Thursday, December 23, 2004

MSM Will Force Iraq to be Viet-Nam Irrelevant of Reality

Hugh Hewitt has an article that discusses the press making the Iraq war into Viet-Nam. Admittedly, that characterization of his article is mine, but I think it extremely accurate.

Mainly, journalism is starting to intentionally tamper with politics by selective reporting and using especially shocking events to editorialize. In this case Stevenson is piggy-backing his editorial comments on the deaths of soldiers in Mosul.

The original article in the NYT pretty much speaks for itself, if you're willing to read it objectively. RICHARD W. STEVENSON is the author of this "News Analysis" which I personally would call an opinion piece. I always thought that analysis required facts, but this provides none at all.

I've been seeing this for a while, but this "news analysis" really strikes me as what was seen during Viet-Nam. Instead of truthfully presenting facts, irrelevant of who they support, this ilk of the press seems to call it news, when it really is propaganda.

The Belmont Club brought to question the actions of an AP reporter who appears to have been very very lucky to get photos of the execution of Iraqi Electoral workers. If this isn't even questionably propaganda, I don't know what it is. I am even feeling a little paranoid after Salon came out condemning Wretchard's query. If this is such open and open journalism, surely it could take the questions of a blogger.

Read it all yourself. They say don't trust the Government, but in this case, you'd be wise to question whether the MSM deserves to be trusted.

2 comments:

Granted said...

Finally reading "We Were Soldiers Once." I've also read accounts of the war in Iraq. I'm sorry, but these two things don't compare. The Viet Cong and the PAVN were well trained, well lead, experienced, dedicated fighters. When they ran into some of the best units in the American Army, they would stand toe-to-toe with them and duke it out. Yes, they'd get their butts kicked, but our troops would leave knowing they'd been in a real war. From everything I've read and seen about the war in Iraq, it just is in no way the same and, as bad as our casualties are, the casualties tell the picture. What'd we lose, 20 guys when we assaulted Falujah? Tell that to the 300+ that went down attacking Whey (sp?) during Tet. The terrorists are very well trained at maintaining cells, bombing & running, small scale ambushes, but they're not hard core soldiers like the VC & PAVN. Frelling reporters. You want to shove books at them about the Philipine insurgency in the 20's, the Boxer Rebellion, Archangel... At least they'd be able to compare things to something other than WWII or Viet frigging Nam.

Granted said...

My bad. We lost 104 guys assaulting Falujah... Oh, I was also mistaken about the Hue operation. We lost 605. Hmmm. I guess Iraq still doesn't look quite like Viet Nam.