MEDIA KNEW OF IMPENDING ROADSIDE BOMB AND FILMED IT!!

CENTCOM ^ | June 3, 2004 | CENTCOM

[RaceBannon]

News media gets tip of a roadside bomb and sets up cameras to film US soldiers being blown up when it went off.

http://www.centcom.mil/CENTCOMNews/news_release.asp?NewsRelease=20040609.txt

NEWS RELEASE

HEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND

7115 South Boundary Boulevard MacDill AFB, Fla. 33621-5101 Phone: (813) 827-5894; FAX: (813) 827-2211; DSN 651-5894 June 3, 2004 Release Number: 04-06-09

============================================= For additional information on the story see also:

From Palace Of Reason

http://www.palaceofreason.com/Curmudgeon/curmudgeon.html

then select "Firing 'Em Up" from the left menu):

Fran's Sunday Follies, A Saturday Edition: Firing 'Em Up

June 5, 2004

Either I've been teleported interdimensionally to a world where black is white, Kirk is evil, and Spock wears a beard, or a significant occupational group has declared its colors, and they're not red, white, and blue:

COALITION SOLDIERS QUESTION NEWS MEDIA FOLLOWING ROADSIDE BOMB

MOSUL, Iraq - Coalition soldiers questioned two news media cameramen and a reporter after a roadside bomb exploded near a Coalition convoy two kilometers north of Mosul June 3.

The media, who were at the scene prior to the attack, told soldiers at the scene they had received a tip to be at that location prior to the attack and they had witnessed the explosion.

There was minimal damage to a Coalition vehicle, a cracked windshield, and no serious injuries.

3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division soldiers requested the media accompany them to a base camp in Mosul to answer questions as witnesses to the incident. The news media representatives left the base camp in the mid afternoon. [from CENTCOM's June 3 news release. Reference courtesy of Sarah at Trying To Grok.]

This is not the habitual behavior of so-called "journalists." If precedent holds, it will not get a lot of play in the Old Media. It's up to us of the New Media to spread it as far as we possibly can.

Imagine yourself in the situation described. Imagine receiving a tip, from a source you had some reason to believe, that an explosive ambush had been prepared in a particular place, and that lives were at hazard as a result. What would you do? Without reference to the identities of the bombers, their probable victims, or any other element of the tableau: what would you do?

Wouldn't elementary human decency oblige you to tell whoever might be able to avert the atrocity, and urge him to check it out? Wouldn't that be compulsory for anyone with a shred of regard for human life?

Had the above incident happened in any part of these United States, the "journalists" would be indictable as accessories before the fact to attempted murder. What will happen to them in consequence of events as reported from Iraq is anyone's guess. Mine is that they'll step away unscathed, legally and occupationally.

Legal questions to the side, how can a decent man, whatever his nationality or trade, merely watch as others hurtle into deadly peril -- a peril of which the observer could have forewarned him? What price "objectivity," "impartiality," or any other euphemism for this sort of callousness?

Will their "journalist" brethren remonstrate with them for having watched in silence? Not if recent interviews with high-line "reporters" like Mike Wallace are any indication. More likely, the Mosul miscreants will be patted on the back and lauded for having upheld the "standards" of the "profession."

Which brings me to another bit of spleen tokage: "journalists'" self-attribution of "professionalism." If there's a word in the English language that's been abused worse, I'm unaware of it -- and I'm the dictator verborum for the New York Metropolitan area.

A professional is emphatically not just a white-collar employee who draws a salary instead of an hourly wage. A professional is emphatically not just a tradesman who takes his work seriously. A professional is one who professes a code of ethics that takes precedence over his own interests. Medicine, law, and the clergy, the trades traditionally called professions, all conform to that stricture. Persons in each of those trades must swear before witnesses to a code of ethical conduct that obliges them to lay down their own lives rather than break its rules.

"Journalists," while claiming exemption from any ethical standard whatsoever in the name of "objectivity," nonetheless call themselves "professionals." The word is infinitely too good for them. Given the way they routinely deceive, distort, and suppress vital news when it suits their editorial agendas or political proclivities to do so, they aren't even honest workmen.

Some will say that "journalists" do uphold a standard of sorts: "protecting their sources." Please! That isn't an ethically based constraint; it's an attempt to retain a competitive edge over other "journalists" who don't have access to the source, and to protect the source from the consequences of any lies he might utter. It's so selfish a precept that it defies comparison to any notion ever advanced as moral or ethical.

In the name of "protecting their sources, "journalists" have spread the foulest of calumnies, ruining lives and reputations wholesale. Now, in the name of "objectivity," they're allowing other men -- American soldiers, who volunteered to take up arms and risk death in service to their country! -- to walk into harm's way unawares. They sit and watch, with cameras rolling, as the crosshairs of Islamist insurgents and terrorists settle on the chests of American men at arms.

People think lawyers are a plague upon the land. At least lawyers, though they might leave you broke, will leave you your life.

Who is teaching "journalists" that this is acceptable behavior? Is it their older mentors and role models? Is it the journalism schools and professors of communications? Or is it We The People, by consuming their product in blissful disregard for the poisons in the recipe?

Shame on them. Shame on all of us.

If this is the way "journalists" regard their occupational obligations and perquisites, they're as dangerous to our men at arms as the weapons of the enemy, and should be treated as such.

[little jeremiah]

Another thread about the same story:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1150090/posts

[spunkets]

"The CENT COM report was brief and obviously said less than they knew."

Obviously.

"which is what is sounds like"

Can you prove what really happened?

"assisting the enemy"

There's no factual info that they assisted anyone. The fact is that the jihadis could have pulled it off w/o them and the consequences could have been more disasterous. Not only that, they had no indication that they were not the targets of jihadi action. The Geneva Conventions hold them to be civilians and the only way to remain that way is to stick to their business and avoid assisting either side.

[RedBloodedAmerican]

The CENTCOM release says

The media, who were at the scene prior to the attack, told soldiers at the scene they had received a tip to be at that location prior to the attack and they had witnessed the explosion

however I don't read where it says the media knew it was going to be an attack, only that they should be at a location.

Note that the article is from "palaceofreason"

[RedBloodedAmerican]

I agree. Until CENTCOM releases more info, this is a spin by someone in order to create hype.

CENTCOM does NOT say the media knew there would be an attack.

[liberallyconservative]

"Prove to me they didn't."

Well, it's pretty frickin' obvious they DIDN'T say anything to the US Military. If they had, I doubt seriously the military would have come rolling through the area unawares.

[spunkets]

"Well, it's pretty frickin' obvious they DIDN'T say anything"

Obvious, how so? How do you know they were unaware? Folks using what is obvious called the world flat once upon a time.

[monkeywrench]

" stick to their business and avoid assisting either side."

Who do they turn to if they need assistance?

[spunkets]

"from Hot Springs?"

No.

"is"

Is means there is an identity with objective fact. I didn't see any of that in the title, or lead into the "Palace of Reason" story.

[spunkets]

"Who do they turn to if they need assistance?"

If they need protection, they can hire someone. If it involves criminal action they can call the proper authorities. Some whine that they should have free govm't guard, but that's ridiculous. They are civilians and should get what any civilian is entitled to. That amounts to the freedom to use the Yellow Pages to look for protective services.

[monkeywrench]

But, according to an article posted here a couple of days ago, the media was whining that they needed more protection by our military. I hope they aren't counting on it. LOL!

[spunkets]

They definitely should not get it. Most of them are in it as a business, in addititon to their place acting as political ops.

[El Gato]

They had no prior knowledge of what they saw.

That's their story and they're sticking to it!. I was born at night, but not last night. They knew something bad was going to happen to US troops. They might not have know that it was a 105mm artillery shell (or whatever it was) rigged to go off as the convoy passed, but they knew something.

"A covert intelligence source" would imply that they were under the control, or had pre-arrangements with those to whom they were suppling information.

I guess if I overhear two guys saying they are going to stalk and rape a girl, if I report it to the police, I'm a covert intelligence source?

[El Gato]

Just red, thanks.

Actually Islamic Green, tinged perhaps with more than a touch of Red as well.

[liberallyconservative]

So you're saying that our military WAS aware, and still rolled through the area, setting off the blast? Wow, you sure do give our military a lot of credit.

[Chieftain]

"Man, I hate the media with a passion."
Even more than lawyers?

Q. What's the difference between a dead lawyer in the road, a dead journalist in the road, and a dead snake in the road?

A. The snake has skid marks IN FRONT of it.

[El Gato]

See if you can find that the journalists had prior knowledge of an attack and could guess the details of that attack in the CENTCOM note.

I'm sure they didn't thing the "tip" was to a Wedding Party in the desert. They probably didn't know the details it's true, but it's also irrelevant.

[spunkets]

"So you're saying that our military WAS aware"

Nope.

[StarCMC]

Get ready to be VERY angry when you read this crap.

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

"If this is the way "journalists" regard their occupational obligations and perquisites,
they're as dangerous to our men at arms as the weapons of the enemy, and should be treated as such."

Odd how talk radio and the Internet know Hanoi Kerry is a traitor
Yet no TV or Cable newsroom will admit it.
But then again they all make $$$ airing his Presidential ads.

[Don Corleone]

Hey Spunkets!Wake up and smell the KOFI. We are in a WAR! No "journalist" in WWII would have even remotely considered hiding info from the troops he was accompanying. Ernie Pyle is spinning in his grave after hearing this story. Pull their press credentials and send them back to La La land to cover flower shows or give 'em a gun and put them up front where they can really see what is going on.