Media Overplay the Gloomy News From Iraq (Excellent Perspective!!!)

NY Newsday/LA Times ^ | 10/29/03 | Max Boot

[NYC Republican]

Listening to the gloomy news from Iraq, I can't help but wonder how today's news media might have covered D-Day.

I can just imagine the story: "More than 8,000 Allied servicemen were wounded, 3,000 of them fatally, during an assault on Normandy beaches yesterday. Despite those heavy casualties, almost all of France remains under Nazi occupation. The supreme Allied commander, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, claimed that everything had gone according to plan, but a number of retired military officers suggested that the invasion is in grave danger of failing."

[berserker]

But don't lose sight of the bigger picture.

Since Iraq apparently doesn't have WMDs, and militarily apparently was not a threat to the U.S., imminent or otherwise, what is exactly the "bigger picture" that makes us want to continue to have these casualties? I keep seeing these types of postings, about keeping things in perspective, etc., but I would hope that continued military casualties would be for some purpose.

[jcb8199]

bump

[EdReform]

Bump & Ping

[Filibuster_60]

Mr. Boot misses a point here: As of yesterday, this is the first time in our history - possibly in anyone's history - that "postwar" combat deaths have exceeded wartime combat deaths.

It hardly matters how brilliant the original campaign was. If we can't significantly slow down the rate of casualties in the "postwar" phase, it'll be a slow, agonizing attrition that the public won't accept.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

ping

[MeekOneGOP]

Thanks for the ping ...

[WHBates]

What? Post war? Has some declared the end to a war?

[DadOfFive]

Since Iraq apparently doesn't have WMDs

Oh, that's been officially concluded now?

[PLOM...NOT!]

...that "postwar" combat deaths have exceeded wartime combat deaths.

I don't recall the "war" having been declared officially over.

[Filibuster_60]

If the war isn't over, then I'm afraid we can no longer boast about "Iraqi Freedom" being the quickest, most successful lightning campaign in military history - which many Freepers have been saying for months.

[Grampa Dave]

ANOTHER VIETNAM? NO

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1010274/posts

ANOTHER VIETNAM? NO
New York Post ^ | 10/29/03 | RALPH PETERS


Posted on 10/28/2003 11:57 PM PST by kattracks

October 29, 2003 -- LET'S leave the phony pieties and hand-wringing to the presidential aspirants and celebrity journalists. Here's the truth:
* Thirty-six dead in a series of suicide bombings in Baghdad? The chump change of strategy. Cold-blooded, but true.

* Another American soldier killed in a roadside bombing? Every lost service member matters, but at the present casualty rate it would take 15 years for our dead in Iraq to surpass the number of Americans butchered on 9/11. Better to fight like lions than to die like sheep.

* Iraq another Vietnam? Hell, even Vietnam wasn't the Vietnam of left-wing baby-talk politics and campus political astrology. Our Vietnamese enemies represented a mass movement. The Iraqi terrorists represent a small, bloodthirsty movement to oppress the masses.

* Did Operation Iraqi Freedom create terrorists? No. It terrorized the terrorists. Now it's flushing them out of their hiding places. We'll be killing and capturing them for years. But that's the only approach that works.

* Has the War on Terror made Americans less safe? Despite the dishonest claims of Democratic presidential hopefuls, the answer is an unequivocal "No!" Where is the evidence that we're in greater danger now? Where are the terrorist attacks on our cities?

In this war, the only measurement that matters is the absence of attacks. Since 9/11, our government has taken the war to the terrorists and kept us remarkably safe.

* They'll attack America again and prove the War on Terror was a failure. Bull. Oh, we'll eventually be hit again. No counter-terror effort will ever be 100 percent effective. But if Terrorist No. 500 gets through, it doesn't mean there was no value in stopping the first 499. The proof of our success in this war is the undisturbed routine of our daily lives.

* Isn't there some way to stop the attacks in Iraq? Not in the short term. We face those who wish to turn back the clock, in some cases to the days of Saddam's rule, in others to a primitive theocracy. Our enemies are fanatics in the truest sense of the word. Every one we kill is a service to humanity.

* Doesn't the continuation of the attacks mean our approach is flawed? No. There's no magic bullet. This isn't a movie. It's a deadly, long-term struggle for incalculably high stakes.

And there is no rational, responsible alternative to persevering. The only disastrous choice we could make would be to give up.

* How long can the Iraqi terrorists maintain this pace of attacks? We don't know. The Iraqi terrorists themselves don't know. But we should be encouraged, not discouraged, that the best they can do is to ram a few suicide wagons into public buildings. They're not overrunning our troops. They're desperately scraping up all the suicide drivers they can. It's only surprising that they've been able to find so few.

* Do the Iraqi people support the terrorists? No. The Iraqi people just want to live in peace - without Saddam. They don't want our troops to stay forever, but few want us to leave tomorrow. The terror attacks will keep reminding them why they don't want the old regime back. What should we expect in Iraq? Imperfect results. It's an imperfect world. But even a partial success in establishing basic human rights, the rule of law and some form of democracy would be an unprecedented triumph in the region.

* Why are so few nations willing to help us? Because many political leaders want us to fail. Because the United States has returned to its original ideals, supporting freedom, self-determination, the rights of the individual and simple human decency.

Our example terrifies every one of Iraq's neighboring governments and infuriates the Europeans - who long profited from their political love affairs with dictators, even as they damned America for similar behavior.

We have taken a stand for freedom. And freedom still has few friends in this world.

THERE is only one way in which the situation in Iraq resembles Vietnam: Our enemies realize that they can't win militarily. This is a contest of wills much more than a contest of weapons. The terrorists intend to wear us down.

Our enemies are employing media-genic bombings to leap over our soldiers and influence our political leaders and our elections - just as the Vietnamese did. The suicide bombers themselves are deluded madmen, but the men behind the terror campaign calculate that, if they can just maintain a sufficient level of camera-friendly attacks, our military successes and all the progress of our reconstruction efforts will be eclipsed by a mood of dejection in Washington.

If the terrorists turn out to be right, the butcher's bill in the coming years and decades will be vastly higher than the casualty count in Iraq.

Ralph Peters' new book is "Beyond Baghdad: Postmodern War and Peace."

[Grampa Dave]

Media Has Blood On Its' Hands, Iraq GI Tells Rep.King
To Grampa Dave | 10/29/2003 8:09 AM PST sent




http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1010199/posts

Media Has Blood On Its' Hands, Iraq GI Tells Rep.King
Newsmax.com ^ | October 29, 2003 | Newsmax.com


Posted on 10/28/2003 9:57 PM PST by Lady In Blue




Reprinted from NewsMax.com
Wednesday Oct. 29, 2003; 12:12 a.m. EST

Media Has Blood on its Hands, Iraq GI Tells Rep. King

Rep. Peter King, R-NY, delivered a stark message on Tuesday from an unnamed U.S. military officer now stationed in Baghdad who believes negative press coverage of the U.S. war effort has cost American soldiers their lives.

While flying back to the U.S. aboard a military transport, King told nationally syndicated radio host Sean Hannity via satellite phone, "I promised an American colonel yesterday, an Army colonel, that [I'd relay his message]: 'There's blood on the hands of the American media.'"

"He's lost men because of the terrible reporting and it's just creating a terrible atmosphere," King said the Army colonel told him.

"The troops have tremendous morale. But unfortunately the terrorists are encouraged and the Iraqi people are being dissuaded from cooperating with the American forces because of the terrible coverage back here," King said.

The unnamed GI, who King said had two graduate degrees, shared his disturbing assessment as the two flew by helicopter from the Baghdad airport to the Al Rashid hotel.

Paraphrasing the Army colonel's words, the New York Republican said, "I just want you to know that there's blood on the hands of the American media; that my men and women are going to die because of them."

The GI's message continued, "We are winning this war and the only way we can lose this is if the American people lose their nerve and that's because of what's going on in the American media."

King said he concurred with the Army colonel's complaint, saying, "What I saw is totally different from what the American media is reporting."

Noting that he was in Baghdad during the wave of terrorist attacks this weekend, King said that, "in spite of all of that, life is virtually normal in Baghdad."

"What the media doesn't show is that the rest of Baghdad is traffic jams, markets open . . . you would have thought you were in midtown Manhattan," the New York Republican contended.

"Life is so different when you're there from the way it's being portrayed in the media."

How many Freepers, who serve as 5th columnist stringers for these mediots have blood on their hands for stringing these stories 24/7 on Free Republic?

[NYC Republican]

Thanks. I listened to him on Sean's show the other day, he was FANTASTIC! I wish we could recruit this guy to go after Chucky-Cheese Schumer, or at the very least, Klinton.

[NYC Republican]

What Mr. King is saying hits the nail on the head. It's plain and simple. We're at war, and the Dems are pounding the President at every opportunity.

Look at it from the Iraqi terrorists point of view... Each time they create havoc and murder, they have the Dims supporting them by attacking our policy

The most disgraceful thing here, besides emboldening the enemy, is that the Dims won't call for leaving Iraq, but critisize just the same. They offer NO alternative, and the media gives them a free pass...

Read the whole article, if you haven't already done so. VERY interesting.

[Grampa Dave]

Peter King must have had a real coming around with 9/11. I can't believe some of his recent remarks re Wilson/Plame and the post war in Iraq.

[sean327]

Your grasp of history is wanting. After WWII Japanese soldiers continued to fight on in the Philipenes, and Burma. These guys continued raiding villages for years after the war. After the Civil War was over bands of Conferate holdouts continued to raid and terrorize. It happens after any major combat operation. This war is not over, and we will get these guys, and yes OIF was and is the fastest successfull major military operation to date. The U.S. military destroyed entire enemy formations before enemy commanders even knew what was happening around them. We are now in the "Holdout" phase. It takes time to root these clown out, and it has to be done a little more delecatly than the Beggining phase.

[Only1choice____Freedom]

...but a number of retired military officers suggested that the invasion is in grave danger of failing."

At the time, Generals involved were concerned about the same thing. The Iraq situations is much more sure than WWII wever was. And much safer too.

Looking back at the history of WWII it's a wonder we didn't lose it! We could have at several times. It was in no way predecided here on Earth. God's hand had to have been in it. However, hindsight is 20/20 and the press doesn't care about history - even just in the past 5 years.

[Rummyfan]

Iraq is another front in the War on Terror. That war is continuing. Major combat operations in Iraq were declared over in May by the President. I didn't hear anything about the war being over. In fact the President and all Admin officials have repeatedly said that the war will take a long time - most recently in Rumsfeld's leaked memo.

[ancientart]

Mr. Boot misses a point here: As of yesterday, this is the first time in our history - possibly in anyone's history - that "postwar" combat deaths have exceeded wartime combat deaths

Sort of depends on how you look at things and what you count as "postwar." During the Spanish American War, we had little difficulty ending Spanish rule. Admiral Dewey took Manila easily, the Spanish capitulating in May of 1898. There were very few casualties in the Phillipines, and the textbooks note that there were only 460 U.S. battle casualities in all of the Spanish American War (many more lost to disease, but that's another story).

In the Phillipines, fighting continued long after the war against Spain was over: the islands were very difficult to organize and pacify.

Fighting against Phillipinos continued until July 1902. Total casualties: 4,200 U.S. soldiers, 20,000 Filipino soldiers, and 200,000 Filipino civilians.