Hating America

I found this piece to be very insightful and an extraordinary read.

Hat tip to Truth, Lies & Common Sense

HATING AMERICA-Part I
By Bruce Bawer | The Hudson Review | November 19, 2004

I moved from the U.S. to Europe in 1998, and I’ve been drawing comparisons ever since. Living in turn in the Netherlands, where kids come out of high school able to speak four languages, where gay marriage is a non-issue, and where book-buying levels are the world’s highest, and in Norway, where a staggering percentage of people read three newspapers a day and where respect for learning is reflected even in Oslo place names (“Professor Aschehoug Square”; “Professor Birkeland Road”), I was tempted at one point to write a book lamenting Americans’ anti-intellectualism—their indifference to foreign languages, ignorance of history, indifference to academic achievement, susceptibility to vulgar religion and trash TV, and so forth. On point after point, I would argue, Europe had us beat.

Yet as my weeks in the Old World stretched into months and then years, my perceptions shifted. Yes, many Europeans were book lovers—but which country’s literature most engaged them? Many of them revered education—but to which country’s universities did they most wish to send their children? (Answer: the same country that performs the majority of the world’s scientific research and wins most of the Nobel Prizes.) Yes, American television was responsible for drivel like “The Ricki Lake Show”—but Europeans, I learned, watched this stuff just as eagerly as Americans did (only to turn around, of course, and mock it as a reflection of American boorishness). No, Europeans weren’t Bible-thumpers—but the Continent’s ever-growing Muslim population, I had come to realize, represented even more of a threat to pluralist democracy than fundamentalist Christians did in the U.S. And yes, more Europeans were multilingual—but then, if each of the fifty states had its own language, Americans would be multilingual, too.1 I’d marveled at Norwegians’ newspaper consumption; but what did they actually read in those newspapers?

That this was, in fact, a crucial question was brought home to me when a travel piece I wrote for the New York Times about a weekend in rural Telemark received front-page coverage in Aftenposten, Norway’s newspaper of record. Not that my article’s contents were remotely newsworthy; its sole news value lay in the fact that Norway had been mentioned in the New York Times. It was astonishing. And even more astonishing was what happened next: the owner of the farm hotel at which I’d stayed, irked that I’d made a point of his want of hospitality, got his revenge by telling reporters that I’d demanded McDonald’s hamburgers for dinner instead of that most Norwegian of delicacies, reindeer steak. Though this was a transparent fabrication (his establishment was located atop a remote mountain, far from the nearest golden arches), the press lapped it up. The story received prominent coverage all over Norway and dragged on for days. My inhospitable host became a folk hero; my irksome weekend trip was transformed into a morality play about the threat posed by vulgar, fast-food-eating American urbanites to cherished native folk traditions. I was flabbergasted. But my erstwhile host obviously wasn’t: he knew his country; he knew its media; and he’d known, accordingly, that all he needed to do to spin events to his advantage was to breathe that talismanic word, McDonald’s.

For me, this startling episode raised a few questions. Why had the Norwegian press given such prominent attention in the first place to a mere travel article? Why had it then been so eager to repeat a cartoonish lie? Were these actions reflective of a society more serious, more thoughtful, than the one I’d left? Or did they reveal a culture, or at least a media class, that was so awed by America as to be flattered by even its slightest attentions but that was also reflexively, irrationally belligerent toward it?

This experience was only part of a larger process of edification. Living in Europe, I gradually came to appreciate American virtues I’d always taken for granted, or even disdained—among them a lack of self-seriousness, a grasp of irony and self-deprecating humor, a friendly informality with strangers, an unashamed curiosity, an openness to new experience, an innate optimism, a willingness to think for oneself and speak one’s mind and question the accepted way of doing things. (One reason why Euro- peans view Americans as ignorant is that when we don’t know something, we’re more likely to admit it freely and ask questions.) While Americans, I saw, cherished liberty, Europeans tended to take it for granted or dismiss it as a naïve or cynical, and somehow vaguely embarrassing, American fiction. I found myself toting up words that begin with i: individuality, imagination, initiative, inventiveness, independence of mind. Americans, it seemed to me, were more likely to think for themselves and trust their own judgments, and less easily cowed by authorities or bossed around by “experts”; they believed in their own ability to make things better. No wonder so many smart, ambitious young Europeans look for inspiration to the United States, which has a dynamism their own countries lack, and which communicates the idea that life can be an adventure and that there’s important, exciting work to be done. Reagan-style “morning in America” clichés may make some of us wince, but they reflect something genuine and valuable in the American air. Europeans may or may not have more of a “sense of history” than Americans do (in fact, in a recent study comparing students’ historical knowledge, the results were pretty much a draw), but America has something else that matters—a belief in the future.

Over time, then, these things came into focus for me. Then came September 11. Briefly, Western European hostility toward the U.S. yielded to sincere, if shallow, solidarity (“We are all Americans”). But the enmity soon re-established itself (a fact confirmed for me daily on the websites of the many Western European newspapers I had begun reading online). With the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, it intensified. Yet the endlessly reiterated claim that George W. Bush “squandered” Western Europe’s post-9/11 sympathy is nonsense. The sympathy was a blip; the anti-Americanism is chronic. Why? In The Eagle’s Shadow: Why America Fascinates and Infuriates the World, American journalist and NPR commentator Mark Hertsgaard purports to seek an answer.2 His assumption throughout is that anti-Americanism is amply justified, for these reasons, among others:

Our foreign policy is often arrogant and cruel and threatens to “blow back” against us in terrible ways. Our consumerist definition of prosperity is killing us, and perhaps the planet. Our democracy is an embarrassment to the word, a den of entrenched bureaucrats and legal bribery. Our media are a disgrace to the hallowed concept of freedom of the press. Our precious civil liberties are under siege, our economy is dividing us into rich and poor, our signature cultural activities are shopping and watching television. To top it off, our business and political elites are insisting that our model should also be the world’s model, through the glories of corporate-led globalization.

America, in short, is a mess—a cultural wasteland, an economic nightmare, a political abomination, an international misfit, outlaw, parasite, and pariah. If Americans don’t know this already, it is, in Hertsgaard’s view, precisely because they are Americans: “Foreigners,” he proposes, “can see things about America that natives cannot. . . . Americans can learn from their perceptions, if we choose to.” What he fails to acknowledge, however, is that most foreigners never set foot in the United States, and that the things they think they know about it are consequently based not on first-hand experience but on school textbooks, books by people like Michael Moore, movies about spies and gangsters, “Ricki Lake,” “C.S.I.,” and, above all, the daily news reports in their own national media. What, one must therefore ask, are their media telling them? What aren’t they telling them? And what are the agendas of those doing the telling? Such questions, crucial to a study of the kind Hertsgaard pretends to be making, are never asked here. Citing a South African restaurateur’s assertion that non-Americans “have an advantage over [Americans], because we know everything about you and you know nothing about us,” Hertsgaard tells us that this is a good point, but it’s not: non-Americans are always saying this to Americans, but when you poke around a bit, you almost invariably discover that what they “know” about America is very wide of the mark.

In any event, The Eagle’s Shadow proves to be something of a gyp: for though it’s packaged as a work of reportage about foreigners’ views of America, it’s really a jeremiad by Hertsgaard himself, punctuated occasionally, to be sure, by relevant quotations from cabbies, busdrivers, and, yes, a restaurateur whom he’s run across in his travels. His running theme is Americans’ parochialism: we “not only don’t know much about the rest of the world, we don’t care.” I used to buy this line, too; then I moved to Europe and found that—surprise!—people everywhere are parochial. Norwegians are no less fixated on Norway (pop. 4.5 million) than Americans are on America (pop. 280 million). And while Americans’ relative indifference to foreign news is certainly nothing to crow about, the provincial focus of Norwegian news reporting and public-affairs programming can feel downright claustrophobic. Hertsgaard illustrates Americans’ ignorance of world geography by telling us about a Spaniard who was asked at a wedding in Tennessee if Spain was in Mexico. I once told such stories as well (in fact, I began my professional writing career with a fretful op-ed about the lack of general knowledge that I, then a doctoral candidate in English, found among my undergraduate students); then I moved to Europe and met people like the sixtyish Norwegian author and psychologist who, at the annual dinner of a Norwegian authors’ society, told me she’d been to San Francisco but never to California.

One of Hertsgaard’s main interests—which he shares with several other writers who have recently published books about America and the world—is the state of American journalism. His argument, in a nutshell, is that “few foreigners appreciate how poorly served Americans are by our media and educational systems—how narrow the range of information and debate is in the land of the free.” To support this claim, he offers up the fact that “internationally renowned intellectuals such as Edward W. Said and Frances Moore Lappé” signed a statement against the invasion of Afghanistan, but were forced to run it as an ad because newspapers wouldn’t print it for free. Hertsgaard’s acid comment: “In the United States, it seems, there are some things you have to buy the freedom to say.” Now, I didn’t know who Lappé was when I read this (it turns out she wrote a book called Diet for a Small Planet), but as for the late Professor Said, no writer on earth was given more opportunities by prominent newspapers and journals to air his views on the war against terror. In the two years between 9/11 and his death in 2003, his byline seemed ubiquitous.

Yes, there’s much about the American news media that deserves criticism, from the vulgar personality journalism of Larry King and Diane Sawyer to the cultural polarization nourished by the many publishers and TV news producers who prefer sensation to substance. But to suggest that American journalism, taken as a whole, offers a narrower range of information and debate than its foreign counterparts is absurd. America’s major political magazines range from National Review and The Weekly Standard on the right to The Nation and Mother Jones on the left; its all-news networks, from conservative Fox to liberal CNN; its leading newspapers, from the New York Post and Washington Times to the New York Times and Washington Post. Scores of TV programs and radio call-in shows are devoted to fiery polemic by, or vigorous exchanges between, true believers at both ends of the political spectrum. Nothing remotely approaching this breadth of news and opinion is available in a country like Norway. Purportedly to strengthen journalistic diversity (which, in the ludicrous words of a recent prime minister, “is too important to be left up to the marketplace”), Norway’s social-democratic government actually subsidizes several of the country’s major newspapers (in addition to running two of its three broadcast channels and most of its radio); yet the Norwegian media are (guess what?) almost uniformly social-democratic—a fact reflected not only in their explicit editorial positions but also in the slant and selectivity of their international coverage.3 Reading the opinion pieces in Norwegian newspapers, one has the distinct impression that the professors and bureaucrats who write most of them view it as their paramount function not to introduce or debate fresh ideas but to remind the masses what they’re supposed to think. The same is true of most of the journalists, who routinely spin the news from the perspective of social-democratic orthodoxy, systematically omitting or misrepresenting any challenge to that orthodoxy—and almost invariably presenting the U.S. in a negative light. Most Norwegians are so accustomed to being presented with only one position on certain events and issues (such as the Iraq War) that they don’t even realize that there exists an intelligent alternative position.

Things are scarcely better in neighboring Sweden. During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, the only time I saw pro-war arguments fairly represented in the Scandinavian media was on an episode of “Oprah” that aired on Sweden’s TV4. Not surprisingly, a Swedish government agency later censured TV4 on the grounds that the program had violated media-balance guidelines. In reality, the show, which had featured participants from both sides of the issue, had plainly offended authorities by exposing Swedish viewers to something their nation’s media had otherwise shielded them from—a forceful articulation of the case for going into Iraq.4 In other European countries, to be sure, the media spectrum is broader than this; yet with the exception of Britain, no Western European nation even approaches America’s journalistic diversity. (The British courts’ recent silencing of royal rumors, moreover, reminded us that press freedom is distinctly more circumscribed in the U.K. than in the U.S.) And yet Western Europeans are regularly told by their media that it’s Americans who are fed slanted, selective news—a falsehood also given currency by Americans like Hertsgaard.

No less regrettable than Hertsgaard’s misinformation about the American media are his comments on American affluence, which he regards as an international embarrassment and a sign of moral deficiency. He waxes sarcastic about malls, about the range of products available to American consumers (whom he describes as “dining on steak and ice cream twice a day”), and about the fact that Americans “spent $535 billion on entertainment in 1999, more than the combined GNPs of the world’s forty-five poorest nations.” He appears not to have solicited the opinions of Eastern Europeans, a great many of whom, having been deprived under Communism of both civil rights and a decent standard of living, have a deep appreciation for both American liberty and American prosperity. But then Hertsgaard, predictably, touches on Communism only in the course of making anti-American points. For example, he recalls a man in Havana who, during the dispute over Florida’s electoral votes in the 2000 presidential contest, whimsically suggested that Cuba send over election observers. (Well, that would’ve been one way to escape Cuba without being gunned down.) Hertsgaard further sneers that for many Americans, the fall of the Berlin Wall proved that they lived in “the chosen nation of God.” Now, for my part, I never heard anyone suggest such a connection. What I do remember about the Wall coming down is the lack of shame or contrition on the part of Western leftists who had spent decades appeasing and apologizing for Soviet Communism. In any event, does Hertsgaard really think that in a work purporting to evaluate America in an international context, this smirking comment about the Berlin Wall is all that need be said about the expiration of an empire that murdered tens of millions and from which the U.S., at extraordinary risk and expense, protected its allies for nearly half a century?

The victory over Soviet Communism is not the only honorable chapter of American history that Hertsgaard trashes. World War II? Though he grants that the U.S. saved Western Europe, he puts the word “saving” in scare quotes and maintains that “America had its own reasons” (economic, naturally) for performing this service. September 11? Here, in its entirety, is what he has to say about that cataclysmic day: “Suddenly Americans had learned the hard way: what foreigners think does matter.” The Iraq War? An atrocity against innocent civilians—nothing more. There’s no reference here to Saddam’s torture cells, imprisoned children, or mass graves, no mention of the fact that millions of Iraqis who lived in terror are now free. Instead, Hertsgaard cites with approval a U.N. official’s smug comment that Americans, who never understand anything anyway, have failed to grasp “that Iraq is not made up of twenty-two million Saddam Husseins” but of families and children. For a proper response to this remark, I need only quote from an address made to the Security Council by Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari on December 16, 2003. Accusing the U.N. of failing to save Iraq from “a murderous tyranny,” Zebari said: “Today we are unearthing thousands of victims in horrifying testament to that failure. The United Nations must not fail the Iraqi people again.”5

Hertsgaard compares America unfavorably not only with Europe but—incredibly—with Africa. If “many Europeans speak two if not three languages,” he rhapsodizes, “in Africa, multilingualism is even more common.” So, one might add, are poverty, starvation, rape, AIDS infection, state tyranny and corruption, and such human-rights abominations as slavery, female genital mutilation, and the use of children as soldiers and prostitutes.

Hertsgaard contrasts America’s “frenzied pace” with the “African rhythms” that he finds more congenial and notes with admiration that “Africans live in social conditions that encourage inter- change, discourage hurry, and elevate the common good over that of the individual.” In response to which it might be pointed out (a) that those “social conditions” generally go by the name of abject poverty and (b) that Hertsgaard fails to cite such recent examples of benign African “social . . . interchange” and expressions of concern for the “common good” as Mugabe’s terror regime in Zimbabwe, ethnic clashes in the Central African Republic, Somali anarchy, Rwandan genocide (800,000 dead), prolonged civil wars in Sudan (two million dead), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (1.7 million dead), Liberia (200,000 dead), the Ivory Coast, and elsewhere, not to mention massacres of Christians by Muslims in Sudan and Nigeria. To recommend Africa to Americans as a model of social harmony without a hint of qualification is not just unserious, it’s hallucinatory.6

Every nation requires serious, responsible criticism, particularly if it’s the planet’s leading economic power, the arsenal of democracy, and the center of humanity’s common culture. But Hertsgaard’s criticism of America is neither serious nor responsible. Though at one point (apropos of American medicine and science) he concedes, with breathtaking dismissiveness, that “We Americans are a clever bunch,” he usually talks about his fellow countrymen as if they’re buffoons who have mysteriously and unjustly lucked into living in the world’s richest country, while most of the rest of the species, though far brighter and more deserving, somehow ended up in grinding poverty. For him, Americans’ intellectual mediocrity would seem to be a self-evident truth, but his own observations hardly exemplify the kind of reflectiveness a reader of such a book has a right to expect. For example, when he notes with satisfaction that the young Sigmund Freud “complained . . . incessantly about [America’s] lack of taste and culture,” Hertsgaard seems not to have realized that Freud was, of course, comparing the U.S. to his native Austria, which would later demonstrate its “taste and culture” by welcoming the Nazi Anschluss. One ventures to suggest that had Freud—who escaped the Gestapo thanks to intervention by Franklin D. Roosevelt—survived to see the liberated death camps in which his four sisters perished, he might well have revised his views about the relative virtues of American and Austrian culture.

Part II & III here

Part IV here

Lex

When Lex is ashore he blogs, and does it well. While at sea he does not, and that's a shame. I'd been meaning to point you that way again, knowing he'd be returning this past week, and now I find he's shipping out again!

Bah! Go visit, indulge yourself in some of the finest writing you'll find in a MilBlog. Note, you have to click "read more" on all his posts - what you see are only headers. And while there be sure to click a few of his greatest hits on the sidebar.

Thank me later, for now just go!

Au Revoir

A friend of Milblogs, co-blogger and guest author for Mudville, has bid a farewell. She has decided to end her blogging on I Love Jet Noise but hopefully will carry on with her own blog (fingers crossed) Cassandra will be truly missed.

Sports & Military

- Our newest member to Milblogs, Out of Water, thinks Pat Tillman should have made the cover of Sports Illustrated, and I agree.

Greyhawk was thinking maybe Ron Artest for sportsman of the year, but Blackfive also thinks Pat Tillman. One deserves it, but the other seems more representative of the modern athlete. Your call.

B5 notes re Tillman: ?Currently he is in third place behind Lance Armstrong and Michael Phelps.? I had to Google Phelps ? he?s an Olympic swimmer whose 15 minutes are up.

A comment at B5: ?Chalk up one more vote for Pat Tillman. Why is there even a contest? Let's see, choose between a guy who rides a bicycle and left his wife & kid for Sheryl Crow, an Olympic swimmer who got a DUI, or a guy who turned down a $3.6 million contract in the NFL to enlist and fight terror, to end up giving the ultimate sacrifice.?

and other sports & military realted news:

- Jordan has always been a team player, Sgt. Maj. James R. Jordan that is, and so has his "not so little brother' Michael. Baldilocks has the latest on him

- Did you know that the Marine Corps sponsors a Busch Series car. Number 25. The Army and Air Force both sponsor a NASCAR team, also. The Army has #01 in the Nextel Cup and the Air Force has #21 in the Busch series.
I CAN'T HEAR YOU!has the full take on it.

Fightin? Words

You media pansies may squeal and may squirm,
But a fightin? man knows that the way to confirm,
That some jihadist bastard truly is dead,
Is a brain-tappin? round fired into his head.
To hell with some wienie with his journalist degree
Safe away from the combat, tryin? to tell me,
I should check him for breathin,? examine his eyes.
Nope, I?m punchin? his ticket to Muj paradise.

To hell with you wimps from your Ivy League schools,
Sittin? far from the war tellin? me about rules
And preachin? to me your wrong-headed contention
That I should observe the Geneva Convention,
Which doesn?t apply to a terrorist scum
So evil and cruel their own people run from,
Cold-blooded killers who love to behead,
Shove that mother? Geneva, I?m leavin? em dead.

You slick talkingheads may preach, preen and prattle,
But you?re damn well not here in the thick of the battle.
It?s chaotic, confusin? it all comes at you fast,
So it?s Muj checkin? out because I?m going to last.
Yeah, I?ll last through this fight and send his ass away
To his fat ugly virgins while I?m still in play.
If you journalist wienies think that?s cold, cruel and crass,
Then pucker up sweeties, kiss a fightin? man?s ass.

Russ Vaughn
2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66

UPDATE:

Russ has givin an explanation to his poem here at the American Thinker

A Small and Often Tragic World

Keep your Wiley's on for this one.

Korea:

Back in '89-'91 as the Iron Curtain fell and Saddam Hussein announced for all to hear that a peaceful world was not his cup of tea I was stationed at Yongsan Army installation in Seoul Korea. Like everywhere else I've been stationed or deployed, news from there strikes a bit close to home. When I read the following a couple weeks back I immediately sent an email to the Mrs.
See if you can guess why.

YONGSAN GARRISON ? When a student at Seoul American High School last year mentioned she was having a hard time caring about the faraway war in Iraq, Michelle Pell decided to make it matter.

Pell, an English teacher, began putting a sign on her door each day to tally the fatalities from the fighting. The latest count was at least 1,186, according to Pell?s door.

Ms Pell is posting the death toll on her door in a school on a military installation, reminding her young students every day that their parents could be the next to go. Since they actually attend High School for reasons other than developing awareness of Iraq and since worrying excessively about their odds of being orphaned could be detrimental to achieving their educational goals I think that her project is unpardonable. Being the parent of students at a Department of Defense Dependents School in Europe I immediately pinged the wife to check with the kids to make sure none of their teachers were engaged in any similar freakish and unforgivable behavior.

By the way, the paragraphs quoted above were from a story in Stars and Stripes relating the sad news that a graduate of Seoul American High School had become the first allumnus of that proud institution to loose his life in Iraq. In fact, he was class of '90 - he graduated while I was stationed there. Since I lived in the small family housing area it's likely I saw him from time to time, one of the many young faces I passed in the playground while there with my kids or saw in the PX or the commisary or at the Fourth of July fireworks...

There are pictures of the man acompanying the article - high school yearbook photos and more recent shots of a proud young father in uniform holding his child. His face hadn't really changed in those very few years. I didn't recognize him, but he looked like every young American I've ever seen.

?I?ve been waiting for this to hit since the war started,? Pell said while sitting in her empty classroom Wednesday afternoon. ?It just makes me sick."

I'll bet she has; I'm sure it does. He must have been the toughest number she ever added to her door.

________________

Iraq:

I had the honor of hearing a very high ranking Air Force officer speak here in Iraq recently. He told of presenting Purple Hearts to a couple of Air Force troops who'd been wounded in action while serving with the Army in Fallujah.

These young enlisted men were Air support liasons, their mission with the Army was to coordinate close air support, calling in death from above on enemy positions often dangerously close to friendly forces. All this while in the thick of things under enemy fire. One of these individuals left a marked impression on the General, the story he told struck a chord with me too.

The young Senior Airman (SrA, USAF E4) accompanied the Company Commander and a small group of soldiers into a house containing some very much alive and hostile enemy forces. The bad guys got the first shots, killed the Captain and dropped another of the GIs there. Without thought for his own safety the SrA grabbed the wounded troop and began pulling him out of the room and to safety, but took a round in the right shoulder for his efforts.

Other troops meanwhile joined the fray and finished off the rats' nest. Ultimately the Air Force guy gets a purple heart from a General, who relates the story I'll quote from memory.

"He had a wounded right arm, so after pining the medal I shook his left hand. But then he saluted me with his right hand, a move that I could tell caused him great pain."

The General choked up a little while telling the tale, and the ever-present dust appeared to be irritating his eyes, too.

Should have kept the Wiley's on.

________________

The General didn't name names in his story, so I began looking around. I knew from 2Slick's absolute must-read report on Fallujah that the Army had lost only one Company Commander, but his account didn't include the name. Next stop Blackfive's, who didn't disappoint me. The Captain's name was Sean Sims, and he was stationed in Germany. I looked in at Sarah's, an Army wife in Germany, and found another interesting angle on the story there.

All that info in hand I turned to my trusty research assistant, Google.

I still haven't identified that Air Force Airman, but I found blogs run by friends or relatives of the Captain here and here and here. The last site has followup entry here, that includes a message from Cpt Sims' father, himself a retired Colonel:

I don?t know what to say or how to describe the sacrifice of your blood for this country. Having served in Vietnam, twice, having a father who spent 36 years as a soldier through two wars, and a brother who served in Vietnam twice and is now 100% disabled from his injuries there, I am encouraged by the awareness of our countrymen for the sacrifices of our children. I am thankful for the realization by our citizenry that freedom is not free.

The Colonel doesn't mention it but I realize now that he also served in Korea. I know because in that same blog entry where his words are reproduced I found a picture of this warrior son of a warrior's son, holding his child, the same picture that I first saw in this Stars and Stripes story I first mentioned above, mourning the first Seoul American High School graduate to die fighting in Iraq.

A picture of a man now young forever.

So much more than number 1,186 on Michelle Pell's door of horror.

________________

Germany, America, Fallujah...

Cpt Sims' funeral will be held today in the US. There has already been a service honoring all four of the fallen of the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment in Vilseck, Germany.

Cpt Sims' unit had an embedded reporter with them in Fallujah, and his account of their lethal run through the heart of the anti-Iraqi insurgency will be told in a six-part series in the Miami Herald, part one of which is here.

This is how it begins:

After Sims took in the view, soldiers of Alpha Company scrambled to a road overlooking Fallujah. Then sniper fire began and the battle was joined. Some soldiers emptied their M-16 clips, some yelling, others laughing as return fire pinged off the armored Bradley fighting vehicles and pavement around them.

''Lord, I have to say a special prayer now,'' the 32-year-old Sims said in the soft-spoken accent of his hometown of Eddy, Texas.

He hustled up a berm to the road to link up with the Task Force 2-2 reconnaissance team.

Crouched on his right knee, Sims watched the insurgents' mortar rounds land, and a minute or two later he heard the retort of U.S. artillery. A few hundred yards away, the outskirts of Fallujah rose out of the desert in a warren of sand-colored houses.

Satellite images after recent airstrikes showed dozens of ensuing explosions that probably resulted from roadside bombs placed by the insurgents.

''Everybody realizes that it's something that will affect the rest of our lives, in terms of seeing that type of combat,'' Sims had said a few days earlier. ``When the first bullet impacts, you know the eyes of the world are going to be on you.''

Near Sims, a sniper lay on his belly with a rifle scope pressed against one eye. A five-man team of insurgents was scampering in and out of the buildings of Askari. One rebel appeared to be carrying mortars.

More bullets flew by, and the mortar rounds moved closer. Capt. Kirk Mayfield, of the recon team, yelled, ``Everyone behind the truck!''

Standing next to his Humvee, Mayfield screamed for U.S. mortar strikes on the five-man team. After the ensuing rumble, a voice called over the radio: ``Can I get a battle damage assessment?''

''An assessment?'' the reply came. ``There is no more building.''

Sims laughed to himself.

Sniper shots zipped by, pinging off the Humvee.

''Where is that sniper? Here it is,'' Mayfield barked, turning to a gunner behind an automatic grenade launcher. ``Blow him away.''

The red-hot streak of another bullet whizzed past. The gunner shot round after round, with explosions echoing across the town, then pulled a pair of binoculars to his face and announced: ``He is not there anymore.''

Sims called over to his men, ''Let's go,'' and they went scrambling back down the dirt berm.

The story of the last days of a brief life lived in freedom's cause.

Wizbang-Best MilBlog Nominations

Greyhawks E-mail

I got around to this a bit late, as nominations close Sunday night (tomorrow). Whatever you all can do to get the word out to the the milblog community is appreciated. Tell them they need to mobilize fast :-).

Nominations - Best Military Blog

Kevin Aylward

Wizbang

Greyhawks thoughts:

When I first saw the awards I was glad to see there was no military blog category. I know this was done with the best intentions but I can’t support this sort of competition between actual military – there’s a beauty pageant/popularity/high school prom queen element to this that utterly trivializes the fact of what we’re doing.

There are a handful of actual blogs run by active duty military people on or the near the front lines – I cycle through them every day. Every day I’m glad to find the authors have not gone the way of Bob Zangas, who quit blogging forever last Spring when he and his Iraqi interpreter were gunned down near Hillah by insurgents wearing police uniforms.

On the other hand I note a significant number of blogs about military done by veterans and non-military folks. I can’t speak for others here on the front line but I think the category would best be filled by those sorts.

Again, I know the category was added with the best of intentions and am honored to be mentioned, but I respectfully decline to participate.

Cold Dust Season

Has it been a year already since 'Dub flew over here with that plastic turkey? Man, time flies whether you're having fun or not, so why not have fun?

Here's a thought for the day: if you're at work, on a computer, chances are its called a "workstation". why not call them funstations? It's not that hard a thing to do, and it would change the way people feel about their jobs completely. In fact, why call it work at all? Just call it fun. Perception is everything, after all, and if you insist on calling it fun it will actually be fun in time. It's true, I know from experience. Do you use worksheets of some sort at your office? Call them funsheets. I'll bet you can think up lots of other such examples.

Know why we don't think that way? Because our parents made the same mistakes we did in raising children. We end their "fun" days too early, bring them to the grown up table too soon. Proof: there are no playgrounds in middle schools in America. This is a huge mistake. Turn 12-14 year olds loose in a playground and they'll have a great time - I've seen this happen. We should let them stay at the kids table longer, but no - we turn the fun dial down to about "2" as soon as our kids turn 10. The real world is a harsh place, you know, and it's going to grind you up and wear you down, and that certainly isn't fun. Suck it up. Get used to it. Thus we become workaholics, each and every one of us.

But how rude of me - here you've stopped by, likely taking a break from whatever your job is, and I'm wasting your time with this drivel. That's not why you came here, is it? Throws you off a little. "Hey, I clicked in here to see how goes it in Iraq and you're telling me to have fun! Outrageous!" Sorry, I'll try to fulfill your expectations now, return to what you're used to.

After all, we mere humans are creatures of habit. Nowhere is this more apparent then in a confined environment like that experienced here in camp life in Iraq. We wake at proscribed times, we eat at proscribed times; we conduct our duties on a rigid schedule and return to bed within a few moments of the exact same time every day. If we're not careful we become obsessive about this routine, then little things like mortar attacks really throw us off and we blow them all out of proportion. Damn - that was not on the agenda...

I'm going to avoid that obsession, intentionally bust out of that routine, do something exciting and different. Get ready - here it comes. If you've visited here a few times you've seen plenty of pictures of the moon, but yesterday I pointed my camera at a different target to provide you with this

The sun, in all it's glory.

Of course it's behind an enormous curtain of dust and sand. A storm front made it's way across Iraq earlier this week, and high speed cold air whipped in behind it, lifted the sand and soil, cut visibility down to a very few hundred yards, and turned the sun into something like the pathetic "energy saver" light bulb that even now is "illuminating" an area extending several inches from it's glass shell suspended above my head as I type...

And something somewhere whistled in that wicked breeze. A quiet howl that persisted through the day, a chilling sound to go with the chilling air. Chilling? In the desert? Yes - and given that it's windy and the air is full of solid particles for our breathing pleasure it seems hardly fair (and strangely unreal) that it should be cold too, but it is indeed, though admittedly the sort of cold that causes shivers rather than frostbite.

The sort of cold that reminds hunters that the time has come...

The sort of November cold I associate with Thanksgiving at home, arriving right on time, even in Iraq. Right on time to remind us one and all that time flies whether you're having fun or not, that soon it will be Christmas, and a more intense cold will be upon us. The sort of cold that brings both numbness and pain to the fingertips, and for those far from home and family a different numbness and pain to the soul.

Speaking of fun Christian holidays, lets repel any lost or lingering lefties with a passage from the Bible. Today we read from Genesis, chapter 12:

1 Now (1) the LORD said to Abram, "Go forth from your country, And from your relatives And from your father's house, To the land which I will show you; 2 And (2) I will make you a great nation, And (3) I will bless you, And make your name great; And so (4) you shall be a blessing;

"We're going to do great things, Abram, you and me, we're going to really get things started. But first you must get out of this corner of the earth. Put it in your rearview and don't look back." Americans can relate to that - we as a nation came from elsewhere, left home for a promised land. We got there and met other travelers, and sat down with them for the first thanksgiving. Odd that I'm an American writing this from the very same land that is the answer to the question "What did God tell Abram to put in his rearview?"

There are good reasons for leaving this land. One is certainly the flies. Not the time flies, the real flies. The cold weather brings them in to the tents, like a Biblical plague. They're persistent creatures - small, quick, annoying. Not annoying enough to drive you away by themselves, of course, but enough to make the ultimate good bye to this place a bit less sorrowful than it otherwise might be. Hard to tell whether they're brave or foolish, these little pests, they land upon you while you try to eat - or while you're doing anything, for that matter. This just makes us more determined to swat them, of course, to keep them from taking some of the fun out of Thanksgiving.

And though in the end the flies won't drive us away we know that when we do leave they will remain.

And though it's still a bit too early to talk of leaving that time will be upon us all too soon. The elections here in Iraq will mark a significant waypoint on that road home, one of many, after which things will be different. How so? What then? That's conversation for the grown up table this Thanksgiving season. And how amazing it will be, to be here for that talk, and those elections, and for the American elections that came before, when those seats at the grown up table were divvied out. We'll see soon enough if the right people got them.

Time flies... kids grow up too fast...

Are holidays away from family too great a price to pay to be here in this historic time? Great things have great price, of course. So it goes. And the Mrs. set a fine Thanksgiving feast for us before I left, and I anticipate another on return.

And I realize that wherever I am I've much to be thankful for.

I pondered linking something, someone else's efforts that support my own claims, the fundamental heart of blogging, of course. I realized I have something different for you this time, and it's from a source I?ve already quoted from. On arrival here I opened a Bible to a random passage, read it.

This is what I found:

Fear not, O Jacob My servant,' declares the LORD, 'And do not be dismayed, O Israel; For behold, I will save you (17) from afar And your offspring from the land of their captivity. And Jacob will return and will be (18) quiet and at ease, And (19) no one will make him afraid.

So I've got that going for me - which is nice.

It's Jeremiah, chapter 30, and if you prefer to think I, a guy in Iraq whose family is in Germany, read the whole book just to find that quote rather than discovering it via supernatural guidance then I'm certain there's nothing I can say to make you change your mind.

After all , this is just a blog.

I close with my sincerest wishes that your Thanksgiving is a fun one, free of flies or other foul things that plague us on the edge.

For our time together has certainly flown by, and I'm afraid I must go now - I've got to get back to work.

Troop Levels in Iraq

Up or down? In or out? Here's food for thought from the Boston Globe:

WASHINGTON -- A growing number of national security specialists who supported the toppling of Saddam Hussein are moving to a position unthinkable even a few months ago: that the large US military presence is impeding stability as much as contributing to it and that the United States should begin major reductions in troops beginning early next year.

Their assessments, expressed in reports, think tank meetings, and interviews, run counter to the Bush administration's insistence that the troops will remain indefinitely to establish security. But some contend that the growing support for an earlier pullout could alter the administration's thinking.

Those arguing for immediate troop reductions include key Pentagon advisers, prominent neoconservatives, and some of the fiercest supporters of the Iraq invasion among Washington's policy elite.

Are there really those in the administration whose opinions matter who are thinking this way? Is this a trial balloon? Or has the administration already determined a future course that includes a significant troop reduction in Iraq in the first half of '05? I think it must be true - or else why would the NY Times feverishly establish a contrary position, demanding that the US immediately throw more of it's best and brightest into Iraq?

The swift and stunning American military sweep through Falluja this month recalls the equally swift and stunning sweep through Baghdad and other Iraqi cities some 20 months ago. Those triumphs quickly turned sour when looting and lawlessness took over the thinly patrolled streets, embittering residents, stalling reconstruction and giving the insurgency a jump-start on the occupation authorities. The sequel needs to be different. That will require a rapid reinforcement of American ground troops in Iraq. About 20,000 to 40,000 more soldiers are needed right away.

Funny, I seem to recall something about 40,000 more troops in a John Kerry talking point...

Of course the Times piece is just another turd they've thrown in the punchbowl for thanksiving - which is why they don't have a seat at the grown up table this year. On the other hand the Globe story is a worthy read, by all means, check it out.

The Feast

Emphasis added in following:

Kevin Sites
describes the immediate aftermath of the shooting of one of the thousands of insurgents in Fallujah (emphasis added):

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.

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.

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.

Are there Atheists in Cockpits?

No. And you know why? Because they can't call them "cockpits" any more.

Mentioned this story over the weekend, but it's worth repeating:

Air Force Academy officials are cracking down on some staffers who put Bible verses at the bottom of their academy e-mails.

"None of this [Bible or personal signature notes] is appropriate, and it says this in Air Force instructions," Lt. Col. Laurent Fox said Thursday.

Academy officials sent a memo to everyone at the school on Sept. 15, explaining the policy for using government e-mail. Earlier this week, academy superintendent Lt. Gen. John W. Rosa said the school would bolster its religious-tolerance training after a survey showed evidence of harassment or pressure toward cadets based on their beliefs.

He said that about half the cadets who responded to the annual survey reported hearing religious slurs, comments or jokes and that some cadets felt ostracized because they weren't religious.

This move comes on the heels of the recent DoD decision to ban official support of the Boy Scouts by military installations - because the scouts require religious faith in their members. (They don't require faith in any specific divine being, mind you, just faith, be it Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, etc.)

Likewise you can (for now) celebrate any of those religions in this handsome building:

The famous Air Force Academy Chapel. Of course, someone soon will realize how utterly offensive and insensitive such structures are, and the bulldozers will certainly make short work of it. Or perhaps the Air Force can take it down Air Force style, faster than you can say "sniper in the mosque!"

(picture found here - along with several other awesome shots)

Those who've already read Belmont Club today might recall this quote, perhaps now with an extra chill:

For one, Hitler would have taken a very dim view of Jesusland, a country which George Bush is said to be in the process of founding, whose geographic location is to the immediate south of the United States of Canada. Martin Bormann said, "National Socialism and Christianity are irreconcilable." Hitler, according to Klaus Fischer's Nazi Germany stated that "one day we want to be in a position where only complete idiots stand in the pulpit and preach to old women." In a concession to popular feeling, however, the Nazis offered the public certain acceptable 'faith traditions' including something called "Gottglaubig", a dished-up creed heavily overladen with ancient Germanic pagan beliefs with versions of rituals for birth, marriage and death. "By 1938, carols and nativity plays were were forbidden in the schools, and the words 'Christmas' itself was replaced by the word 'Yuletide'."

How appropriate, with the Holiday season upon us.

Update 6 May 2005: This story has reappeared in the headlines. See this updated post and many the links and comments it contains.

Emails from Dave

The Green Side has some interesting e-mails from Dave.

Dear Dad -

Just came out of the city and I honestly do not know where to start. I am afraid that whatever I send you will not do sufficient honor to the men who fought and took Fallujah.

Shortly before the attack, Task Force Fallujah was built. It consisted of Regimental Combat Team 1 built around 1st Marine Regiment and Regimental Combat Team 7 built around 7th Marine Regiment. Each Regiment consisted of two Marine Rifle Battalions reinforced and one Army mechanized infantry battalion.

Regimental Combat Team 1 (RCT-1) consisted of 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion (3rd LAR), 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines (3/5); 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines (3/1)and 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry (2/7). RCT-7 was slightly less weighted but still a formidable force. Cutting a swath around the city was an Army Brigade known as Blackjack. The Marine RCT's were to assault the city while Blackjack kept the enemy off of the backs of the assault force.

Continue reading here

Getting the word out about Fallujah

Castle Argghhh! has some photos of some interesting finds not covered by the MSM

All - I've just received the slideshow from the
Exploitation Team (unclass, they want this out) that
shows some of the stuff the 'other guys' were doing in
Fallujah. Ya want some fodder for Law of War
discussions to go along with the Marine in the Mosque,
here's your link.

The effort is more than a sidelight

European Stars and Stripes
November 21, 2004
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=25635
Extra Space On Planes Used For Goods For Iraqi Kids

By Ron Jensen, Stars and Stripes

LOGISTICS SUPPORT AREA ANACONDA, Iraq ? Col. Bradly MacNealy hates empty space.

That?s why he initiated a space-available program to ferry troops around Iraq if there is a seat aboard any aircraft of the Task Force 185th Aviation, which he commands.

And that?s why these same birds carry school supplies donated through Operation Iraqi Children to units far and wide for distribution to local schools.

?If we have empty space on our aircraft, we?re doing something wrong,? MacNealy said.

He is especially proud of the task force?s effort to get the school supplies to Iraq children, but worried that the effort will end when his troops leave soon.

Supplies donated to the charity founded by actor Gary Sinise were getting only to Kuwait, where they languished. The 185th Task Force took on the job of distributing them throughout the country, getting them one step closer to their intended recipients.

The two groups came together through the family support group for the 185th Aviation Brigade of the Mississippi National Guard. The support group had collected a colossal amount of school supplies of its own to send, including 8,000 backpacks stuffed with items for young students.

It approached FedEx to help deliver the goods overseas. FedEx already was helping Operation Iraqi Children, but was frustrated because the gear was stuck in Kuwait. It wondered if the brigade could help.

?We said, ?Well, we?ll give it a try,?? MacNealy said.

The brigade already had a secret weapon in this effort. Chief Warrant Officer 5 Jeffery Smith, who works in Kuwait for the brigade?s rear detachment to send aircraft parts north, had established relationships with Air Force and Army logistics people. He began seeking space for the idle school supplies for Operation Iraqi Children.

In August, it began arriving at Logistics Support Area Anaconda in the form of large, towering pallets that included such things as notebooks and soccer balls.

Capt. Stacey Cetin coordinates delivery of the supplies to units throughout Iraq that want to help out a nearby school. If there is room aboard the brigade?s CH-47 Chinooks, C-23 Sherpas or UH-60 Black Hawks, the supplies are loaded.

?It goes space available,? she said. ?Mission comes first. Beans and bullets come first.?

Flying crews soon got into the act. They have begun figuring out how a brief detour can drop off goods somewhere without harming the mission.

Soon, Cetin?s phone began ringing. E-mails began arriving. Soldiers, airmen and Marines all wanted supplies sent to them.

?They?re very thankful,? she said of the units that receive the school supplies. ?They?re also saying, ?Can you put us back on the list again???

MacNealy said about three deliveries are being made each day by his aircraft. In all, the brigade has received and delivered 800 pallets of supplies since it began this effort.

MacNealy and Cetin are concerned that when their tour concludes at the end of December, the supplies might languish again in a Kuwaiti warehouse.

?We?re hoping the unit that comes in to replace us picks it up,? MacNealy said. ?If we weren?t doing this, that warehouse in Kuwait would be filling up.?

The effort is more than a sidelight to the goal of the entire operation, the commander said. It is providing help to the people of Iraq, showing them that America is here to help, not to occupy.

In that way, he said, it is a direct part of the war effort.

?And it?s not paid for by the government,? he said of the supplies. ?These are civilians donating to the cause that is helping us win over here.?

OOPS!

Since I've taken the reins of this site I've learned a little blog lingo, learned blog etiquette and have almost mastered html. What I haven't mastered is cleaning spam. Although it's easy enough through Moveable Type (when it want's to cooperate) I do sometimes get caught up in the monotony of it, especially when I get slammed with 800 porn/gambling spam in an hour. Any way, the point I'm trying to get to is, some of you will notice that your comments have have been deleted. Any one who had the word men in their comment. This word has been removed from my blacklist, however I didn't realize til too late, that several, well maybe alot of your comments have probably been remove. If it was one or two, well hell, even five or six I'd repost them myself, but we're talking 20 or more and I'm still cleaning. All I can do is say I'm sorry and your welcome to repost them. Greyhawk and I plan to update MT when when we switch servers in the near future. I really would hate to go with a registration option and hopefully it won't come to that.

Oh and any one named Grannysexthumbs, don't even try it.

(sigh) 448 to go.

Allawi Cousin Freed

hose who were following events here closely will recall that three relatives of Iraq's interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi were kidnapped immediately prior to the assault on Fallujah. Although there was initially little hope the story has ended well, albeit with limited fanfare. I certainly almost missed the happy ending:

In Baghdad, the cousin of interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi was freed by kidnappers, according to Al Arabiya television.

Ghazi Allawi, 75, was taken hostage Nov. 9 along with his wife and pregnant daughter-in-law. The women were both set free five days later.

Don't know how that slipped the attention of so many - it's right there in the LA Times round up of news from Iraq, Under the headline "U.S. Troops Fire On Bus, Killing 3"

Sites

If you're not familiar with this site there are three things you should know before reading this post:

1. No one can accuse me of undue sympathy for journalists, I've done more than my share of highlighting their various character flaws and other shortfalls. FOr instance, while others were wringing their hands over the matter Mudville exposed the fraud perpetrated by CBS and Seymour Hersh on the Abu Ghraib case, by far the most heinous act ever committed by the media against America's efforts in the War on Terror. (That story and other media bashing exposes can be found here.)

2. I am a GI stationed in Iraq.

3. This post isn't about the Marine who shot a combatant who deserved a far worse death than he got.

Keep those things in mind and we'll get along just fine...

Last week, before the great brouhaha over the Marine shooting of a combatant in Fallujah I linked to Kevin Sites' Blog with these words:

Whenever reading a published report from the front I always wonder where the work of the reporter ends and that of the editor begins. By that same token, I'm never certain who to blame for any part of a story I might find offensive or recognize as patently false.

That said, I can't help but admire a reporter like Kevin Sites, who has been blogging off and on from Iraq since the invasion. Here are his latest posts - photos and a report from the streets of Fallujah.

After the shooting became the biggest story of the week for last Monday I added this quick update:

For those accusing Sites of various anti-American crimes I offer the same admonition I'd give to those who accuse the young Marine of atrocities: "You weren't there."

The gist of which was drawn from an even earlier (and initially unrelated) post wherein I asked Is there a name for the psychological condition whose sufferers believe anything they hear about Iraq - except for the words of those of us who are here - to the point where they are compelled to demand that the people who actually live here share their twisted view?

Later in a very much misunderstood, sometimes misquoted, and often ignored post I offered up a more in-depth defense, noting the fact that in Fallujah only one side was fighting for freedom of the press - among other noble causes - and that those who would call for the end of embedded reporters were dishonoring the sacrifices of a lot of GIs.

Now I'll dispense with subtleties and add this: I've seen a number of people claim that Sites "wasn't fit to accompany those Marines" yadda yadda yadda blah blah blah but the one inescapable fact is this: He was accompanying those Marines, he did go through that door, and I'm not sure the loudest whiners in this entire episode would have the guts to do so.

Now go back and read this entry, from even earlier then those others linked above. Never mind, I'll excerpt:

“Since January this year, anti-Iraqi forces have abducted at least 20 journalists,” pointed out Lt Cmdr Balice, quoting the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

There is a widespread perception among Iraqis that foreign journalists are “spies” or collaborators with coalition forces, the CPJ had stated in a recent report.

Reporters Without Borders, an international media watchdog with its headquarters in Paris, has listed Iraq as the most dangerous country for journalists.

The 19-month Iraq conflict has now claimed the lives of 57 news media personnel - journalists and critical support staff - and one is missing, according to records kept by the International News Safety Institute.

At the onset of the invasion in 2003, Sites virtually walked into this country without the relative safety of being embedded with U.S. forces, and has been here off and on ever since. Knowing the sort of cojones that took I expected throughout the whole latest series of events that Sites would post his own thoughts on the issue on his blog, where as I noted originally no editor (or anchorman or pundit, I now add) would stand between him and the public.

Now he has done so, in the form of a letter to the only people he feels (rightfully) he owes an explanation.

To Devil Dogs of the 3.1:

Since the shooting in the Mosque, I've been haunted that I have not been able to tell you directly what I saw or explain the process by which the world came to see it as well. As you know, I'm not some war zone tourist with a camera who doesn't understand that ugly things happen in combat. I've spent most of the last five years covering global conflict. But I have never in my career been a 'gotcha' reporter -- hoping for people to commit wrongdoings so I can catch them at it.

This week I've even been shocked to see myself painted as some kind of anti-war activist. 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.

But I find myself a lightning rod for controversy in reporting what I saw occur in front of me, camera rolling.

It's time you to have the facts from me, in my own words, about what I saw -- without imposing on that Marine -- guilt or innocence or anything in between. I want you to read my account and make up your own minds about whether you think what I did was right or wrong. All the other armchair analysts don't mean a damn to me.

Here it goes.

And here you go to read the whole thing - unless you've already decided what happened and don't care to let additional facts disturb you.

UPDATE: comments unintentionally removed can be seen in extended entry

Name: 1trupatriot
Email Address: OneTruePatriot@yahoo.com
URL:

Comments:

I'm with you. I appreciate your link, I saw a smidgen of it this morning on Fox news, but couldn't find more. Sometimes the truth isn't pretty. I hope Kevin Sites can hold his head high, knowing that some of us would have reacted just as he did. It takes guts for you to support him, when half the blogging community is saying things like "frag him". The truth is none of us, from that Marine, to Kevin Sites, to me or anyone else, would know exactly how we would react unless we were there. And since we weren't, we may just hafta take their words for why they did whatever they did.

_________________________________________________________________

Name: Dman
Email Address: stuppldu@hotmail.com
URL:

Comments:

Are there any links to Sites reporting and video on the atrocities of the terrorists? If not, are there any links to Sites reporting on the positive actions of the Marines resulting in positive outcomes? I am not trying to be sarcastic but rather trying to make a judgement whether Site is truly balanced in his reporting as he claims.

__________________________________________________________________

Name: Bucky Katt
Email Address: jaalinta@aol.com
URL:

Comments:

If there are, I haven't seen them. On the contrary his Blog write-ups of the attack on Falluja are typical of the MSM leftest screed one would expect to see in the NYT Op-Ed section.
It pretty much belies his "straight down the middle" claim.

What bothers me is the self-righteous attitude displayed by Mr. Sites. It's *all* about him. I believe it was Salt Lick in a earlier post that mentioned the title of Sites' blog: "Dispatches from a life in conflict" i.e. Mr. Sites' life. It don't get more self-centered than that.

Instead of letting Military Justice take its due course, he decided to be judge, jury and executioner. He *knew* what was going to happen, despite his protestations to the contrary. Now that this hornets nest has been stirred up, he's trying to back pedal. Why? Because despite his claim that "All the other armchair analysts don't mean a damn to me.", it does upset him otherwise he wouldn't be wasting his breath or his bandwidth.

__________________________________________________________________

Name: m2
Email Address: mbmays@gmail.com
URL:

Comments:

"Now he has done so, in the form of a letter to the only people he feels (rightfully) he owes an explanation."

I take issue with only this statement in your post. If Mr. Sites feels he has the right to report it, if he feels that the world has a right to know it then I have a right to question his rationales.

Godspeed Greyhawk.

__________________________________________________________________

Name: Military Wife
Email Address: youweren'tthere@themosque.com
URL:

Comments:

To err is human. Now guess who I'm talking about.

__________________________________________________________________

Name: ThomasAgee
Email Address: tagee@sbcglobal.net
URL: http://tagee@sbcyahoo.com

Comments:

Keep posting GREYHAWK. Sites can defend himself, he obviously feels the need to do so. It's nice to know ya'll have as much info as you do over there. Don't take no crap off nobody.

__________________________________________________________________

Name: 1trupatriot
Email Address: OneTruePatriot@yahoo.com
URL:

Comments:

of course he shows the good stuff. He shows the character, the integrity, the brotherhood. At some point, no matter how intent on getting the "big story" a reporter is, they either pack up when the bullets start flying or they decide to dig in and stay. This guy stayed, time after time. You can feel his respect for the men he is with. What he seems to be saying is that he almost hoped the head honchos would take the tape away and relieve him of the responsibility, but they saw the need to be honest, as much as it would hurt. The commander could easily have taken that tape and told him to shut up, he might have told the story but without the tape it wouldnt have the same impact. They didnt take the tape, they didnt stop him. We ARE fighting for democracy over there, right?

__________________________________________________________________

Name: Max Power
Email Address: roustabout@gmail.com
URL:

Comments:

Whats moore telling is what sites DOESN'T say, that the shooting was entirely justified. I do appreciate your even handedness, but Sites personal bravery has no place in this story IMHO. Keep up the great work.
-Max

__________________________________________________________________

Name: 1trupatriot
Email Address: OneTruePatriot@yahoo.com
URL:

Comments:

well, maybe what he is saying is he doesn't know for sure that it was? In all our rush to support our soldiers, and I do, perhaps we are rushing too quickly to say he did nothing wrong? Maybe, just maybe, this young man did something he shouldn't have done, in the heat of the moment, with all the trauma and fear of having been shot the day before? I'm saying perhaps just because it was a mistake doesn't mean it didn't happen. Maybe part of the story, even part we may not want to hear, is the damage done to the psyches of these young men when they are forced to make split second decisions that aren't judged in the light of war, but in the light of humanity? So, what happens if he was wrong to shoot, but he had a darn good reason to be afraid, here in the world we call that guilty by reason of temporary insanity. Guilty, with a damn good excuse, but guilty nonetheless. And maybe not, maybe we won't know, but at least we will have tried our best to understand.

__________________________________________________________________

Name: Mr. K
Email Address: kirk5874@hotmail.com
URL:

Comments:

I think it may be best to reserve judgment on the whole episode until more comes out.

But in my gut I do not trust Sites. Here is a story about when Sites was captured by Fedayeen.
http://cnnstudentnews.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0304/11/lol.11.html

I am sure Sites one day wants to come back to the USA. If he did not regret the release of his video, why the lengthy explanation? Regardless of the sacred responsibility to report, he is not obliged to release everything he films. The very fact that he has been there so long, and knows the Arab people and Arab media, means he knew the impact of the release of his video.

His action was not like that of the Marine: over with and done and cannot be undone. He had the time to reflect on the impact of his actions. He can press the delete button, or even delay the release.

Did he view the release of the video in the context of, will this help or hurt the cause of the Marines in 3.1 he cares so much about? Any moron with the IQ of a skunk knows the answer to that question.

__________________________________________________________________

Name: EagleSpeak
Email Address: lawofsea@aol.com
URL: http://www.eaglespeak.blogspot.com

Comments:

Well said, Greyhawk!
If Sites managed to tape what was, at best, a confusing situation, well, we don't talk about the "fog of war" for no reason.
SItes understands the context as shown by his comments:

I'm also well aware from many years as a war reporter that there have been times, especially in this conflict, when dead and wounded insurgents have been booby-trapped, even supposedly including an incident that happened just a block away from the mosque in which one Marine was killed and five others wounded. Again, a detail that was clearly stated in my television report.
No one, especially someone like me who has lived in a war zone with you, would deny that a solider or Marine could legitimately err on the side of caution under those circumstances. War is about killing your enemy before he kills you.
In the particular circumstance I was reporting, it bothered me that the Marine didn't seem to consider the other insurgents a threat -- the one very obviously moving under the blanket, or even the two next to me that were still breathing.
I can't know what was in the mind of that Marine. He is the only one who does.

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Name: Walter Wallis
Email Address: unclgene@pacbell.net
URL:

Comments:

The man was the enemy. HE WAS NOT YET A PRISONER! He made a sudden, unexpected move, as differentiated from the other enemies who apparently did not make sudden, unexpected moves. There is a reason that guys say "Freeze, turkey" or some such. When the story got to me it was "Marine shoots unarmed prisoner." Whoever put that statement in the story was prejudging a situation apparently well outside his/her experience. The failure of Sites to adequately convey the situation to his editors with his tape made him deserving of the criticism raining down on him.

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Name: Paulie at The Commons
Email Address: paulie@paulieworld.com
URL: http://www.paulieworld.com/blog

Comments:

Greyhawk:

Keep up the fire, as the Manchus used to day. Or, Rock Steady, as my old regiment used to say.

You are providing two essential services, military and communicative, and I thank you for both.

God Speed.

Paulie

__________________________________________________________________

Name: jordan
Email Address: mariajordan60@hotmail.com
URL:

Comments:

On the back handed slap to the public, which happens to take a dim view of Sites' actions: he has a job because the public consumes his work.
The context he provided was "The man did not appear to be armed or threatening in any way." You can hear the panic and fear in the Marine's voice just before he shot.
It bothered Sites that the soldier did not see the other enemy wounded lying around as a threat? Doesn't that show that the soldier was alarmed by this particular guy's movement only?

Sites has ingratiated himself with the Marines he depends on for his safety and continued work, and seems to be doing a persuasive job of getting back in everyone's good graces.

All I can do is warn deployed family members to keep their distance.

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Name: Rightwingsparkle
Email Address: mazzman1@sbcglobal.net
URL: http://www.Rightwingsparkle.blogspot.com

Comments:

Gosh, I feel so wierd disagreeing with you Greyhawk. It isn't that I think Sites is anti military or anything like that. I just have a different take on it.

__________________________________________________________________

Name: BloodSpite
Email Address: nospam@npsamplease.com
URL: http://www.techography.com

Comments:

I think everyone needs to remember a few things.

First off Sites is a reporter. Wether *we* think he should have not released the tape is moot. That is his job and he is going to perform his job as he see's fit.

Secondly before the raving mad dogs tear me to pieces, think of this as a ray of hope.

I think Greyhawk will back me here.

As a infantryman you have to be aware of your surroundings.

That means that said infantryman more than likey knew Sites was there, with his camera.

Now what trained rationale individual would shoot a individual without cause knowing there would be filmed record of it?

I think we should wait and allow justice to run its course.

That is, after all, one of the reasons we are in the Middle East at all, yes? Justice?

Wait. Don't turn loose your wolves ladies and gentlemen. While not imnipotent the military rarely hangs people out to dry totally undeservingly.

Let law takes it course first. In the end I think all will be justified and proven.
*Because we weren't there!*

Take care Greyhawk and stay safe.

__________________________________________________________________

Name: Sean
Email Address: dustmans@mfr.usmc.mil
URL: http://docinthebox.blogspot.com

Comments:

Great Post Grayhawk!

In the fog of war, you react by instinct, whatever else you can say about Sites, he has guts. Having an imbedded reporter going with your group into combat is the same as going through a big inspection. You don't want to do something that will embarrass yourself or those around you. In the Marines defense, if you take out the bad guy, he's not going to come back and fight another day. So I agree with what the Marine was doing, just not in front of a camera and I agree with Kevin Sites for not hiding the truth, it is a black eye for us today but in the long run, it shows the world that we stand behind letting the people back home see what is going on out there (same could be said with Milblogs!). I hope the Marine comes out of this alright and I for one don't label Kevin anti-American (but if he's behind me I won't be capping someone that's lying on the ground)

Stay safe!

PS Grayhawk, I'm heading your way in January, keep a portajohn warm for me.

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Name: Jill Livingston
Email Address: jillabc@comcast.net
URL:

Comments:

Per Jonah Goldberg's 2001 article in JWR: "Journalist before American": During the 1987 seminar filmed for a PBS series "Ethics in America" Peter Jennings of ABC and Mike Wallace of CBS agreed that reporters shouldn't be distracted by loyalty to their own country. Placed in a hypothetical scenario of travelling with enemy troops during a Vietnam -like war, Wallace and Jennings were asked if they would warn American soldiers walking into an impending ambush. At first Jennings said he would warn them, but famously switched his position after Wallace lectured him about what it means to be a journalist."

Then there is David Westin, president of ABC news at the time of 9-11 who stated he "...didn't have an opinion" when asked if the Pentagon was a legitimate target. The way I would like all the journalists at ABC News to perceive it, is there is a big difference between a normative position and a positive position. ...as a journalist I feel strongly that's somthing that I should not be taking a position on."

With the MSM showing its bias so openly individual reporters are going to be judged fairly or not by the actions their news organs take with the material provided by the reporters.

When is it appropriate for a reporter to withold information? Just because they can file a report does that mean they always should?

For this particular incident I am putting my faith in the military system that the Marine will get a fair hearing that is held with the proper context of the hell of the moment. I pray for that Marine and all of our fighting forces. They will have to live the rest of their lives with the horror of the unpeakeable acts they have had to witness and sometimes be a part of so we can be free. I hope our country will recognize the help some veterans will need when they come home.

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Name: Bill Trippe
Email Address: btrippe@hotmail.com
URL: http://counterpundit.blogspot.com

Comments:

Excellent post. I appreciate your perspective on this. I, for one, am reserving judgment on both Sites and the marine.

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Name: bclimo
Email Address: billclimo@comcast.net
URL:

Comments:

Tried to post this to Kevin Sites, but he has no way of sending him critiques of his works.

"Just read your letter to Marines in "3.1". I would think after spending some time with them, you might have learned that 3/1 is the usual abbreviation for the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment.

My big question is why you allowed my Marines to proceed into the mosque without giving them the important and necessary info to prevent the shooting that occurred. Had you not been there the day before? Why didn't you question the ambiguous reply from the departing squad? Did you offer any info, or just wait for the worst thing to happen? Are you another of the "objective Journalists" who use the Marines as protective cover and then sell them out for your Pulitzer prize.

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Name: Cecil Turner
Email Address: turnercg1@mindspring.com
URL:

Comments:

I'm unimpressed with Sites's side of the story. Whether intentional or not, he and NBC handed a significant propaganda victory to the insurgents. The most charitable interpretation is cluelessness.

Sites said: "I considered not feeding the tape to the pool -- or even, for a moment, destroying it. But that thought created the same pit in my stomach that witnessing the shooting had. It felt wrong." Okay, but what's the rush? How about saving it for the post-war documentaries? Does it bother you that Al Jazeera thinks it worthy of near-continuous looping?

In my opinion, each reporter ought to have to pass a test prior to embedding, with questions like the following:

"With a live video feed, you see missile fire dropping on the Baghdad "Green Zone," with an easily identifiable landmark in the background, your immediate reaction should be:

A) I've got to get this scene on air immediately--it's important news; or,

B) This obviously can't be aired--it shows the enemy where his shot is falling--I wouldn't dream of acting as his forward observer."

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Name: O'Rourke
Email Address: rkorko@dslextreme.com
URL:

Comments:

The fact that Sites "DID go through that door" has nothing to do with anything. Whether he is a sniveling coward or the bravest man who ever lived is beside the point.

The real question is not did a marine do something "wrong". The question is why is a reporter releasing video which gives aid and comfort to our enemy, makes Iraq more difficult to pacify, and makes the job of being a marine in Iraq more dangerous?

Benedict Arnold was the most courageous field general of the revolutionary war. None of us "were there" when he went over to the British.

So what?

__________________________________________________________________

Name: Foobarista
Email Address: foobarista@yahoo.com
URL:

Comments:

I'm rather torn about this situation. Sites definitely gave Al Jazeera and other enemy propagandists anti-American, pro-terrorist fodder, and doubtless he knew this when he published his report. I can't imagine he wasn't unaware that his footage would be made into terrorist recruiting videos, showing just what soulless monsters the American Marines are. The guy that was shot in the video did more for the terrorist cause than any other fighter in Falluja.

On the other hand, self-censorship is a Bad Thing in a reporter. I'd rather have official military censors than encourage or insist on self-censorship among r