Posted on 03/12/2006 11:41:27 AM PST by smoothsailing
Jack Kelly: All bad news, all the time
In covering Iraq, mainstream media give terrorists a boost
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
More than 8,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines have deserted since the Iraq war began, USA Today reported Tuesday.
"Some lawyers who represent deserters say the war in Iraq is driving more soldiers to question their service and that the Pentagon is cracking down on deserters to discourage antiwar sentiment," wrote reporter Bill Nichols.
" 'The last thing (Pentagon officials) want is for people to think ... that this is like Vietnam,' said Tod Ensign, head of Citizen Soldier, an antiwar group that offers legal aid to deserters."
Mr. Ensign is full of horse manure, as Mr. Nichols demonstrates in his story. The data show desertions have plunged since 9/11, and are much lower than during the Vietnam war.
The Army, Navy and Air Force reported 7,978 desertions in the 2001 fiscal year, but only 3,456 in 2005, Mr. Nichols noted. In 1971, the Army reported 33,094 desertions, 3.4 percent of its total force. In 2005, desertions represented just 0.24 percent of 1.4 million of active service members.
Mr. Nichols also quoted military spokesmen who said most deserters desert for reasons unconnected with political protest, and most return voluntarily.
Though it ran under a headline that emphasized the negative, the USA Today story is an example of journalism as it ought to be. Mr. Nichols reported a fact relevant to the war on terror, and put it into context.
The opposite is true of "reporting" by most news organizations in the wake of the destruction of the Golden Mosque in Samarra Feb. 22. Journalists who accused President Bush of "cherrypicking" intelligence to support the war in Iraq have cherrypicked facts..
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
Only the strong survive.
I have become immune to the ravingnutter, left-wing, wacko, dirtbag liberal-demokkkRAT, anti-everthing scumbags who tear down and denigrate all that is good about America and our brave US Military.
They should be stood against a wall...
let's have some fun with them.Get them all standing at a wall,I will drive by them with my tractor and fully loaded manure spreader-unloading as I go.
How about them in double-file lines, in a field, and you bring out the fricking combine, FD? I'd like to see them in little pieces, mixed in with the soybeans and corn kernels.
DemocRAT biodiesel...I like it!
Don't think that would work,large bones would damage the header.Now the discbine on the other hand----
Journalism is the business of attracting attention with topical nonfiction (meaning only that the don't admit it when they are making it up).The easiest way to attract attention is to question the reliability of the people/organizations upon which we all depend. Hence, journalism claims to be objective - then "objectively" slanders the president and the troops.
It's true that the First Amendment allows journalists to tell the truth - but it doesn't make them tell the whole story, or even tell the truth.
save for later
Hey Jack when the troops start coming home the news will get better. Until Iraq stands up, the end of bad news is not in sight.
General William T. Sherman said if you killed every journalist, you would have news from hell before breakfast.
Works for me. LOL.
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