Posted on 01/13/2014 11:15:00 PM PST by smoothsailing
CNN’s Jake Tapper would have done well to read “Lone Survivor,” rather than just seeing the new movie, before interviewing former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell last week. If he had, Tapper might have been more careful than to describe the deaths of Luttrell’s SEAL comrades in Afghanistan as “senseless.” And he would have been wary of Luttrell’s contempt for the liberal media.
The film “Lone Survivor, which ” took in $38.5 million at the box office its opening weekend is based on a 2010 book by Luttrell that tells the tragic story of a 2005 operation in which the three other members of Luttrell’s SEAL team, along with 17 other special ops warriors, were killed. The story turned on the team’s agonized decision to turn lose some Afghan goat herders who had stumbled onto its concealed position. As the SEALs had feared, the freed civilians went straight to the Taliban, precipitating the battle.
While the movie recounts the fateful decision, it doesn’t explicitly tell the audience that a big part of deciding not to kill the goat herders was the certain knowledge that, “The media in the United States of America would crucify us,” in Luttrell’s words.
To kill or not kill the goat herders was a horrible choice to have to make – a moral, ethical and military dilemma that weighed the lives of the civilians against the lives of the team. Luttrell was rightly furious at having to to decide knowing that the SEALs would never get a fair shake from a hostile news media.
Throughout the book, Luttrell registered distrust of liberals in the media and in Washington – and did so with a very direct eloquence. Here are 10 of the best examples from the book. (Page numbers correspond to the Kindle Edition.)
1. “This entire business of modern war crimes, as identified by the liberal wings of politics and the media, began in Iraq and has been running downhill ever since. Everyone’s got to have his little hands in it, blathering on about the public’s right to know.” (p. 38)
2. “It’s been an insidious progression, the criticisms of the U.S. Armed Forces from politicians and from the liberal media, which knows nothing of combat, nothing of our training, and nothing of the mortal dangers we face out there on the front line.”(p. 36)
3. “That situation might look simple in Washington, where the human rights of terrorists are often given high priority. And I am certain liberal politicians would defend their position to the death. Because everyone knows liberals have never been wrong about anything. You can ask them. Anytime.” (p. 37)
4. On the left’s view of U.S. troops: “… we were somehow in the wrong, brutal killers, bullying other countries; that we who put our lives on the line for our nation at the behest of our government should somehow be charged with murder for shooting our enemy.” (p. 36)
5. “I promise you every insurgent, freedom fighter and stray gunman in Iraq who we arrested knew the ropes, knew that the way out was to announce he had been tortured by the Americans, ill-treated, or prevented from reading the Koran or eating his breakfast or watching television. They all knew al-Jazeera, the Arab broadcasters, would pick it up, and it would be relayed to the U.S.A., where the liberal media would joyfully accuse all of us of being murderers or barbarians or something. Those terrorist organizations laugh at the U.S. media, and they know exactly how to use the system against us.” (p. 39)
6. “Was there ever a greater uproar than the one that broke out over Abu Ghraib? In the bigger scheme of things, in the context of all the death and destruction that Muslim extremists have visited upon this world, a bunch of Iraqi prisoners being humiliated does not ring my personal alarm bell. And it would not ring yours either if you ever saw firsthand what these guys are capable of. I mean, Jesus, they cut off people’s heads, American heads, aid workers’ heads. They think nothing of slaughtering thousands of people; they’ve stabbed and mutilated young American soldiers, like something out of the Middle Ages.” (p. 68)
7. Of the realization that the goat herders had betrayed the SEALs’ position: “It was the stupidest, most southern-fried, lamebrained decision I ever made in my life. I must have been out of my mind. I had actually cast a vote which I knew could sign our death warrant. I’d turned into a fucking liberal, a half-assed, no-logic nitwit, all heart, no brain, and the judgment of a jackrabbit.” (p. 206)
8. “I guess we’d better start getting used to the consequences and permit the American liberal to squeak and squeal us to ultimate defeat. I believe that’s what it’s called when you pack up and go home, when a war fought under your own ‘civilized’ terms is unwinnable.” (p. 313)
9. “And I am left feeling that no matter how much the drip-drip-drip of hostility towards us is perpetuated by the liberal press, the American people simply do not believe it. They are rightly proud of the armed forces of the United States of America. They innately understand what we do.” (p. 375)
10. “Some members of the media might think they can brainwash the public anytime they like, but I know they can’t. Not here. Not in the United States of America.” (p. 376)
Here’s hoping Luttrell is right.
Someone should ask the media jabberers if they ever view the deaths of reporters in the field as senseless/unnecessary.
they should have tied them up well and tied them to trees , gagged & bound . They would have been found in several days due to the racket all the goats would be making . Yet they would have gotten away , far away , before any alarm was raised . Seemed like an easy call to me , but I wasn’t there . They paid for their leniency with their own lives . Don’t seem right to me .
Tying them to trees would have been murder. They talked about tgat.
Geeze do people really think these guys were stupid?
They are not out there to stay alive. They’re there to do a job. The possibility of death is part of it. They act wisely and within the rules of humane treatment and rules of engagement. They do not panic and kill people, unarmed kids, by shooting them nor by tying them to a tree to be eaten by animals in torture in order to stay alive
Our people should provide them with the best radio equipment
We need to get over this.
"From nits come lice".
A quote from Tom Quick, Avenger of the Delaware, to the horrified witness, after he had shot an Indian in his canoe, tomahawked the squaw, and dashed out the brains of their baby on a rock.
Movie was great..
As for rules of engagement, there should be one:
1). Win at all cost.
I urge all members of FR that can afford it to consider a donation to Marc’s foundation, The Lone Survivor Foundation. My wife and I have done so since it was formed.
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I saw the film. It was tough to watch, knowing beforehand how it would end. Having all the luxury and comfort of hindsight, the right decision would have been to gag and hogtie the herders, quickly move to a point where radio contact could be established, and get lifted out of there or bring in a larger backup force or air support. At the point when the herders showed up, they had already determined that the enemy numbers in camp were much higher than was expected.
My solution? Take Chrissy (”tingle up my leg”) Matthews and some of his buds to Iraq or Afghanistan, give them each an M4 and one magazine, and let them walk the 40 miles or so back to camp. Be sure and pass the word of the event locally just after the dropoff. It will never happen, but a guy can dream, can’t he?
Just my take. They sure could’ve used a working radio to get a command decision on such a deal. They’d have been told to do what they did but not had to live with the guilt
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Here is a link to the Navy SEAL Foundation. They do great things in support of SEAL survivors and their kids. We help them out as best we can. Thanks.
https://www.seallegacy.org/
The media = domestic enemies.
It is amazing to look at the interview with Tapper and see how he literally squirmed in his chair. He was most uncomfortable and I believe that is in part because he knows how the media have been towards our soldiers. There’s guilt in him.
Look at how comfortable, concerned and gentle our media is when interviewing terrorists, rotten and evil world leaders and the like. They’ve never demonstrated the amount of discomfort that Tapper demonstrated while interviewing Luttrell.
As far as their decision...I think they made the only decision that disciplined soldiers could make in there situation. They are and were fine and brave men— our best.
I admittedly have no idea what any of this is like, but wonder if the reconnaissance was a problem. I’m sure things often don’t go according to plans, but it seems as though there were some errors by the central command people in estimating the size of the opposition, and maybe even in realizing that the mountains would make communication difficult, or that they could be spotted by civilians.
Saw the movie last night. The decision on the goat herds was definitely made out of concern about future prosecution.
The “Tie and leave them” option seemed a logical one. Villagers would have known where goats were being taken and would have searched for the herders when they didn’t return. By then, the team would have been across the mountain.
In summary, it’s a very intense movie with a good message. Luttrell is saved by a cultural factor and it seems good Karma for what was shown to the captives. The SEAL team culture is on full display in several aspects.
10. “Some members of the media might think they can brainwash the public anytime they like, but I know they can’t. Not here. Not in the United States of America.” (p. 376)
The book-length form of that statement is The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy by Thomas Sowell. First published in the mid-1990s, it is still highly relevant today. Strongly recommended for better understanding our political adversaries.
There are no rules....
Back in 2004, during the electrion, Ellen Ratner made the statement that she would like to see more American military Service people killed in order to make Bush 43 look bad. She got a pass on that as she is still featured on FOX News to this day. And nobody ever brings it up.
The recon was bad.
The radios are bad
The phone deal went bad
They had to make decisions theyare not trained for, beyond their pay grade that were hard to swallow, because of the no communications
I don’t know either Just watching the movie
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