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 Greetings! You are reading an article from The Mudville Gazette. To reach the front page, with all the latest news and views, click the logo above or "main" below. Thanks for stopping by! November 24, 2004 The FeastBy GreyhawkEmphasis added in following: Kevin Sites For a moment, I'm paralyzed still taping with the old man in the foreground. I get up after a beat and tell the Marines again, what I had told the lieutenant -- that this man -- all of these wounded men -- were the same ones from yesterday. That they had been disarmed treated and left here. Clearly the Marine is responding to Sites belated identification of the individuals as having already been treated and disarmed (a point which the Marine need not accept as Gospel anyway). But now watch the NY Times work it's "magic", making the key quote disappear: BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 21 - A marine who appears to shoot and kill an unarmed and wounded Iraqi prisoner in an NBC News video was not aware that the incident was being recorded, and moments later approached the cameraman with seemingly remorseful words - "I didn't know, sir, I didn't know" - according to the first public description of the events by the cameraman, Kevin Sites, since his brief and somewhat ambiguous initial report. There are no clarifying remarks to follow, and no verbatim quotes from Sites' web page. (A feat I was able to accomplish with ease.) Sites was clear on what it was the Marine didn't know - but that didn't fit the Times' storyline. Pathetic. You can't tell whether this is the work of a reporter or an editor, (that lack of accountability is one of the major flaws with legacy media) but the reporter (Ed Wong) also wrote a piece prior to the invasion of Fallujah declaring the "real problem" to be Ramadi - another city nearby - in essence accusing the US of having botched the operation before a shot was fired. The Times' pre-attack coverage of Fallujah also included a story explaining that President Bush had earned a huge majority of military votes from Iraq due to his anti-gay marriage agenda. In spite of the few "balanced" pieces they occasionally print The Times remains a premier left-wing information toilet. Sadly there's a market for such, as it seems to benefit from an endless supply of readers eager to feed from it and accepting that every morsel they discover there is delicious and nutritious too. In the case of their twisting of Kevin Sites' account of the shooting in Fallujah it's disappointing to see so many who should know better eagerly fighting their way to a coveted spot at the drain pipe for the feast. Posted by Greyhawk / November 24, 2004 2:07 PM | Permalink 12 Comments |
November 26, 2010America@war [Greyhawk]
I think anyone who's ever pondered the "comment" option - once only available on blogs and bulletin boards, now ubiquitous on almost any web site - will appreciate this:
The so-called faculty of writing is not so much a faculty of writing as it is a faculty of thinking. When a man says, "I have an idea but I can't express it"; that man hasn't an idea but merely a vague feeling. If a man has a feeling of that kind, and will sit down for a half an hour and persistently try to put into writing what he feels, the probabilities are at least 90 percent that he will either be able to record it, or else realize that he has no idea at all. In either case, he will do himself a benefit. That's wisdom from the past, captured for posterity at the US Naval Institute, shared via the web on the institute's 137th anniversary. From their about page:
"The Naval Institute has three core activities," among them, History and Preservation: The Naval Institute also has recently introduced Americans at War, a living history of Americans at war in their own words and from their own experiences. These 90-second vignettes convey powerful stories of inspiration, pride, and patriotism. Take a look at the collection, and you'll see it's not limited to accounts from those who served on ships at sea, members of the other branches are well-represented. I'm fortunate to have met USNI's Mary Ripley, she's responsible for the institute's oral history program (and she's the daughter of the late John Ripley, whose story is told here). She also deserves much credit for their blog. ("We're not the Navy nor any government agency. Blog and comment freely.") We met at a milblog conference - Mary knew (and I would come to realize) that milbloggers are the 21st-century version of exactly what the US Naval Institute is all about. Once that light bulb came on in my head, I mentioned a vague idea for a project to her - milblogs as the 21st century oral history that they are. "Put that in writing," she said (of course - see first paragraph above!) - and here's part of the result. Shortly after the first tent was pitched by the American military in Iraq a wire was connected to a computer therein, and the internet was available to a generation of Americans at war - many of whom had grown up online. From that point on, at any given moment, somewhere in Iraq a Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine was at a keyboard sharing the events of his or her day with the folks back home. While most would simply fire off an email, others took advantage of the (then) relatively new online blogging platforms to post their thoughts and experiences for the entire world to see. The milblog was born - and from that moment to this stories detailing everything from the most mundane aspects of camp life to intense combat action (often described within hours of the event) have been available on the web... And et cetera - but since you're reading this on a milblog, you probably knew that. And you know that milblogs aren't just blogs written by troops at war, that many friends, family members, and supporters likewise documented their story of America at war online in near-real time, as those stories developed. The diversity in membership of that group is broad, the one thing we all have in common is the impulse to make sense of the seemingly senseless, and communicate the tale - for each of us that impulse was strong enough to overcome whatever barriers prevent the vast majority of people from doing the same. Everyone at some point has some vague idea they believe should be shared - we were the people who, from some combination of internal and external urging, found and spent those many half hours persistently trying to write it down. But where will all that be in another 137 years? Or five or ten, for that matter. That's something I've asked myself since at least 2004 - when I wrote this:
Membership in the ghost battalion has grown in the years since, and an ever growing majority of those abandoned-but-still-standing sites are vanishing. Have you checked out Lt Smash's site lately? How about Sgt Hook's? If you're a long-time milblog reader you know the first widely-read milblog from Operation Iraq Freedom and the first widely-read milblog from Afghanistan are both gone from the web. If you're a relative newcomer to this world you may never even have heard of them - or the dozens upon dozens of others who carried forth the standard they set down. If you have a vague notion that something should be done about that, (a notion I've heard expressed more than once...) then you and I and the good folks at the US Naval Institute are in agreement. Preserving the history documented by the milbloggers is just one of the goals of the milblog project, the once-vague idea that we're now making real. And it's a big idea, if I say so myself - too big to explain in one simple blog post, so stand by for more. Likewise, it's too big a task to be accomplished by just one person. So if you're a milblogger (and exactly what is a milblogger? is a topic for much further discussion on its own) I'm asking for your help. All I'll really need is just a little bit (maybe just one or two of those half hours...) of your time, and your willingness to tell the tale. We've already made history, it's time to save it. (More to follow...) Posted 4:02 PM | Permalink |
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The Mudville Gazette is the on-line voice of an American warrior and his wife who stands by him. They prefer to see peaceful change render force of arms unnecessary. Until that day they stand fast with those who struggle for freedom, strike for reason, and pray for a better tomorrow.
 
 
 Furthermore, I will occasionally use satire or parody herein. The bottom line: it's my house. I like having visitors to my house. I hope you are entertained. I fight for your right to free speech, and am thrilled when you exercise said rights here. Comments and e-mails are welcome, but all such communication is to be assumed to be 1)the original work of any who initiate said communication and 2)the property of the Mudville Gazette, with free use granted thereto for publication in electronic or written form. If you do NOT wish to have your message posted, write "CONFIDENTIAL" in the subject line of your email. Original content copyright © 2003 - 2011 by Greyhawk. Fair, not-for-profit use of said material by others is encouraged, as long as acknowledgement and credit is given, to include the url of the original source post. Other arrangements can be made as needed. Contact: greyhawk at mudvillegazette dot com  Tending Distant Far from hearth and home, watching What tales we'll tell When things grim Some distant sunset, vision fading Saluting fallen friends whose names - Greyhawk, Baghdad, December 2004 |
some people hear what they want to hear and read what they want to read. they aren't necessarily interested in pursuing the truth due to laziness or ignorance or falsely believe that what is being reported is the truth. very unfortunate. i am just happy that there are sites like yours. i feel like you present information in a balanced no nonsense fashion. such as posting the kevin sites link... anyways, keep up the good work...happy thanksgiving....thank god we live in america...stay safe!
I wasn't going to respond to this, Mr. Greyhawk (bless you for your service, Sir) because as has been noted here by you and others is true: people often hear what they want to hear and read what they want to read. In some measure, the meaning of words is sometimes (often?) a matter of interpretation rather than what was actually said. You give Sites the benefit of the doubt, and you are to be commended for that. But as for myself, after reading Sites's own account (at your recommendation, and thank you for the link), I'm still skeptical as to this man's motives. Granted, I don't know much about Sites at this point, but based just upon this incident I suspect he's more of subversive media sensation-monger than you give him credit for.
My skepticism hinges on my intepretation of these sentences (and I quote Sites from his own blog):
"At that point the Marine who fired the shot became aware that I was in the room. He came up to me and said, 'I didn't know sir-I didn't know.' The anger that seemed present just moments before turned to fear and dread."
To my mind, either Sites phrased this portion of his account poorly, or he was deliberately phrasing it to mislead. When I first read this exact excerpt (on another blog, I believe, but I honestly can't remember now although I know it wasn't the NYT) my overall impression was that the Marine was afraid because Sites had seen what he had done, not because he had killed a wounded, unarmed terrorist from a previous battle. After reading Sites full account of the incident, my mind remains unchanged.
Sites starts this key paragraph by noting the Marine didn't know he was in the room--which seems to insinuate that the Marine wouldn't have shot the wounded terrorist had he known Sites was present, rather than that the Marine wouldn't have shot had he known the terrorist was wounded the day before. A matter of interpretation I guess, but I interpreted it differently than you. Sites seems to be implying that the Marine would have acted differently if he had known of Sites’s presence, but not necessarily if he had known the terrorist was leftover from the day before.
Sites then uses the "I didn't know sir-I didn't know" quote without a real context--again, did the Marine not know Sites was in the room, or did the Marine not know the man had been wounded the day before? Sites could easily have clarified by adding a little codicil, something to the effect of the Marine didn't realize the wounded terrorist was from a previous battle, but Sites did not. There's no real contextual agreement about what the Marine didn't know--there's two things he didn't know about, so which thing is Sites referring to? Is this just innocently poor writing or deliberately miselading journalism? Again, I guess it's a matter of interpretation.
Finally, in the closing sentence of the paragraph, Sites says of the Marine that "The anger that seemed present just moments before turned to fear and dread." Now, why would Sites choose to use the words "fear and dread," which seem to imply that the Marine knew he had done something wrong (he did not) in front of a journalist and that he knew there would be a backlash? I'm sure the troops know that with journalists around their actions must be above reproach (which this young man's actions were, given what he knew when he fired on the wounded terrorist), so again, by using the word "fear" and "dread" Sites is again implying that the Marine is reacting only to Sites presence and not the shooting of a wounded terrorist from the day before. Why didn’t Sites use the words “remorse” and “dismay” , which would probably have more accurately reflected what the Marine was feeling than “fear” and “dread”? Remorse and dismay were no doubt much closer to what the young Marine felt about shooting a leftover terrorist who was actually no threat to him. But fear and dread suggest the Marine was more worried about a potential media backlash than about what he had done. Fear and dread of what? Eternal damnation or Sites’ presence? So again, I must ask: is this simply a poor choice of words on Sites’ part, or deliberately misleading journalism?
One more thought before closing: if Sites was convinced of the context of the incident (the Marine did the right thing), and he knew how negatively it would be interpreted by the media, why publicize it at all? Things like this happen everyday over there, I’m sure…why go public with this? It’s not news…it’s just a brave yet frightened guy doing his job and trying to not get his own ass shot and killed in the process. It most especially is not news when the wounded terrorists are known with alarming frequency to blow themselves up to take as many of our guys with them as they can. I believe the answer is because Sites knew he had potentially damning footage of one of our own doing a dirty, and he knew he could get professional mileage out of it. But again, I guess it’s just a matter of interpretation.
Sorry for taking up so much of your bandwidth, Mr. Greyhawk, but I just couldn’t hold that back any longer. I think you’re at least 75% wrong about Mr. Sites and his motives. But you know what capped it for me? Further down in his “Open Letter” when he says he decided to turn the video footage over to NBC because he “knew NBC would be responsible with the footage.” Good Lord. What a load of claptrap. The man’s either hopelessly naive about those in his profession or he’s perniciously disingenuous and thus one of “them.” I’m not saying Sites is all bad, or that he’s a barking moonbat of the Michael Moore brand—I don’t know enough about him to make those absolute types of judgments—but I do think you’re giving him entirely too much credit in this particular instance. I personally believe he’s a macho “gonzo-journalist” adrenaline junkie who loves his own brave exploits, whose professed impartiality and implied piety is at least partially a mask, who was looking for something sensational and damning, something that would make us look bad while at the same time furthering his career and his prestige with his peers—and he got it. At the expense of a truly courageous young man who has the guts to actually fight.
Again, thank you for your service, Sir, and keep up the good work on this blog. I thoroughly enjoy it. I hope you have a safe and enjoyable—and if not enjoyable, then at least full—Thanksgiving.
Great site GreyHawk! I have to agree with Amy's previous comments about the intent of the reporter being malicious. This is the time for these reporters to get their "media combat wings". This is the first major conflict we've had since Viet Nam(I'm not including the 100 hour "Desert Storm")for these reporters to really get involved in. In previous wars reporters got the "plum" assignments by endearing themselves to unit commanders by writing accurate, unbiased versions of engagements. However, in this conflict using embedded reporters every reporter is guaranteed a front-line story. Now their allegiance is to their bosses who gave them these "plums"- hence we're fed a diet of left-wing, sensationalized crap like that of Sites. As a former 11B Paratrooper, I know how widely varied soldiers' recollections of engagements - I have very little faith in civilian reporters' accounts. I always wait to check out a few different versions before I form an opinion - like this website. When I read your original post I knew that wasn't the whole story. Thanks for proving me right!!
An exerpt from Ernie Pyle:
NORTHERN TUNISIA, April 22, 1943 - I was away from the front lines for a while this spring, living with other troops, and considerable fighting took place while I was gone. When I got ready to return to my old friends at the front I wondered if I would sense any change in them.
I did, and definitely.
The most vivid change is the casual and workshop manner in which they now talk about killing. They have made the psychological transition from the normal belief that taking human life is sinful, over to a new professional outlook where killing is a craft. To them now there is nothing morally wrong about killing. In fact it is an admirable thing.
I think I am so impressed by this new attitude because it hasn't been necessary for me to make this change along with them. As a noncombatant, my own life is in danger only by occasional chance or circumstance. Consequently I need not think of killing in personal terms, and killing to me is still murder.
Even after a winter of living with wholesale death and vile destruction, it is only spasmodically that I seem capable of realizing how real and how awful this war is. My emotions seem dead and crusty when presented with the tangibles of war. I find I can look on rows of fresh graves without a lump in my throat. Somehow I can look on mutilated bodies without flinching or feeling deeply.
It is only when I sit alone away from it all, or lie at night in my bedroll recreating with closed eyes what I have seen, thinking and thinking and thinking, that at last the enormity of all these newly dead strikes like a living nightmare. And there are times when I feel that I can't stand it and will have to leave.
But to the fighting soldier that phase of the war is behind. It was left behind after his first battle. His blood is up. He is fighting for his life, and killing now for him is as much a profession as writing is for me.
************************************************
I find it sad that Ernie Pyle was killed by a Japanese machine gun emplacemnt in the Pacific only a few short months before the war's end!
I've been reassembling a post I lost here with your posting problem. It is basically a history of war correspondents and the change in journalistic standards that began with Cronkite's infamous "Stalemate" editorial on the Tet Offensive. From that point forward political correctness swept over the Fourth Estate. No longer were men like Ernie Pyle celebrated. Quite the opposite actually as they were labeled in journalism schools and journalism society as "biased in their time".
Why this "bias" and "vilification"? Because they chose sides! They were Americans first and journalists second. This would not do. The definition of "objective" as defined by journalists has come into play. "Anyone who has seen my reporting on television or has read the dispatches on this website is fully aware of the lengths I've gone to play it straight down the middle -- not to become a tool of propaganda for the left or the right. - Kevin Sites" Men like Ernie Pyle would not understand.
Yet when you speak to aspiring young war correspondents they mention Pyle in awe. They want to have the same respect and openness from the troops that Ernie commanded. Sites was there. He was at that point. Then he crossed the line. I argue that former war correspondents faced the exact same situations that Sites faced albeit not on a real time basis. The courts martial records in the history of the American Military are full of incidents that were reported but not publicized until an investigation was complete. To me it is a statement of the deathknell of right and wrong.
Oh well, it was good piece. If I can find the time I'll reconstruct it in Word so as not to lose it next time! ;-) Although it was totally biased in favor of my side of the argument. But then I am the dad of a Marine warfighter and look at this from a different perspective entirely! That would be the perspective of this young Marine and his parents. I am not afraid to choose sides!
JarheadDad,
Damn right! I posted those same sentiments in
another thread. As I said before..Ernie Pyle is spinning in his grave at the thought of War Correspondants like Kevin Sites.
To save you some effort..here is the URL at Indiana University with Ernie Pyle's wartime columns. Should just make it a cut and paste job. Hope it helps in your reconstruction efforts:
http://www.journalism.indiana.edu/news/erniepyle/
Semper Fi!
Greyhawk, I have to say that I agree with this assesement and your others on the Sites incident.
I disagree with Amy's perspective. I think the marine was simply saying he didn't know the situation from the day before. Yes I think fear could have been a reaction, its war, there are many things to fear in war, one thing to fear is a reporter on the scene bringing another unknown factor into a tense situation. I think the marines are perfectly capable of sorting all this out and leave them to do so.
As Americans we should embrace our difference's of opinon and discuss them, not in anger and hate as some on the net have done, but just regular talk.
You allow that to happen, so thanks Greyhawk.
Kevin Sites is a legend only in his own mind.
Happy Thanksgiving to all of you at the front...
and thank you!
This was not just a difference of opinion - it was a conscious attempt to depict our troops as war criminals. I do not believe for a second that he is sorry for anything but for being called to account.
The man was an enemy who made a suspicious move.
Until you have looked at an armed opposing force with a gun pointed at you with the intention of killing you, you will never understand the change in perception that takes place, and how it colors every action taken in subsequent action. As a police officer I have encountered that change in perception...The marine reacted in an appropriate manner and will be cleared, The press is dramaticly spinning and Sites should have put the incident in perspective, he should have included the entire context of the mission and chaulked it up to a tough but neccessary decision, that quite possibly could have saved his own life...Again the media proves it serves no one but itself.
It takes a lot to tick me off. A lot.
After reading that snippet from the NY Times...
I can only say "perfidy!". Disgusting wretches. Toilet lickers. Slime merchants.
Some will stop at nothing to promote their agenda.
Greyhawk-
Question- has Mr. Sites published an open letter or commented to the NYT and other outlets that have misued his blog posts? I haven't seen anything. Considering that he hasn't squealed about it I have to assume that: (a) he agrees with them or (b) he's afraid to confront them as he'll lose that MSM media ticket he just got punched.
If someone did that to me..I'd be ripping some
@$$.
Sites did write a open letter to the Marines at his blogsite saying many in the media, esp the Middle East have misinterpreted his report especially not including the whole context (as in the Marine in question had been shot in the face by an insurgent and another Marine had been killed a few days earlier by Iraqis faking dead)
Sites further comments he was torn and seriously contemplated destroying the tape, but here is the problem and if what he says is true I see the dilemma, there was an Iraqi insurgent in that same room who was visibly moving, he was peering from behind a blanket, in fact he posed a greater danger, no one could see what he was hiding under that blanket, but the two Marines who saw him move merely pulled guns on him, and didn't shoot, the Iraqi shot by the other Marine, was not moving except breathing......of course that insurgent was very co-operative in offering information, perhaps because of seeing his body shot......