Fahrenheit Fallujah (Kevin Sites)

It is the Rodney King incident, Iraqi style. A piece of war taken totally out of context, for ratings and to make a reporter's career.

Kevin Sites, the embedded NBC reporter in Falluja has tried to pull a "Michael Moore," using an "innocent (sic)" insurgent terrorist lying dead on the floor or playing possum with the marines. One day before, an enemy body lay in a similar position with a hidden booby trap, wounding several Americans. Another group of soldiers had previously been seriously injured by an Islamic combatant, who seemingly arose from the dead with his AK-47 blazing. This is a tactic of suicide murderers who actually want to die.

A marine had to make a split second decision using recent events and experiences. This heroic warrior is now being made an example of, because Sites and the General Electric cameraman obviously understood the situation much better. Their training in the halls of 30 Rockefeller Plaza gave them superior insight into "the rules of engagement."

Sites broadcast makes him an accomplice to al Qaeda and Saddam, not an inquisitive reporter digging for a good story. Al Jazeera and the other Arab television stations have taken NBC's "Joseph Goebbels-like" footage and rebroadcast it hundreds of times across the Middle East, creating anger in the Arab/Muslim gutter.

This single act has done substantial damage to the military and morale (including back home). Thus, reporter Sites deserves to be shipped back to America in shackles and tried for treason. The media must learn that the battlefield is not a place for fighting fair like a boxing match. The Geneva Convention rules have virtually nothing to do with this incident, despite what the phony Human Rights Watch fools try to spin with their proper British accents.

The purpose of the military is to win. During battles "stuff happens," which is known as unfortunate or collateral damage. However, the brave marine who took control of the mosque in Falluja and destroyed the enemy should not be given a lawyer. He should be given the Congressional Medal of Honor, which President Bush as Commander in Chief should announce immediately. This would send a very strong message to our enemies across the globe.

Only foolish, pc America of the 21st century could allow agenda-driven reporters to file uncensored military stories to the world. War is not a football game, where you have instant replays showing a close call. There are sudden life and death judgments continuously being made, which impact the lives of troops.

NBC and Sites have provided our enemies with serious ammunition and weaponry to use against us, more deadly than bin Laden could ever acquire. It is the pr bomb and they are launching it throughout the world via satellite technology. "Women's underwear on the heads of nude Iraqi prisoners is not enough. Now, those Americans are shooting "unarmed, elderly" combatants who are lying face down." Those are the exaggerations and falsehoods being reported with NBC's important scoop.

Kevin Sites has followed in the tradition of other immor(t)al reporters like Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, Ted Koeppel and the rest of the overly compassionate (for the enemy) media elites. Putting a camera in the battlefield is akin to placing a camera in a family's home and then "investigating" the one fight between a husband and wife, or the shouting matches with those terrible teenagers. If we are not shown the lovely family dinner as well, it looks like a particularly nasty household.

Unless the American public boycotts all General Electric appliances, and lets Jeff Immelt (CEO) and Bob Wright (President NBC) know about their despicable practices, the big media conglomerates will continue to put us all in grave danger. Hey, perhaps the SEC should also investigate. After all, GE has done much more damage than Martha Stewart could ever have managed, even if she tried.

------ Irwin N. Graulich is a well known motivational speaker on morality, ethics, religion and politics. He is also President and CEO of a leading marketing, branding and communications company in New York City. He can be reached at irwin.graulich@verizon.net

BUMP: Sites betrayal quote - good for complaining to media and elected officials.

Hey Sites, questioning authority is not your JOB as an imbedded -- it is reporting on action and events.

It is NOT your job to set up a squad of Marines, by not telling THEM what you spoke into your microphone: that these are the wounded that had been left before.

It is NOT your job to SET UP a life and death moment of decision, by withholding that key information from that young man, and rolling the tape while he reacted in that terrorized mere moment of uncertainty.

Yes, don't wonder any longer, Sites, you DID betray them! For the sake of TV drama, and making the Administration and war "look bad" in front of the whole world: YOU put that young Marine into that position. You are the criminal, more than he, who pulled the trigger. YOU had critical information about the status of the inhabitants of the building, and you did NOT share it with the squad -- just so you could capture the drama of them entering the building anxiously unaware of what they would encounter. YOU were the director, producer, and scene-setter of this event, and YOU are responsible for the outcome.

Direct and produce on your own time, Sites. You don't belong anywhere NEAR our brave young men, whom you would endanger just to get it on film.

From today's White House press briefing:

JEFF GANNON, TALON NEWS: I wanted to follow up on Connie's question about the Fallujah incident. She mentioned Al Jazeera and their editorial policy, but I'd like to point out that MSNBC has been running that footage four times an hour for the last two days. Now, is the administration or the Pentagon reconsidering embedding reporters with American troops?

MR. McCLELLAN: Considering what?

JEFF GANNON, TALON NEWS: Reconsidering the policy of embedding --

MR. McCLELLAN: I don't know of any -- no, I don't know of any change. That's a Department of Defense decision.

JEFF GANNON, TALON NEWS: How can American troops be expected to make life-and-death decisions when they have to worry about the camera that's at their back, portraying them to the world and the American public as somehow committing some kind of wrongdoing there?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, I think generally speaking, journalists understand the importance of what is going on, and they are careful about the way they proceed in reporting the news when there are ongoing operations. So that's a general comment. I can't speak to every specific incident, but the military worked very carefully with the media in carrying out this policy of including reporters in some of those operations that they carry out.

Your post was more ignorant and biased than most of what I have read concerning the "incident" that you refer to as treason by Kevin Sites. Since when is reporting the facts considered betrayal of one's country? If we fear the truth then we should be more concerned with our own character and actions than that of someone who is bringing that truth to light. You state that Kevin Sites caused damage to morale, yet that claim has little merit. If you researched Kevin Sites and his reporting, something that you would know is that he has not only a lot of experience in wartime reporting but he cares very much for those who he is traveling with. The soldiers respect him because he treats them with respect. You seem to think that "censoring" all reports is the answer, to make sure that everything is presented with your own accepted bias, rather than simply the facts of the matter. If you read the transcripts of the report that Kevin Sites made, you would know that he made a point of stating that the soldiers had recently faced simular situations only blocks away during which apparently unarmed persons were actually booby-trapped and that our forces had suffered casualties as a result. I am certain that - as someone who has been captured by Iraqi radicals himself and had his life threatened for being an "American spy" while reporting during the war - Kevin Sites knows very well the impact that "incidents" like this can have. He has slept in the dirt with those soldiers and spent hours and hours traveling and talking with them and only someone who is reacting with their own bias out of their own emotions rather than a fair observation of the reporting would believe that he would intentionally place those men and women - and his own crew - in danger simply to get a headline. I am sure that you have good intentions and don't want to see our soldiers put in danger by someone who you consider just a hotshot reporter with little regard for others. But, perhaps you should take the time to find out who you are accusing and get your own facts straight before you crucify someone for telling the truth. Yes, war is ugly. Yes, there are times when it is prudent not to go into detail about incidents that happen. But, there has to be a balance and we need to be accountable for our actions. I have two brothers in the military... one was shipped straight to downtown Baghdad several months ago, when insurgents were murdering our soldiers daily. So, I would react poorly to someone trying to fabricate a story just for the airtime, knowing that it would put Americans in danger. But, I am grateful that there are reporters who have the integrity to tell the truth, even when it is not pretty. Kevin Sites did not accuse that soldier of murder. He reported the facts - including the situation that the soldiers had been placed in and how volatile and deadly the city had been during the days and weeks leading up to that moment - and I believe that he made it clear that the troops were not always certain that "innocent" civilians were actually innocent, considering that they had been fired upon and lost lives to "innocent" civilians only hours before. (The transcripts are available on msnbc.com's website.) I don't think that Kevin Sites is perfect, but I do believe that he has integrity and cares very much for those who have suffered during this war... including the men and women who he is traveling with.

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