Media Spins as Witnes by U.S. Marines

Mountain Journal News ^ | 22 Jul 2004 | A Marine

[steplock]

Media Spin as Witnessed by U.S. Marines
Thursday, July 22, 2004 - 08:44 AM

		Media Spin as Withnessed by U.S. Marines eMail from: The Thundering Third < SNIP > Many of you may have seen an newspaper article written about our India Company Marines and Sailors by a British Journalist, Matthew McAllester. Mr. McAllester, while very descriptive and at times complimentary about our Marines and Sailors, portrayed a very defeatist and adverse spin on our mission here. What really upset me, however, was the purported negative attitude of our Marines. In his article he suggested that Marines were angry with the President, that we were being attacked simply because we're in Kharma, etc. The journalist oversimplified the challenges here and didn't consider the fact that we are here to stabilize and train the Iraqi Security Forces so that the new Iraqi Government can govern and secure its own country without Coalition Forces. I was particularly disappointed at Mr. McAllester's tactics of leaving India Company and making an unsolicited and inappropriate visit to Cpl Webb at the hospital in Baghdad, interviewing him while drugged, tired, and wounded in his hospital bed with questions designed to obtain emotional responses. Our mission here in Iraq is complex and difficult. This is a dangerous place and every Marine and Sailor in the Thundering Third knew that before we deployed and is very aware of it every day here in Iraq. Morale is high across our great Battalion and I want the Families to know that morale at India Company may be the highest in the Battalion, as India's Marines and Sailors are doing great things in Kharma. Progress in this type of warfare is very difficult to gauge, but our men are making a difference every day and Capt Brett Clark and his Marines and Sailors have already re-established the Kharma Police Station, which was unoccupied for some months, have enabled the Kharma City Council to reconvene their meetings in Kharma, have helped to create a Kharma Security Council, integrating local tribal and city leaders, the Iraqi National Guard Company Commander of Kharma and the Police Chief, and others committed to restoring peace to this city. As I described above, Kharma is a smaller version of Fallujah. While we've had an uneasy calm of late, we are still finding IEDs in Kharma and have been fired at with RPGs and small arms fire. We also killed a terrorist who fired at us with his AK-47 last night. I wish all of you could walk through India Company's firm base and see and speak with the Marines as SgtMajor Sax and I do. I wish you could visit the various posts India Company Marines man 24 hours a day and see how alert, professional and ready they are. I wish you could observe the India Company Command Post and listen to reports coming in from the field. India Company is doing a magnificent job and is on the point of the spear for the Thundering Third. Mr. McAllester left his thank you card in the form of an adverse article published long after he departed our area... Mr. McAllester is persona non grata - read "not welcome" at the Thundering Third. < SNIP > Mountain Journal News

[Sunshine Sister]

God bleass and keep our military. What a great bunch of people they are. I hope each and every one of them know that we know about the media and how they spin stuff. We have their number and they can't fool us any more.

[Adrastus]

Let's see now. The troops know of the press spin. A lot of the public knows of the press spin. That leaves those in the middle: the press. Do these people imagine that they will be able to continue their lies forever?

What can be done?

As it stands the internet including sites such as this one are the mortal enemy of this calculated disinformatzia. How long before there is a full scale attack on this news source?

[steplock]

That is why I am posting these letters from our troops to FreeRepublic, Mountain journal News, and other locations, and directly to friends.

Knowledge is POWER!

That is the reason why we are seeing "The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America" (a book by Charlotte Iserbyt)

[Ben Chad]

Mr. McAllester is persona non grata...

OooooRaaaah

[Valin]

Bump