Posted on 11/22/2004 9:04:46 AM PST by Ordinary_American
Since the shooting in the mosque, I've been haunted that I have not been able to tell you directly what I saw or explain the process by which the world came to see it as well. As you know, I'm not some war-zone tourist with a camera who doesn't understand that ugly things happen in combat. I've spent most of the last five years covering global conflict. But I have never in my career been a "gotcha" reporter -- hoping for people to commit wrongdoings so I can catch them at it.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Write to that lowlife Sites: kevinsites@hotmail.com
What happened in the mosque? The Marines
were doing their job!
Nothing to see here; move along.
If it moves, kill it; if it moans, kill it
again; if it is embedded, kill it first.
MV
The more Sites opens his mouth the more he compounds the problem the more he looks like the liar he his.
"if it is embedded, kill it first.'
madvlad EXCELLENT IDEA!!!!!!
...it appeared to me very plainly that something was not right....We all knew it was a complicated story, and if not handled responsibly, could have the potential to further inflame the volatile region. I offered to hold the tape until they had time to look into incident and begin an investigation -- providing me with information that would fill in some of the blanks.
So he handled it irresponsibly by handing it over the MSM networks whom he HAD to know would exploit it. Now along with everything else he is a liar. Now that he's feeling the heat he's trying to backtrack and whitewash his role.
BTW, my email to kevinsites@hotmail.com didn't get through. But it appears memail to the address on his web site did. See www.kevinsites.net.
The Marine leadership also screwed up bigtime by not putting an investigation hold on the video.
I LOVE the new headline for the updated story.
"Iraqi that was shot didn't move"
They are pulling all stops in order to keep this alive, AND NEGATIVE.
The Marine leadership also screwed up bigtime by not putting an investigation hold on the video.
You have a point, but it doesn't seem like Sites gave them a whole lot of time to do this -- in the heat of battle and all. And by his own explanation it seems like he verbally implied he was waiting for a go ahead from them. I think Sites is just using this as an excuse for his actions and to inoculate himself from criticism.
Maybe in the future ALL video by embeds during a major combat operation should be automatically placed on 'investigation hold' until reviewed and an explicit decision is made to release it.
Immediately after the mosque incident, I told the unit's commanding officer what had happened. I shared the video with him, and its impact rippled all the way up the chain of command. Marine commanders immediately pledged their cooperation.
I have two questions for this "journalist":
If the airing of this video can be shown to directly cause more deaths of more US soldiers (and, in fact, more deaths of more Iraqi civilians, too), was it really necessary to air it?
Which is more import, "airing the truth", or protecting the lives of US soldiers and Iraqi civilians?
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