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This CENTCOM news release is short, factual, and to the point.
24 TERRORISTS KILLED DURING ATTACK ON COALITION FORCESBAGHDAD, Iraq - At approximately noon today, 24 terrorists were killed and seven wounded when they attacked coalition forces on the outskirts of Baghdad. Six soldiers were injured during the attack.
All in all a bad day for terrorists, as any sane reader will agree. But Edward Wong's New York Times story on the event isn't short, factual, or to the point. It's repulsive in it's entirety, but I wanted to bring the following paragraph here for special attention, to capture it and preserve it in all it's glory:
Details about the Salman Pak ambush were vague, but the audacity of the insurgents, on the second anniversary of the start of the American military campaign that toppled Saddam Hussein, showed that the guerrilla war still burns fiercely here, long after President Bush proclaimed major combat operations over and despite a high turnout among Iraqis in the Jan. 30 elections. As the violence persists and as the winners of those elections continue to haggle over a new government, the optimism from the vote is quickly fading among ordinary Iraqis.
Among the first loud explosions I heard in Iraq, some few weeks after arriving, were the car bombs that killed scores of children at the opening ceremony for a new sewage treatment plant. At the time I remember thinking I was close enough to hear the booms, but fortunate to be too far away to hear the screams. Thus my revulsion to suddenly "hear" someone like Wong cheering loudly for the creatures who did it.
When I say journalistic malpractice or criminal negligence in reporting I'm talking about things like Wong, who also distorted Kevin Sites comments regarding the Marine shooting of a terrorist in Fallujah to make the story sound like outright murder. Prior to the attack on Fallujah Wong's contribution to the cause was a piece describing Ramadi as the real terrorist stronghold.
Those who disembowel aid workers and turn victims of Down's Syndrome into 'suicide bombers' have no greater champion than Ed Wong.
But there's a new air of desperate urgency in Wong's plaintive wails. The days when the Wongs of the world weren't righted are coming to an end. America's GIs are returning home to tell the truth about our war, to counter the poison spread by Wong and others like him - to expose them as useless relics of a bygone day.
The latest example comes to us via Chrenkoff and Polish Immigrant. It's one of the local news stories you're going to see repeated with different names and faces in home town papers all across America.
Soldiers from the war in Iraq are returning and telling their stories, and two of them have returned to their native Forest Grove in recent days.Dave Farrin, a lance corporal in the Marines, and James Gibson, a staff sergeant in the Army, have returned much the same young men as when they left, for which their families are tremendously thankful. They have come through the fires of war with their physical health and spirits intact.
They share other important similarities. Both men believe the war has received unfair coverage in the American press. This disappoints them more than it angers them because they believe that the good things accomplished by the USA far outweigh the bad.
As far as the soldiers are concerned, they say the war has overwhelming support.
<...>
Farrin came through nine months of combat in some of the Iraq war's toughest battles, Fallujah and Najof. He seems not just calm but serene.
"David came home like the guy I sent there," Kim said. "I feel blessed, very blessed.
<...>
As for experiencing war for the first time, Farrin said, "I was not nervous. We had a lot of training before we left." And anyway, "a lot of stuff doesn't bother me."What did bother him was the picture of the war given to the American public.
"The people in Iraq love us," Farrin said. "The people doing the fighting are from outside Iraq. Syria, Turkey, places like that.
"When we would go outside the gate, all the people would come running up to us and say, "Mister! Mister! Take my picture!" They gave us peace signs and thumbs up. They tried to give us food."
While "news travels real slow" in Iraq, Farrin did not like what he heard.
"They don't see all the good stuff," he said. "They just cover the fighting. It was kind of weird. It seemed like they were trying to screw up the military."
<...>
James Gibson:"Every time I was in a firing engagement it was surreal," Gibson said. "You would think it was something else, then you would realize what it actually was. Then your training took over. You were reacting before you knew what you were doing. Our unit was very well trained.
"We dealt with a lot of roadside bombs. We were in the middle of the Sunni Triangle on Highway 1, which everyone has heard so much about. There was small arms fire and ambushes."
But the primary mission for Gibson's unit was rebuilding the country. It was such a gigantic task that he felt he was sometimes working a 24-hour day.
He said, "Our unit alone spent millions to build schools, irrigation facilities, city council halls, roads, and rebuilding the Iraqi army so they can take over the war. In over a year I didn't expect them to make half the progress they did. It's amazing how these guys came in and went about building a better Iraq."
Gibson's greatest moment was Jan. 30 - election day in Iraq.
"Watching thousands upon thousands of people coming to vote made it all worthwhile," he said. "Seeing all those people lined up to vote was amazing."
It was this day and other days of progress in Iraq that cause Gibson to take issue with coverage of the war.
"I don't think people back home are getting the full picture," Gibson said. "There has been a lot of focusing on negatives. We could do 500 missions with the Iraqi army and 499 of them could be successful, and the only thing covered would be the one that went bad.
"People don't see the new schools opening, the two or three toy and supply drops every month, people getting clean water. This has been a very successful mission. One that 99 percent of the soldiers are supporting. It is being spun like everyone doesn't want to be there."
Seems like it's time for Ed Wong to come home too.
What's in your home town paper? I think you'll find these guys live near you too. Look and see, check on line and if you find a story with an actual interview of returned OIF vets leave a link in the comments or send me an e-mail.
Let's welcome Ed home. Let's tell him he's wrong.
