Posted on 04/08/2003 1:38:01 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Not for the first time, the most spectacular images of the United States armoured advance to Baghdad have come from Rupert Murdoch's Fox Network.
After scooping its cable news rivals CNN and MSNBC with footage of troops entering Baghdad and then later storming Saddam International Airport, a Fox reporter, Greg Kelly, and his cameraman had the dress circle view yesterday as a column of US 3rd Infantry division tanks took a tour of Baghdad landmarks.
Starting at Saddam Hussein's main presidential palace, viewers were afforded footage of gold-plated wash basins and waterfalls, and a US soldier hoisting a Georgia University pennant.
Then onto Baghdad's parade grounds and their giant crossed sabres commemorating the Iraq-Iran war. US soldiers mugged for the camera and held up the stars and stripes while Kelly did live crosses with Fox anchors in Washington.
Then came the coup de grace: the destruction of the iconic statue of Saddam astride a steed to cheers from the US soldiers.
Meanwhile, Fox's rivals were shut out of town. CNN had to make do with distant shots of smoke-filled Baghdad and retold wire service stories from reporters with troops.
A US military spokesman, Max Blumenfeld, denied that Fox - with its racy but unashamedly patriotic and unquestioning coverage of the war - was being openly favoured. However, he did say enigmatically that public affairs officers such as him were paid to "know your enemy".
"Fox may well have more access. They have good contacts and they asked the right questions in the pre-planning."
Fox is now the most watched cable news network, introducing a right-wing tabloid ethos to the staid 24-hour news industry.
The Iraqi journalists embedded with the Medena and Hammurabi Republican Guard units have missed every one of their assigned deadlines for nearly a week.
My point was directed at the respect and public tribute military men and women afford each other, even in retirement. When Major Bob Bevalaqua was responding to an inquiry by Colonel David Hunt on camera, he addresses him as "Sir" and he answers the inquiry in a direct, insightful and informational way.
I like that etiquette, it radiates a profession of discipline, excellence and ongoing legacy to Americans who depend on these guys to protect us.
The only thing that ABC announcing crew can report on a typical play is ... "When the ball was snapped, all hell broke loose, and there was a huge blur that sped past me, it might have been Ray Lewis, and he only missed running full speed over me by less than 2 inches. That was close. To repeat, I saw what appeared to be a running play, but then all I saw was a lot of fast and violent movemement, and what could have been Ray Lewis barely missed me. To add further details, I heard plastic protective pads and helmets loudly cracking, a pounding of feet on the turf - and a horrible grunting. The outcome of the play and the location of the ball is at this point not clear."
That's what real time war journalism is worth. The risks to these guys and the soldiers who protect them isn't worth the return in news.
As I have stated in earlier posts, the media will not be satisfied to wait until the "game is over" to report on the outcome. They do not care if they see the ass-end of a lineman for the entire game as long as it they are involved in the process. If the media waits until the end of the game to report the score, its no longer "news". The same thinking is now being applied to war reporting.
The DOD kept all journalists on the sidelines for their own individual safety in GWI and got ripped for it by the media. Now they're embedded and they share the same risks as soldiers. The media cannot be 100% safe reporting a war and be involved in the provess. They cannot have it both ways.
There's no other place on Earth like this. Not North Korea or Syria or Iran or Mexico or Indonesia. Not Russia or China or Phillipines. This is a regime bolstered by institutions of terror and significant resources that perfected their tactics and threat capability for 30 years. They've exploited cynical international political and diplomatic cover. They operate absent any larger State survival interest, and thus are without all hurdles to the use of mass destruction weaponry and strategic civilian slaughter. We needed to seize and occupy this territory, and kill the murderers who threaten everyone and everything.
Going forward, it's going to be about CIA street assets, Spec Ops targeting precision Air Force and Naval Air assaults, Airborne and Marine quick strike units with light artillery and armor designed to destroy enemy terror cells in heavily populated 3rd World urban centers and undeveloped and rugged wastelands.
This is the last time we're lining up like this. We couldn't possibly afford to wait for the Heavy Armor like the Wesley Clarks and Hugh Sheltons demanded, we'd still be waiting in Kuwait City for the 4th ID to stage their parade and the Hussein boys would have fortified their command and the Fedayeen Saddam and Al Qaida/Hizbollah hitmen would be entrenched and everywhere.
The journalists won't have the forewarning or long-term stories to springboard from in our future military operations. They're going to have to get the news of our projection of military prerogatives straight from the fiction writers at Reuters, Al Jazeera, New York Times and the BBC. We didn't nip Saddam in the bud when we should have. Future Saddam's are non-starters.
Baghdad still is frought with peril and deadly risk but .... now about that Pyongyang cancer ...
The embeds report the ambush and copter crashes, but they don't have to process the scene as a pro and learn to distance themselves from the carnage of human death. Soldiers do, it's part of the job. The free lancers of Reuters, Al Jazeera, BBC and the Brit tabloids who interject themselves into any American military conflict are enemy combatants in a warlike operation against the lives of U.S. soldiers. They have no place around a theatre of War without authorization. Their proximity doesn't happen, just like the guy with a girdle of dynamite doesn't, a thug weilding an AK-47 doesn't, and a bad guy hauling around a mortor wagon whose payload is intended for the good guys doesn't. They go bye bye.
The rules of engagement need to be as primitive as it takes to beat the bad guys who plot to kill us in our cities. Most Americans would sheet-can the journalists if their access is deemed to be a threat to our boys. Our countrymates are over the shame and distrust of VietNam, we trust the humanity of our leadership and soldiers and understand the threats facing us.
Our good-guy role is accepted here at home, where it counts. Americans want to get the job done.
Colonel North and the FOX crew are the responsible minority in reporting the War fairly and conscientiously. That's about it. The worldwide media are agent provocateurs seeking the destruction of America.
Hands down...they have the most experience...Greg Kelly is a nine-year US Marine pilot, and then there is Ollie. No one else can touch these guys for knowing exactly what is going on. Plus they have such enthusiasm.
Fox News has far more leftist spokespersons presenting their case than CBS, ABC, alphabet socialists have LEFTISTS presenting their case.
Their problem with Fox is that Fox also has centrists, populists, conservatives, and rightists presenting their case. They actually do try to be fair and balanced, IMHO. They report and you decide.
Al Jazeera is a terrorist entity, working a systematic disinformation assault that threatens the lives of American citizens and our soldiers in Iraq. They present a fraudulent and incidiary account of events in Iraq that serves only to manufacture a prolonged resistance and butchery by thuggish elements connected to Saddam. It has cost American lives, it has cost Iraqi lives.
Al Jazeera reporters, camera crews and operatives need to be warned that they are tresspassers and enemy combatants, and they will be targeted as terrorists and killed if found operating in that country.
They didn't just "happen" upon the scene of our POWs and KIAs in Nasiryah, they didn't just "happen" to have a handy uplink and just "happen" to broadcast a lengthy report showing desecration of our dead (executed?) and interviews with our POWs. They didn't just happen on that Market "bombing" with all the dead civilians available for immediate distribution throughout the Arab World.
They are enemies and causing imminent threat. They foment rage and terrorist sentiments in Arab populations aimed at Americans through a presentation steeped in fraud, lies and deceit. They play the bin Laden tapes. They are waging War, in real ways, and their operations should be destroyed as we would an al-Qaida cell in Pakistan, Indonesia or Sudan. Their propaganda is designed to elicit hatred and strengthen schemes of death and destruction against our people.
Peter Arnett should be seized by Rangers, returned to the U.S. and tried for treason. Unembedded and unsecured foreign nationals with video cameras and uplinks broadcasting the movements of Special Ops and Kurdish freedom fighters in that caravan outside Mosul last Saturday should be shot on sight - that's espionage, and who knows where these feeds are going. Iranian Islamists with artillery coordinates? Turkish military thugs who just might send an F-15 up for a pleasure flight and let's hope no bombs fall off or heavy artillery shells go off by themselves to Eastern parts unknown possibly hitting a group of Kurdish leaders.
Enough is enough. This isn't an open house for anyone with a scribble pad, video camera and satellite link to wander carte blanche. Robert Fisk is an American-hating Islamist.
It's the only great weakness in this entire affair, but it is insidious. The Iraq regime is over. Journalist Visitor and Working Visas need to be revoked and they should be given 48 hours to leave Iraq ... noncompliance is considered a threat against Americans and Iraqi transition efforts, and they will be legitimate targets for lethal elimination.
It doesn't matter how many thugs we root out of Baghdad basements if Al Jazeera is actively working to incite three new thugs from the outside Arab world to sneak into Iraq to take their place.
Yes, a very bitchy editorial.
I don't think an M1 Abrams is going to be able to maneuver down two sets of rickety stairs to the basement of a Jakarta produce storefront to kill 4 al-Qaida recruiting agents. The Bradley is neat, but try sneaking it 13,000 feet up the Andes and down a crevasse to a La Paz llama ranch where Hizbullah money men and Mexican smuggling czars are finalizing the details of a massive operation to move hundreds of Islamist suicide martyrs and tons of explosives accross the border through New Mexico. Moving big booming guns into Toronto, Hamburg, Prague, Detroit and Sao Paulo won't make Islamist terrorists come out with their hands up. We're not about turning buildings indiscriminately to rubble anymore. Well, maybe Detroit ... ;^)
Look at Baghdad ... what are M1Abrams tanks and long range artillery guns going to do to root the last of Saddams Special Guard and Hit Men from their hiding places?
Nothing, it'll just freak out the abused locals who are the ones who'll help us find these guys. Let's put 100 Tanks on the streets. What occupation?
They're standing up on balconies with high-magnification binoculars chatting on satellite phones.
They're reporting! LOL
We should give these people a take it or leave it offer: we provide an armed escort to Baghdad International and put them on a C-17 and we'll fly them to our AFB in Italy.
Or, they can stay in Baghdad in that hotel, but if our commanders continue to observe activity that indicates the building is a tactical threat for massive mortor and chain gun ambush and espionage, we'll drop a 2000 lb bomb or two down the elevator shaft without prior warning or second thought.
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