I just pray for the safety of our American troops over there.
That, of course, is the point.
ALL Americans - all people of goodwill from ANYWHERE in the civilized world, for that matter - should be concerned for the safety of our men and women in harm's way.
Apparently, the folks at the L.A. Times feel otherwise - if MILITARY personnel are at risk. THEY seem to be expendable.
Poking around Google provides some interesting insight into the editorial policy of the L.A. Times - particularly about the "rules of the game" when the shoe was on the OTHER foot, and Watson himself was in harm's way. Check out this quote from a story in the Village Voice in the "Week of April 7 - 13, 1999" called Kosovo to Hell:
"Two weeks ago, most of the foreign press corps stationed in Pristina, Kosovo, fled en masse, after Serb police pounded on some of their hotel doors with the butts of their AK-47s and ordered them out. Hacks on the run included correspondents from CNN, the BBC, and The New York Times, but when they were gone, one man was left standing: Paul Watson, a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times.How could the L.A. Times POSSIBLY justify what did in today's article - putting the lives of Americans at extreme risk by disclosing the "logistics of their situation" - when they exhibited CONSIDERABLY more discretion back then?Last week, Watson gave the L.A. Times the honor of publishing dispatches under an exclusive dateline: Pristina, where he witnessed the evictions of ethnic Albanians firsthand. The New York Times covered the gap in its reporting by stationing journalists in Macedonia and Albania, where they could document the evictions through interviews with newly arrived refugees. Meanwhile, only two major U.S. papers, The Washington Post and Newsday, acknowledged the L.A. Times's exclusive by reprinting stories under Watson's byline.
By staying in Kosovo, Watson was privileged to all kinds of riveting details. For example, after Serb police killed human rights lawyer Bajram Kelmendi, the lawyer's widow talked to Watson at length, explaining how five uniformed men broke into her house and pointed rifles at her children's heads, before taking her husband and two sons away to be shot point-blank in the street. At the end of last week, when TV networks were showing footage of the U.S. POWs, Watson was offering expert analysis on how the Serbs had won the propaganda war so far.
Simon K.C. Li, foreign editor at the Los Angeles Times, declined to discuss the logistics of Watson's situation, saying that to do so would only "raise his profile" and further expose him to danger..."
Oh, that's right. This time the people at risk are SOLDIERS, not journalists.
FYI, Simon.Li@latimes.com