain imparts to his noncommissioned officers, victory in warfare nowadays is impossible," Kaplan concluded.
That sounds real good, but there's just one hang up. The government doesn't control the media in this country, and the networks can choose what to cover and what NOT to cover. Do you think they'd give the Bush administration ONE MINUTE of air time to publicize the good side of the war?
Fox Might???
< /sarcasm >
Thanks, I thought so too
The administration should be having to do this .. if the MEDIA HAD BEEN DOING THEIR JOB .. this would have been common knowledge.
Thanks, bump !
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