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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: bela_ghoulashi who wrote (98888)	5/23/2003 9:56:29 AM
From: thames_sider	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

The men on the ground knew nothing of this. They cannot be faulted personally, as individuals, as men in combat, for not having the benefit of hindsight beforehand. Agreed. Probably they were following SOP for hostile and possibly occupied territory. But they should have known it was no such thing. Remember, there was that orderly or ward assistant who tipped us off? Did he give wrong information, and imply there were Iraqi troops everywhere? Did no one at all ask him "Are there any soldiers"? Sending in a SWAT team, guns blazing and gung-ho, is all fine and dramatic and I agree it made a great story. But if this was actually a cooked-up drama when they could have just sent an ambulance to fetch her - and some people at least DID OR SHOULD have known this - then it's significant, no? Or do you think it's OK to lie to your troops and send them in with obviously inadequate if not blatantly false information, on a wasted, damaging and unnecessary mission? ... Do you think it's OK to treat our soldiers as toys for good headlines?

To: bela_ghoulashi who wrote (98888)	5/23/2003 12:51:27 PM
From: Sam	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

<<This whole attitude that wants to slight the purpose and the dedication of the men personally involved in this effort is petty, carping bullshit.>> No, that isn't the "whole attitude" at all. At least that wasn't my attitude when I reprinted the story. My attitude is that so much of this war has been built on lies, exaggerations, and half-truths. The rescue of Jessica bringing tears to people's eyes is just another example. Sure, the guys who rescued her possibly didn't know that the hospital was unguarded, and may have believed that they were risking their lives to save her. But the story was originally reported as a heroic rescue, albeit with suitably vague details. CNN, Fox and the networks all interrupted their regular programming to show a plane bringing Jessica back to the states. This whole thing is a little like those tales that the Bush Admin planted when they first came into office that Clinton people had trashed and vandalized the White House before leaving. This was headline news for about a week. Then, three or four months later, the GAO reported that they couldn't find any evidence of anything having been fixed, no invoices no expenditures no nothing. The truth that there had been no vandalism was on page 12 below the fold, and received almost no notice, except for Jim Lehrer talking about it with Mark Shields and Paul Gigot on the News Hour, asking how could we have been so gullible as to believe the story without checking it. I can hear someone saying now, well, we all agreed that there was vandalism back in January, so there must have been vandalism. The real story that was never printed and never got into any newspaper was, who planted the original story? And why? Was anyone disciplined? Somehow, I doubt it. And the story here is, who made up the "heroic rescue of Jessica" story? Why was it repeated? If what happened with Jessica was that they blasted a hospital for nothing, "rescuing" someone who didn't actually need rescuing at the time, but the story became an "act of heroism", then it isn't just "petty carping bullshit" to point it out, and it isn't trying to "slight and purpose and the dedication of the men personally involved in this effort", it is trying to get at truth. If this war needs lies to justify it, then it isn't justifiable. Unless you don't care at all about the truth. If that is the case, then this message is pointless, and the Bush admin is indeed the group for you.