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     Karl Loren Moderator Username: Kloren Post Number: 23 Registered: 05-2003 |
I have taken to reading articles from the New York Times recently. I never used to. Since I never used to I didn't know how bad it was. It is a wake-up call to read the Times on some subject of the day, and some other news source, and see what "feels right" to you. We know, going into this that the Times has admitted to the lies spread by Jason Blair, and how a couple senior editors took the fall, while Arthur Sulzberber stays above the fray. This posting, I think, is just one more nail in the coffin that SHOULD be used for the final resting place for "All The News That Is Fit To Print!" The subject for my comparison was the military action in Iraq on Saturday, June 14, 2003, going over into Sunday, June 15th. The simple background of this is that US troops have been killed in ambushes by "whoever." Some news sources even call the source of the ambushes the "resistance," or whatever other nice label they use. Part of the obvious military solution to these attacks was to ban heavy weapons among Iraqis. This was reported in the news a couple weeks ago: BAGHDAD (AFP) May 23, 2003 The US-led coalition in Iraq expects to ban all heavy and automatic weapons and require permits for small arms within 30 days, Lieutenant General David McKiernan told reporters on Friday. Source: Click Here. If we wanted to get technical and legal, this is not a time of "military combat" I suppose, but it is a time of continued military control over an area that we committed war upon. In other words, let us not mince words. Congress did not actually "declare" war, but there is no doubt in any thinking man's mind that we were "at war." During the "at war" combat period we expected bullets from anywhere, and handled those quite well. We are now in some sort of "peace" period that is still filled with "people who shoot at us," even though we have declared "victory" on the combat phase. We could play all day with fancy words, and legal technicalities, but the truth is that a "war" has not finished, yet, with peace, and that our military is being shot at by "someone" who doesn't want our version of peace. With this background, we move further into the "peace making" process with a "threat/statement" that all heavy guns in the hands of anyone other than authorized military would be illegal after June 14. The first lesson that any military peace-keeping group must learn is that when you say something, you mean it. This is rather like President Bush. So, the US Military said "no more heavy guns," and very few were turned in by the deadline. You know that means that virtually not one Iraqi believes the US Military means what it said. There would never be peace there if we get sniped out and lose our resolve. The word of the United States is not to be ignored -- the world is beginning to learn this truth. The most straight forward account of the news was a very simple Voice of America notice: U.S. military officials say American troops in central Iraq have carried out extensive early morning raids in the town of Fallujah, searching for armed loyalists of ousted leader Saddam Hussein. Source: Click Here. The coverage from another media source was this: FALLUJAH, IRAQ -- U.S. army units moved in force to seal off the Iraqi town Fallujah west of the Baghdad early today, raid the homes of suspected militia resistance leaders and search for illegal weapons. Soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division's 2nd Brigade targeted spots where intelligence reports indicated resistance operations were underway or weapons stockpiled for use against U.S. forces. Source: Click Here. So, the first piece of news here is that the US Military DOES mean what it said, and will be enforcing this ban on heavy weapons. It may take some Iraqis a while to become convinced that we mean what we say. Many Americans are in the same boat of doubting the honesty of their own President. The Iraqis will learn, soon enough, that we DO mean what we say. But, the reason this post is made here, in the ongoing saga of the shame of the New York Times, is the different ways the NYT covered pieces of this story and how the Washington Times covered parts of it. Here is an excerpt from the Washington Times: Packets of Algerian tobacco, paperwork from Egypt and Yemen, and Saudi religious tracts and shopping tags were found among the scorched ruins of the camp yesterday by the Sunday Telegraph, the first British journalists to reach the remote location. Local people who buried the bodies within 24 hours, in keeping with Muslim teaching, recognized just one man. They said they believe that the rest of the heavily armed group, which arrived in a packed truck last weekend and set up camp in the desert, was a mixture of foreigners and Iraqis from other parts of the country. The raid, on what U.S. Central Command called a "terrorist training camp," provides the first significant indication that militants from other Arab countries who came to Iraq before the U.S.-led invasion are still operating in the tribal lands west of Baghdad. The attack began with an aerial pounding shortly after midnight and is thought to have followed a tip about the group's whereabouts from an informant within the fighters' ranks or from Rawa. Although the nationalities of the men are not known, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt and Algeria provided most of the volunteers for Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. Scattered on the ground were approximately 20 pairs of crumpled black trousers and jackets — the uniform of the fanatical Fedayeen Saddam — Saddam's Martyrs. Military rucksacks and kitbags lay alongside, as well as civilian clothes and training shoes. The remains of a medical kit of bandages, syringes, painkillers and sutures suggested the fighters had been well-equipped. Along a gully, the remnants of the group's arms cache stretched for hundreds of yards. About 30 hand-held surface-to-air missile launchers, countless missiles, mortar rounds and flares, and the remnants of rocket-propelled grenades, were strewn across the ground. Source: Click Here. Compare that factual report with the emotion-eliciting slant of the NYT: In the past, Iraqis have reacted angrily to such raids, calling them heavy-handed and warning that American forces are turning Iraqi public opinion against them. By the time the raids were completed by dawn this morning, angry Iraqis were making those charges again. The operation began here just after 2 a.m. local time, with dozens of American military vehicles — M1-A1 Abrams tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles and Humvees rumbling out of the sprawling American base west of town. American units blocked all traffic on the main highway running across Iraq and linking Falluja to Baghdad. As convoys of military vehicles converged on their targets, Kiowa helicopters, pilotless drones and fighter jets circled overhead. Across Falluja, teams of soldiers from the Third Infantry Division raided houses looking for the men believed to have planned and carried out the recent ambushes of American soldiers, military officials said. Soldiers also raided suspected weapons caches. In one house, 15 suspected members of the hard-line Saddam Fedayeen were detained. Colonel Schwartz said some Iraqis resisted and were shot by Americansoldiers. He did not have complete Iraqi casualty figures this morning, but said no Americans were hurt. He said the goal of the raid and subsequent distribution of relief aid was to show that the Americans are pursuing only the handful of people carrying out the attacks, while at the same time trying to help the vast majority of people in the city. He said he hoped the people of Falluja would see that the raids this morning were aimed specifically at the militants, not ordinary residents. "What we have to do is get these Baathist folks," he said. Colonel Schwartz added that tensions had eased somewhat in Falluja since his battalion arrived 12 days ago as part of a redeployment of troops that has quadrupled the number of allied forces here. A raid at 4 a.m. on a gas station used as a weapons transfer point showed the advantages and disadvantages of the sweeps. An Abrams battle tank and four Bradley fighting vehicles drove toward the gas station, which sits just off a main road in the town. In front of the station, all four of the Bradley's abruptly stopped, pivoted and pointed their gun barrels and headlights at it. The rear hatches of the vehicles swung open and infantrymen poured outside, aiming their rifles at a row of trucks. In the glare of the headlights, Iraqi truck drivers dropped up in the cabs of the trucks where they had been sleeping. Seemingly baffled by what was happening, they obeyed American instructions to line up and be searched and questioned. "We are searching for weapons," an American soldier explained to the 20 drivers. All of them denied having any arms. "We have nothing but potatoes," one driver said. As the Americans scoured the trucks, one man nervously whispered to another in Arabic. "Do you have weapons?" "No, no," the other answered. "Am I stupid enough to bring it here?" Other drivers complained that their trucks had just been searched at an American checkpoint up the road. When a journalist took photos of them being searched, they complained even more loudly. "They are taking the pictures so they can show their people them searching Iraqis," one man said. "Do they think we are monkeys?" Tarik Abud Mousa, a 40-year-old truck driver from the city of Qaim in western Iraq, said the drivers had been sleeping peacefully when the Americans arrived. He called the searches a humiliation. Source: Click Here. The NYT may well have planted people to say these things to their reporter -- you could not put that past the NYT. In any event, the NYT always tries to add a negative spin to the news -- anything damaging to the current POWER. Remember, I did not say that the NYT is always attacking the Republicans -- just usually. If the Democrats looked powerful, you'd find the NYT attacking the Democrats. The NYT, like most media, is interested in only one thing -- to create divisions within the society -- to make those divisions deep and bitter, to ultimately create chaos so that they can then instill their own values and world order. |
