Haditha Coverage: I Am Getting Sick Of This

Anyone who has not been living in a Taliban cave for the last few days has had comment after comment made in regard to the incident in Haditha, Iraq. I will give a brief rundown of the facts that are uncontested at this time, as I am aware of them. A detachment of US Marines were attacked through the use of an IED. One Marine, to my knowledge, was killed. That would be Sergeant Martin Terrazas. His "co-pilot" was Lance Corporal James Crossan, who was severely wounded in the blast, and was airlifted. According to Corporal Crossan, the Marines fell back and surrounded the Humvee, taking up defensive positions. They were fired upon from the nearby buildings. According to the interview with Corporal Crossan, the terrorists were using civilians as shields. Approximately 24 civilians were killed during the engagement. The military began an investigation into the Haditha incident, and in February of this year, TIME Magazine ran an expose about the engagement.

The accusation being made now, especially from within the MSM, is that these Marines lost control, and murdered these civilians. There were no terrorists.

Let me state, for the record, that I actually know nothing about the incident. The above synopsis is based on what I have read from blogs and MSM outlets. I deplore their coverage of the events, and much of the MSM's content is reflected in the TIME piece. I have gained more information by following the New Media, such as Greyhawk's coverage of the incident. (No, he was not there either.) But he is representative of the New Media. Before condemning ANYONE, we need to wait until all the facts are out there, and the military's investigation is complete.

As someone who has a brother serving in Afghanistan right now, this issue is near and dear to me. I would not like to see him implicated in such an incident, nor would I like to see the MSM act as judge, jury, and executioner with his fate; something that should be determined by the military. But today, I noted this post by Mrs. Greyhawk.

It is in regard to a milblogger who has decided to quit over the Haditha debate. And based on her careful research, he seems apt to jump on the MSM bandwagon. He brings up the numerous instances of contradicting information over it, and is not likely to buy the Marines' sides of the story. That is a shame for him, but in response to that small diatribe she found, she has a solid, straight-to-the-point response that is quite appropo concerning this incident:

I say, if the Marines are guilty, punish them accordingly, but until this goes to trial, I'm telling the media and anyone else who have some preconceived notion to STFU.

I second that notion. We should simply wait for the information to come out, and the MSM hyping this incident as another "My Lai" is not helping the situation. Furthermore, the MSM's distortion of information is appalling. They act as though they were the fly on the wall during that gun battle, and they along know more than the military does. In addition, it is distasteful for the MSM to act as though they pressed the military to hurry their investigation up. They act like they "rode to the rescus" on this story. They are protecting the "innocent" lives that have been swallowed up by a brutal "occupation" of their homeland.

Uh-huh. Tell me another one.

They truly enjoy doing this sort of spin because they know that as long as they control the flow of information (they do not; the most reliable information thus far has come from blogs, and they have introduced information the MSM refuses to address) they can control the debate. It is a nice concept, but it is not one that reflects their profession. As purveyors of news they are supposed to report the facts, and allow the public to decide. But invective and invasive opinion, and months old information, serves as their crutch over this story, and it will not support them.

I am inclined to think the best. That our troops responded to an attack. They acted according to the rules of engagement, which Strategy Page addresses:

What is unusual about the current accusations is that such events are rare. While there are a lot of civilians killed by combat actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, most are clearly just people caught in the cross fire. The enemy knowingly takes cover among civilians, to take advantage of American "Rules of Engagement" (ROE). But at the same time, the American ROE these days puts the safely of American troops above all else. Thus if the enemy hides among civilians and opens fire, U.S. troops will return fire, and the civilians either get out of the way, or get hit. Brutal, but the alternative is dead Americans.

And to me, that seems to be the modus operandi of the MSM. I do not make the accusation lightly, and their recent history involved in this war shows where their loyalties lie. It is not with the troops in harm's way. Rather, it lies with those opposed to them. The Marine who shot the wounded terrorist in the Fallujah mosque is a prime example of where they draw the line when it comes to their loyalties. The nuts were shouting that this was a "brutal" act committed in a holy place. (Funny, they care less for our own holy places, yet defend one that belongs to our enemy? Where our enemy stockpiled weapons and munitions, content we would not bomb it?) Thae Marine was justified as the terrorist was simply "playing possum" hoping the Marines would forget about him. Probably long enough for him to either fire on them when they were not aware, or to detonate a bomb.

This is our enemy. But, as the old news adage goes, "Bad news sells; good news sits." They have spent over five years hyping up the death totals for our soldiers. For them to deny that they would not appreciate a few more troops deaths, IMHO, is a fallacy. They would because they know that it will sell papers. They know that their ideological brethren will have more talking points in the seemingly never-ending debate over the war. It is a win-win for the MSM, but in the end the nation loses. Because as they did so in Vietnam--willingly--they are doing the same now in their vain attempt to destroy morale in the nation.

But Strategy Page goes on to reinforce my point even further in the conclusion of the above paragraph:

The enemy makes the most of the civilians they have caused, through their actions, to get killed. The current atrocity accusations are about "cold blood" killings. The investigation will have to decide when the "heat of battle" turns into "cold blood." That's a tough decision to make, and the large number of imbedded journalists have written stories about it. These are not the kind of pieces editors love, as they are not as headline grabbing as atrocity stories.

Yes, they do. And their refusal to acknowledge the actions of our enemy--that they do use civilians, that they will kill civilians in an attempt to blame it on our troops--is reprehensible. It does sicken me greatly.

Marcie