He was ferrying a heatstroke victim to the British Army Field Hospital at Shaibah.
He was not a casualty of war but the victim of politically motivated murder. As the article rightly states.Reporting of such vile incidents in any other terms constitutes the only incentive (the militiary effect being insignificant) to the commission of these attrocities. Shame to any journalist/editor who desires to profit by such.
So much for the theory that your contribution to a party or a candidate is dirty and properly subject to regulation, while the revenue of the journalist is clean.
Devoted ... Isobel with murdered British Army Captain Dai Jones
Editors' Note An article on Sunday about attacks on the American military in Iraq over the previous two days, attributed to military officials, included an erroneous account that quoted Pfc. Jose Belen of the First Armored Division. Private Belen, who is not a spokesman for the division, said that a homemade bomb exploded under a convoy on Saturday morning on the outskirts of Baghdad and killed two American soldiers and their interpreter. The American military's central command, which releases information on all American casualties in Iraq, said before the article was published that it could not confirm Private Belen's account. Later it said that no such attack had taken place and that no American soldiers were killed on Saturday. Repeated efforts by The Times to reach Private Belen this week have been unsuccessful. The Times should not have attributed the account to "military officials," and should have reported that the command had not verified the attack.Please note that the Times calls this an "erroneous account." Does the Times mean by this to call into question the existence of the single source it identifies, one Pfc. Jose Belen of the 1st Armored Division? Is the Times suggesting that Pfc. Belen made up this erroneous story? Or did its reporter create Pfc. Belen and the story?
A week has gone by since this Editor's Note was published. I've checked the Times assiduously since then but I have found no further mention of the elusive Pfc. Belen, so I conclude that all the vast resources of the Times have been unequal to the task of finding him.
The Times article was--considering that the established order in Iraq cannot be affected by the death of three people more or less--exactly the sort of thing that the thugs of Saddam Hussain have been killing for.Either the Times desires to publish such stories to boost its circulation, or it desires to publish such stories to boost the fortunes of the Democratic Party at the expense of the present government of the U.S. Although the latter might be legal, at some point the question arises as to whether laws regulating political contributions are meaningful if a business such as the Times can make this sort of in-kind contribution. And the former explanation certainly is no brief for the idea that revenue obtained in such fashion and spent on NY Times editorials is pure as the driven snow, while your political contributions are filthy lucre to be regulated.
The New York Times Is Still Dead Condign punishment for this would be that the Times be required to announce--as prominently as the original death announcement--that the three "casualties" had been ressurected.