Posted on 06/29/2004 12:03:07 PM PDT by KriegerGeist
Sending Mixed Messages:
Media Giving False Picture of Iraq War
By Paul Strand
Washington Sr. Correspondent
June 29, 2004
The troops are not taking all this quietly. Some are fighting back with impassioned e-mails they are writing and sending out to the world, hoping to put a dent into the media's negative impact on the public.[Thank you to all the troops who e-mail the truth and thank you to all the "Bloggers" who post them]
(CBN News) - If you follow the mainstream media, you would get the feeling Iraq has been a huge disaster for the U.S. military. You would get the impression our troops are stuck in a bloody quagmire, torturers of hapless prisoners, unpopular occupiers who have become sitting ducks for a huge Iraqi rebellion.
Yet Army vet Stephen Jimenez did Special Ops and airborne missions in Grenada, Panama and Bosnia. And concerning the media coverage of Iraq, Jimenez said, "I'm outraged." [I wonder who the troops will be voting for this November]
He returned this spring from Iraq where he worked as a civilian side-by-side with our troops. Jimenez said, "Every day that I was there, I saw it get a little bit better, but you wouldn't see that from the media."
Check out how the media portray our troops, appearing frightened and under a "state of siege."
Check out the negative wording in news headlines: 'Promises Unkept,' 'The U.S. Occupation of Iraq,' 'Mistakes Loom Large as Handover Nears,' 'Security is Just Impossible.'
And they focus constantly on terrorist attacks and the casualties the coalition takes, as if that is a measure of the Iraqi mission's success or failure.
The loss of life is heartbreaking, but Jimenez says most of those enemy attacks fail or accomplish very little strategically.
He said, "They're a lot of small cuts, so to speak, designed to wear down the coalition for political reasons, and the media's falling prey to that tactic."
Army National Guard Capt. Mario Mancuso commanded Special Operations during the war and after. He said, "Casualties tell only part of the story. And I don't think they impact on the likelihood of military success or failure."
Mancuso and Jimenez say there is nowhere near the chaos and desperation the media make appear commonplace in Iraq. One example is in Najaf, where Mancuso once headed up troops, and where rogue cleric Moqtada al Sadr led a Shiite uprising.
"The situation was neither as desperate or as out of control," Mancuso said, "as it may have appeared from conventional TV reporting of what was going on there."
Jimenez added, "We've had attacks whereby rockets came in, no one was wounded, no one was killed, no equipment was destroyed. And you'd turn on real-time and see CNN reporting like Chicken Little, like it was the end of the world."
Mancuso said, "What it does do is for our enemies inside Iraq and in that part of the world, it plays up images, false images, of American weakness."[The media support and embolden our enemies]
The troops are not taking all this quietly. Some are fighting back with impassioned e-mails they are writing and sending out to the world, hoping to put a dent into the media's negative impact on the public.[I hope there is a way to get their message out all over the country]
These are the the words of a Marine in Ramadi: "Here in Iraq, the enemy is trying very hard to portray our efforts as failing and fruitless. They kill innocents and desecrate their bodies in hopes that the people back home will lose the will to fight for liberty. Unfortunately, our media only serves to further their cause. In an industry that feeds on ratings and bad news, a failure in Iraq would be a gold mine. If the American people believe we are failing, even if we are not, then we will ultimately fail."[I don't know how better to express this exact point. Who left, but us to get out the truth?]
Mancuso said, "For a long time al Qaeda was able to recruit new recruits for al Qaeda and terrorist operations, because they were able to say America would cut and run when confronted with casualties. If we give them the impression that we're even thinking about it, that will be a bonus for their recruitment drive."[Do you hear that Dan, Tom and Peter and the rest?]
A Tennessee National Guardsman says in an e-mail, "Our enemies in the war on terror have no tanks, no Air Force and no Navy. Their greatest and most powerful weapon is an American media more interested in today's controversy than tomorrow's victory."[These guys tell it like a jsck hammer busting through concrete]
Jimenez points out that World War II dragged on for four years and saw hundreds of thousands of casualties, but the media backed the war effort.
"If they were reporting then as they're reporting today," he said, "we would have lost the war."[He is so right on this fact]
A medic in the Iowa Army National Guard writes, "As I head off to Baghdad for the final weeks of my stay in Iraq, I wanted to say thanks to all of you who did not believe the media. They have done a very poor job of covering everything that has happened."
Mancuso stated, "But what you don't hear the media reporting is that on any given day, coalition forces are leading hundreds of patrols, hundreds of raids across Iraq, arresting detainees. Some of those missions may have nothing to do with traditional combat operations. Some of those missions are opening up hospitals, delivering aid, opening up schools."
"If you look at their reporting over a long period of time," Jimenez said, "not only what they report and how they report it and their frequency, look at what they don't report on. And you'll begin to see from doing careful analysis of the news, that they're probably the second greatest threat we face other than Al Qaeda."
What is probably most underreported are all the heroics. Jimenez remembers when a major he worked with got blasted by a bomb going off about 30 yards from him.
"He took a piece of fragmentation one inch below his eye," said Jimenez. "And what does the Marine major do? He calls in on the cell phone, said, 'Vehicle bomb went off, I'm wounded, I'm okay.' Goes and gets treated on an outpatient basis after almost losing his eye, and a week later he was out in the same area doing the same thing."
Mancuso recalls getting ready to go out on a dangerous raid when a young Marine, just wounded and with a huge cast on his arm, refused to stay back at the base.
"He could have said, 'I'm not going out on that mission,' because he was injured," Mancuso remarked. "But his unit members were out on that mission. He knew it was an important mission. An 18-year-old kid sitting in the lead vehicle as we're pulling up, ready to fire a 50-caliber weapon. I think that's unbelievable. And to think, six months ago, he could have been playing Game Boy or some video game and now he's in the field doing right by his country."
And a chaplain in Iraq wrote this e-mail about unheralded heroes and their sacrifices: "A few weeks ago an Illinois National Guardsman, mother of three, was hit six times, saved by her body armor, but lost part of her nose. She stayed on her 50 caliber, firing on the bad guys, protecting the convoy. She said she was thinking of her kids and the guys she was with. Commitment is love acted out."
"The kids I see and eat with every day," the chaplain continued, "still want to help this country, in spite of getting shot at while doing it. That is love acted out. I went to Camp Cooke at Taji, north Baghdad. The 39th Brigade, Arkansas National Guard, is stationed there. One of the old troopers who came was a 52-year-old sergeant who had done his 20-plus years and had retired. But his son was in the 39th, and when the father found out they were coming over here, he re-enlisted. On their first week in-country, Camp Cooke was attacked by rockets and the first rocket that landed killed the father. During my time in Iraq, I won't be able to see any of the biblical sites that are here. But a few weeks ago in Taji, I got to stand on some holy ground, where a father died when he went to war just to be with his son."["No greater love..."]
Don't be too hasty. If you don't register, you don't vote. Period.
Think back to Florida 2000. Remember that a whole slew of ballots were invalidated because they had no postmark? Why was that? That was because the unit flew them back to the states aboard military transport and delivered them through the military postal system.
If it matters - and it does - the military will get ballots delivered on time...
Thanks for posting the link to the Tennessean article.
I've just finished firing off several e-mails to our politicians in Nashville....everyone I could think of and get e-mail addies for. It wasn't easy being civil.....this infuriates me.
Plus to friends so THEY can fire off e-mails, too. This cannot be allowed to happen! They have no excuse for sending out the ballots so late. Just HOW long have we all known there's an election this November?
Anyone else living in states that has this atrocity going on should do the same. We can't allow this to happen again.
.
NEVER FORGET
American Soldiers...
Fighting for the FREEDOM of Others,
Those who train them in their Mission and...
Those Loved Ones who wait for them...
To come home...
or NOT...
are...
.............H-O-L-Y..!!!
Signed:.."ALOHA RONNIE" Guyer / Veteran-"WE WERE SOLDIERS" Battle of IA DRANG-1965
(Photos)
http://www.lzxray.com/guyer_set1.htm
http://www.lzxray.com/guyer_set2.htm
http://www.lzxray.com/guyer_set3.htm
http://www.lzxray.com/guyer_collection.htm
NEVER FORGET
.
God Bless our troops our Country and President
Thanks for the ping Tonk !
agree! it's treasonous...coupled with Moore's movie, the left in America seek to recapture their youth by creating another Vietnam, thus forcing Americans to lose their resolve against an enemy that will continue to cut off our heads as a result...a weak America will be an even greater target. They endanger us all.
Sedition
Treason
the media has been treasonous...coupled with Moore's movie, the left in America seek to recapture their youth by creating another Vietnam, thus forcing Americans to lose their resolve against an enemy that will continue to cut off our heads as a result...a weak America will be an even greater target. They endanger us all.
Sedition
Treason
Ping. Ya'll might like this link.
Good stuff!
bump
thanks for the ping...
the linked article in post 9 is a real story...
I have just had new light shed on the importance of what you're doing, Tonk. Thank you.
.
NEVER FORGET
BUSH = A FREE Iraq goes Sovereign
BUSH = LADEN/Al Qaeda on the Run
9/11 Commission: U.S. Terror War has Stymied al Qaeda
http://www.Newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/6/29/121539.shtml
NEVER FORGET
.
I'm just on a mission that HE has guided me on.
Bump!
I must share the wisdom of the Mpls (really REALLY RED) Star Tribune
(note, you might want to get a heafty bag)
Editorial: It's all yours/Iraqis get keys to their country
6/29/04
President Bush was sitting at a NATO summit conference table in Istanbul Monday morning. He glanced at his watch, whispered to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and the two shook hands. At the time, no one else in the room understood the significance. It turned out that Bush was secretly celebrating with Blair the turnover of sovereignty in Iraq to the interim Iraqi government.
(snip)
(so far so good you say, wait a bit)
Thus did the yearlong Coalition Provisional Authority's control of Iraq come to an end: cloaked in secrecy and heavy security. It's incorrect to say the occupation ended, though many will say that. With more than 130,000 American troops and thousands from other nations needed to keep the peace, and with the "sovereignty" Allawi will exercise being severely circumscribed, Iraq remains an occupied nation.
(snip)
But beyond being a good idea the hastily planned, five-minute ceremony also was fitting. It underscored the still-dangerous security status of Iraq, and it symbolized the Bush administration's many failures there:
• The failure to find the predicted weapons of mass destruction, the principal reason for going to war. The threat, the Bush administration said, was so urgent that U.N. weapons inspectors couldn't be given time to complete their work, so urgent that the White House couldn't take the time necessary to reach consensus with the world community, including most of its closest allies.
• The failure to reconstruct Iraq. Jobs remain scarce, with unemployment running at 60 percent, and Iraqis remain desperately poor. Electricity still is an on-again, off-again proposition, and the rest of Iraq's infrastructure, from roads and airports to hospitals and telecommunications, still needs massive improvements.
Bush administration officials were naive when they predicted the invading forces would be greeted as liberators, the country would quickly be rebuilt, and Americans would quickly leave behind a quite grateful Iraq ready to serve as a catalyst for democratic change throughout the Middle East. Most Americans won't be leaving any time soon, and most Iraqis aren't grateful.
• The failure to ensure a secure and stable Iraq. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made the first serious security error when he insisted, against warnings from U.S. military officials, that Iraq could be taken with a small, highly mobile force. He was right about the war but wrong about the peace; the small American and British forces had no problem defeating the Iraqi military, but they were woefully inadequate to the task of keeping Iraq peaceful and secure. Bremer then made the second serious mistake when he disbanded the Iraqi army instead of simply getting rid of the bad Baathist apples at the top. A year of chaos and violence has followed. A potent insurgency was allowed room to develop.
And now back to reality.
self-righteous, self-congratulatory
I think that's what ticks me off about them more than anything.
I see it all the time, but particularly when we had all the trouble in April. We'd be in the chow hall and CNN would be blaring its twisted, negative version of things and the soldiers (not to mention us civilians) would get annoyed and people would start shouting "Turn this crap off!"
Finally, the crew at the chow hall started showing Sky News instead which was a bit easier on the stomach.
When CNN reports from here in Iraq, we don't recognize the place they're talking about.
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