Posted on 10/20/2003 8:02:35 AM PDT by presidio9
It´s no secret that most of the mainstream US media was against the Bush administration´s invasion of Iraq and, even during the brief combat phase, was already calling it a "quagmire." Since the declaration that major combat had ended in May, every single casualty has been reported. The implied message is that we should get out of Iraq, that our mission there is foolhardy and wasteful of our soldier´s lives.
On Saturday, October 18, when the Newark, NJ Star-Ledger, the largest circulation daily in the State, led page one with the headline "Postwar Iraq GI death toll passes 100", I was reminded that, on the previous day, the Essex County edition had a story that reported "So far this year, 65 people have been slain in Newark, sometimes in spurts as in the one beginning Oct 3 when four people were killed and eight injured by gunshots or stab wounds during a 32-hour period."
Does it seem to you that, statistically, your life is at greater risk in Newark, NJ than downtown Baghdad or Basra? Now Essex is just one of twenty-one New Jersey counties and you can be pretty sure that, in my State alone, more people have been shot, stabbed and beaten to death than the entire US military currently engaged in some serious fighting in Iraq. And that´s just from January of this year.
But let´s not restrict ourselves to New Jersey. As your local newspaper or television news reports each US combat loss in Iraq, a nation the size of California, back in May when the major combat phase was over, the police in Phoenix, Arizona, were puzzling over why the homicide rate there was up 67% over the previous year. By May, 105 citizens had met violent deaths.
By August, New Orleans had chalked up 150 homicides and that isn´t even counting the rest of Louisiana. Only 146 US soldiers had died in the brief period of combat that led to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. If the current rate of corpses keeps piling up in the Crescent City, law enforcement authorities there think it will be on track to become the nation´s murder capitol for the first time since way back in 1964.
While the news media keep reminding us that we are, indeed, suffering losses in Iraq due to cowardly and murderous former supporters of Saddam Hussein, plus all kinds of al Qaeda riff-raff, with who-knows-how-many Iranian provocateurs, the murder rate in Philadelphia, by early August, was up 23% with---are you ready for this---198 killed. At that pace, by the end of 2003, the city will experience 337 murders. Across the nation in Oakland, California, that city was marking its 76 murders as of late August.
And in Washington, DC, our nation´s capital and workplace of so many Democrat politicians eager to denounce the President, by June the District had reclaimed its status as the murder capital of the United States. According to FBI statistics, the city had a higher homicide rate than any other city in the nation with more than 500,000 residents.
Yes, dear reader, statistically you have a better chance of being shot to death in Washington, DC than in Baghdad. So, the next time your local daily or nightly TV news trumpets the number of US battle casualties in Iraq, you should probably give some thought to wearing a bulletproof vest if you plan to visit the Lincoln Memorial.
Every single casualty was reported before that too, but back then, it was reported on the front page. Now, I find the dead listed on page 20, and the wounded aren't mentioned at all, unless fatalities are also involved, per US Army policy. Frankly, I don't know what the media is expected to do. Are the soldiers who die today less deserving of mention in the newspapers than the soldiers who died during the invasion?
And not to trivialize the horrible tragedy in any way, but we lost a hundred in a single night club fire.
It helps them justify, at least in their own mind (SPIN), that the numbers aren't that bad. They'll send Prayer's to the dead Soldier's survivors and then roll over and get a good night's sleep. Tomorrow, rinse and repeat! Blackbird.
These soldiers, be it 200, or 2,000 died for this country, and CHOOSE to go into harms way for us and this country, unlike the normal deaths that the general population (200 million) in our country face every day as a part of life. And the conditions that these volunteer soldiers are facing before they may die are NOTHING compared to what we have to endure in our daily lives here in America.
So, these kinds of articles I believe are doing a great dis-service to our armed forces by comparing them to "daily American life/death statistics". And I find offensive. As to those who don't like to see the "bad news" of this war in the form of soldiers deaths being reported, Tough. Those soldiers, every single one of them that lost their life, and those that will lose their lives over there in a conflict designed to ultimately protect the united states deserves to be mentioned in death. To hell if this news rains on anyone's perfect sunny day.
This proposition is unsupported in the article, and is most likely incorrect. Hint: People would think you were crazy to wear a flack jacket around Washington, DC. You would be crazy to not wear one in Baghdad.
Soldiers deaths are facts, no matter what the author feels about it.
Now the spin of; "This is the Um-teenth soldier to die since April 9th and since President Bush declared the war over" Is what has you really ticked, then why is this article not trivializing just that, the bad reporting instead of the soldiers deaths?
That's not even remotely close to what I said.
Soldiers deaths are facts, no matter what the author feels about it.
I absolutely agree 100%. I don't think hardly anyone would suggest that deaths over there should be covered up; I know I certainly wouldn't be in favor of that. It's the motives that I object to, along with the fact that there isn't even a semblance of balance and even-handedness in the coverage.
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