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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! July 27, 2005 BlurryBy GreyhawkA postscript to yesterday's story on the New York Time's fabrication of demands made on Americans by US troops. Times Watch responds to the same story, and notes the obvious holes in the cheese - how exactly would it benefit the GIs if Americans were to bow to their alleged demands? What those would accomplish for the troops Shanker keeps silent about. Despite the assumption made in that paragraph, none of the military members Shanker quotes actually demand such World War II-era measures as gas rationing (a theme strengthened in the story with archived photos of old propaganda posters).Good to see at least a few people noted that other crucial point too - the Times could offer no actual quotes supporting their claims. The Times is inventing a fictional version of the war in Iraq, fabricating the voices of US soldiers. Speaking of fictional accounts of the war in Iraq, looks like one's coming soon to a TV near you. The LA Times reports: "Over There," Steven Bochco's new American-troops-in-Iraq series, uneasily walks a difficult line ? just like its characters.Got that Hollywood does Iraq sick feeling in your stomach yet? How about this: Bochco, for one, is not kidding himself about higher purpose: "Our agenda ... is simply, and fundamentally, to create a very compelling entertainment," he says in the video press kit FX sent out with the series' first three episodes. Gerolmo is more expansive: "War is a natural subject of television. It's got all the drama of 'Law & Order' and it's got all the action of '24' and, for better or worse, it's got all the gore of 'CSI.' Why not write about war? ... We can give you a powerful, visceral gut-wrenching experience that the news can't give you."That can mean one of two things, of course. Lefties in America believe that the news doesn't tell how truly awful Iraq is, while troops in Iraq know that the media overemphasizes the bad news from there. Which view does this program present? The first clue that it might actually be a good show comes from the fact that the LA Times reviewer pans it outright: "Over There" seems relatively well-intentioned and -researched, but it falls victim to movie convention and, worse, to a lack of curiosity about its own characters and setting... But for the most part it feels fuzzy, its lack of detail and complexity only somewhat disguised by a plurality of big events.Given this thumbs-down review from the LA Times it sounds like this is definitely a show worth watching. Ironically this "fictional" version of the war in Iraq could easily succeed in telling the real story - in a way the New York Times refuses to. Wonder if any of the story lines will sound familiar to MilBloggers and readers? The reviewer also adds that the characters are stereotypes, the soldier's wives are too pretty, the soldiers are portrayed as heroes, and at the heart of all the problems he has with it, this: "There is no blurring of right side and wrong." That, in the minds of journalists, is the potential cardinal sin of Iraq war reporting - if "there is no blurring of right side and wrong." Apparently that must be blurred - for the sake of what, we don't know. Credibility, perhaps? Odd - there's no blurring of right and wrong in this piece from the Miami Herald: As Iraqi insurgents become more skilled at hiding deadly roadside bombs, the Pentagon is scrambling to find new ways to protect American troops.Iraqi insurgents are "skilled" - and Americans are "scrambling". Any questions? Here's another glowing review of the war on terror from the NY Times: Despite months of assurances that their forces were on the wane, the guerrillas and terrorists battling the American-backed enterprise here appear to be growing more violent, more resilient and more sophisticated than ever.Sophisticated... violent... precise... resilient... The NY Times coverage of "insurgents" in Iraq sounds increasingly like a gaggle of star-struck junior high school girls describing the greasy haired kid with the souped-up moped they think is their dream date. Both types of authors are victims of the blurring of right and wrong. There's always hope that the middle school girls might outgrow their obsession. Here's an example from the linked story of exactly what turns the Time's boys on: Last Sunday, in the Shiite town of Musayyib, about 40 miles south of Baghdad, a suicide bomber dashed beneath a truck full of liquefied gas and blew himself up, igniting a giant fireball that killed more than 70 people and wounded at least 156.Hey - if that's sophisticated by New York definition then I guess I'm proud to be from flyover country. Here's more precise, sophisticated terrorist behavior, described by MilBlogger Rusten Currie: My roommate, LT Irish, has been nearly killed for a third time today. The Durkas are tossing TNT at us now. A stick bounced off of LT Irish?s HMMWV, he told me that the first thing he thought as it bounced less than a foot from him, the only thing between him and it was thick armoured glass. He said he wondered why they were tossing road flares at him in daylight. Using them for signaling in broad daylight didn?t make sense. Then he realized what it was.Read the whole thing. The post is really about the blurring of right and wrong. The real blurring of right and wrong - not the sort the LA Times TV critics demand: LT Irish, saw the man who tried to murder him fleeing into a vehicle, he ordered the gunner to fire at the man and the vehicle. The kid in the turret, not much older than 24 froze. Momentarily paralyzed with the horrific realization that he was about to murder another human being.That sort of unsophisticated response rarely occurs in the enemy camp. That sort of story could make good television. The sort that gives LA Times reporters fits. We pause for this brief, important message from Daniel Pipes: What do Islamist terrorists want? The answer should be obvious, but it is not. CENTCOM 's web site has a new feature - a newsletter compiling stories of the accomplishments of CENTCOM troops in their AOR in the war on terror. Don't expect this to be widely read by the teeny-boppers the New York Times calls reporters. Because they're fair and balanced, CENTCOM now also offers a compilation of news releases from the terrorists too. Here's one of the latest: "Statement issued by the Shari' ah CourtCoincidentally, that kidnapping of the Algerian envoys was another example cited by the NY Times in supporting their "increasingly sophisticated insurgents" claim. As with their claims about what American troops are saying, it's revealing to contrast the terrorist press releases with the coverage they get in the American media. Another example of terrorists in their own words: The Secret Organization Group. Arthur Chrenkoff once again reports an under-reported story. This time it's not good news: Ateeque Sharifi, 24, who was living in Hounslow, West London, fled Kabul three years ago to seek refuge in Britain. He was the only male member of his family to escape death at the hands of the Taleban...Skilled... sophisticated... violent... precise... resilient... "There is no blurring of right side and wrong." Indeed. Update: Two Algerian diplomats who were kidnapped in broad daylight less than a week ago have been killed after receiving a death sentence from what was described as a religious court, a group led by the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said in an Internet posting on Wednesday. Hat tip to Mrs G for several stories above pulled from the Dawn Patrol. Posted by Greyhawk / July 27, 2005 7:23 PM | Permalink 2 TrackBacks'Over There' is a new series by FX (for those of you who haven't heard of it) that premiered tonight. A tv show depicting fictional characters as US soldiers in Iraq. I watched it, and am still left wondering.... I've been reading various opinions o... Read More Yeah, I’m one of those guys who talks back at the TV, so I don’t watch much of it. Seen enough of the steaming pile of crap Bochco and company called a TV show, though. Reviews on Mudville and Smash’s place are pretty uniformly neg... Read More 7 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 |
Hubs comment the other day after commercials for "Over There" were aired at every commercial break.
"Hollywood may hate us, but they sure love to make money off of us"
I've seen ads for "Over There" and thought I'd give it a miss, but since the reviewer panned it I'll have a look tonight.
Wasn't Bochco the brains behind Dougie Howser (SP?)?
I'll be watching it out of curiousity. If it's good entertainment, I might keep watching it.
If it helps the "average American" get a better understanding of what's going on, great. But I doubt it will present things in any great context. Maybe it will get more people off their butts and searching the internet for real information.
I turn to "first hand accounts" when I want to know what's going on over in Iraq. A show that's based on the writers assumptions of several months ago, isn't going to present the best portrait of current events.
It might be good for soldiers, veterans and families to write in to request a disclaimer or PSA telling viewers that the events portrayed are fictional, and to get the real news go to such and such blogs/new sources...
http://www.rand.org/news/press.05/05.29.html
“The main implication for the Army,” concludes the report, “is that Americans have proved themselves far more willing to use ground troops — to put boots on the ground — and to accept casualties in operations conducted under the global war on terror than in any of the military operations” during the 1990s.
Americans' opinions went on a war footing following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States, often matching levels of support for military action seen during World War II, according to the study that synthesizes findings from about 100 public opinion surveys.
“The perceived importance of the stakes was the key belief predicting support for the operation,” said RAND analyst Eric Larson, the report's lead author.
Other major factors influencing a person's likelihood of backing a military operation include: identifying with the same political party as the president of the United States, the occurrence of battle casualties, and beliefs about the prospects for an operation's success, according to the study.
Larson said that U.S. support for the Iraq mission became “far more stalwart” after 16 soldiers were killed when an Army helicopter was shot down in November 2003 by insurgents near Fallujah. This is in contrast to public sentiment after the infamous “Black Hawk Down” battle in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1993 that killed 18 U.S. troops and wounded many more.
Polls showed a “stiffening” of public support for military action after the Iraq incident, while polling data showed that Americans preferred pulling out of Somalia by 2-to-1 margins even before the Mogadishu firefight. That sentiment strengthened after the battle, according to the study.
From an article in the Seattle Intelligencer they had some soldiers watch the series and it sounded like this will be no different than the MSM view of the military and the war in Iraq. All you are going to see is the negative and none of the good things soldiers do.
'twould be nice if they got a bit more... specific by what they meant by "sophisticated" and such. A little compare and contrast effort, in other words.
Mainly because at this rate, I'm expecting the insurgents "sophistication" to mean they've started using AI's as suicide bombers.
Just got down watching it.
Good production quality.
Sounds like 50% of the story line is retreaded Vietnam rhetoric.
I'll have to defer judgment of accuracy to those that have been in it first hand.
My dad was a Vietnam Vet Keith and he watched it.Considereing how skeptical my dad is of Hollywood,and the News Media,he said he was impressed with the movie.And he's a tough critic when it comes to this kind of stuff,because he experienced it first hand.Also he was regular viewer of Bochko's other show "NYPD BLUE"before it went off the air this year.I was skeptical too.But he did say he liked it.