The Price Of A Scoop: Two Dead The moral of Stephen Farrell's story.

Forbes.com ^ | September 14, 2009 | Tunku Varadarajan

[billorites]

What should one make of the tale of Stephen Farrell--the seemingly reckless New York Times reporter who was rescued by British soldiers on Sept. 9 after spending four days as a captive of the Taliban? A soldier died in the course of his rescue, leading sections of British public opinion to go ballistic, accusing Farrell not merely of selfishness, but of moral responsibility for the soldier's death. Is this reaction fair and justified?

Stephen Farrell was a British citizen reporting from Afghanistan. He'd received very strong advice from British troops to stay out of a Taliban-controlled sector into which he was planning to venture in search of a story. Ignoring that advice, Farrell entered the sector with his Afghan interpreter. Both men were seized by the Taliban within hours, and held captive in conditions that led the British to fear for the life of one of their citizens--hence the rescue mission, in which a British soldier was killed. (The hapless interpreter died, too.)

Let me begin by inverting the moral question and asking not whether Farrell--whose action in defiance of advice had generated an entirely avoidable need for rescue--bears moral responsibility for the soldier's death, but whether the Brits were entitled not to seek to rescue him. The rational answer has to be "yes." After all, the disregard of specific advice has to have some consequence. And did not Farrell assume the risk of some harm befalling him? So why not allow him to suffer the effects of his own recklessness? Fine military people spend huge amounts of thought and energy on trying to avoid casualties. Farrell's reckless rejection of their obviously correct advice was a choice as massive as its consequence for his dead Afghan associate.

Yet matters other than mere reason are in play here.

[IronJack]

The “rescue him” calculus doesn’t add up any way you work it. If his rescue was supposed to save a life and instead cost two, it failed. If it was supposed to protect someone, maybe the effort would have been better spent protecting someone who was willing to protect himself. If the mission was executed on principle, then what was that principle and was it served? I don’t think so.

He should have been left to his fate.

[Jonah Johansen]

Part of the equation should also include the fact that this reporter’s purpose and mission was to undermine our effort and slander our troops. He was a De facto Taliban agent/propagandist, acting in a treasonous manner for a treasonous employer, the NYT

[Spok]

Especially since the NYT covers Afghanistan solely to trash the American military and undermine the war effort. I wouldn’t even allow them in the country.

[PUGACHEV]

Another part of the equation has to be the military planners’ anticipation of an adverse public reaction if a rescue effort were not undertaken. Simply put, the military may not have wished to weather a storm of public criticism for failure to rescue the reporter, especially if he came to harm like David Pearl did. From that angle, the public is to blame for so often behaving in juvenile way that such a reaction is expected of them.

[Domangart]

Never forget the point of them to be there. To discover and kill the bad guys. Not to sip tea.

[SpaceBar]

Yup. Without evidence to the contrary, I will assume he was there to do a story maligning our military presence and foreign policy.

[Only1choice____Freedom]

This is a classic case of military heroes defending freedom and saving the lives of the ungrateful.

In the comments on the story, a 9/11 spouse mentions that it is quite possible that there may have been a higher military reasoning behind the “rescue” mission. On the surface it looks like a “reporter” gathering information from the enemy to discredit the military. However, since the situation was more of a hostage rescue, that changes the mission especially if there were other prisoners involved who do not wish to be named.

I would suspect that Mr. Ferrell may be a spy gathering important information and got caught. What better cover?

He should go home with the body of the soldier and meet the family of the hero who died for him. He should carry the body to the grave just as the solder went to his grave for this man.