Mallon's Media Watch

John responds today to an inquiry:

.... Much of what bothers me is the tendency I see to make the United States the very last to be given the benefit of the doubt....

The US gets the bad rap while:

• We and the Brits are bringing food and water to the people in southern Iraq

• Critics attack the US because the Iraqi citizens have not greeted allies as liberating heroes when the truth is that para-military thugs are threatening to kill Iraqi families at gunpoint if the men don't fight the Allies

• The same thugs put on US uniforms and gun down peasants who come to greet them or soldiers who try to surrender to them—in violation of the Geneva Convention

• British POWs are summarily executed, and parade other POWs before TV cameras in violation of the Geneva Convention

• The same thugs place women and children in front of them while they shoot at US forces in violation of the Geneva Convention

• The US gets wrongly blamed for killing civilians while bending over backward to avoid civilian casualties, even to their own endangerment

• Critics say there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq while the very scud missiles Iraq is firing at Kuwait are the missiles they said they didn't have. Reports say that Marine intel saw Iraqi troops in chemical suits unloading 55 gallon drums.

• Any Iraqi connection to Al Queda is denied, while intelligence reports that plans to attack US interests in two countries by Iraqis working with Al Queda were recently foiled.

• The war is called illegal when it could well be considered a resumption of 1991 war to enforce the surrender terms Saddam flagrantly (illegally) violated.

• Critics say "the inspections were working" while the UN failed in their enforcement of their own resolutions and while the US was stalled by the shilly-shallying Saddam had time to prepare for war.

• Can anyone doubt that if Saddam had nukes and the means to deliver them, which he could get, say, from North Korea, he would not promptly plant them in New York, Washington and Tel Aviv?...

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sat. 03/29/03 07:46:05 PM
Categorized as War.

Maybe I've Been Too Positive About "Embedded" Journalists

If there's anything to this.

(Thanks, MM.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sat. 03/29/03 07:37:11 PM
Categorized as Media.

"Cheer up, Chicken Little"

Newt Gingrich skewered some folks in USA Today, Thursday:

.... Chicken Little, watching the news 24 hours a day, is thinking a week is too long. After all, Saving Private Ryan took less than three hours. Chicken Little is tired of real reality TV and watching the patriotic, hardworking, dedicated professionals who risk their lives for freedom.

While Chicken Little sits on the couch and complains, his cousins in the media report that 50 destroyed Iraqi tanks to one American tank being damaged is a sign of poor military planning. Similarly, they report that because one convoy delivering supplies to the Third Division out of a hundred was briefly shot at, there must be a serious threat to our supply line....

(Thanks, Jonathan.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sat. 03/29/03 03:41:21 PM
Categorized as Social/Cultural.

"Victims of Success"

"The CENTCOM child care center". :)

A good blog today from Jed Babbin at NRO:

.... The so-called "pause" going on now is a consolidation of forces and a continuation of the advance. While army and marine units resupply, that doesn't mean the coalition forces are taking a week off while the war planners go back to the drawing board. If many regroup and resupply fifty miles outside Baghdad while others fight to prepare that battlefield, that smacks of good military judgment. The days aren't being wasted by the Air Force and Navy strike fighters and bombers that continue to rain all manner of hell on Saddam's troops. Those days also aren't being wasted by those, such as the 82nd and 101st Airborne, striking at the "fedayeen" terror cells, and securing both supply routes and the masses of troops who keep on toward Baghdad. And those days aren't wasted by the scout-sniper teams all over the area, perhaps even downtown Baghdad. The military hasn't taken off for Spring Break in Fort Lauderdale.

But so it apparently seems to many in the CENTCOM child care center and even some embedded reporters. They are a bit petulant that their vacation plans and resort reservations are being invalidated by what they perceive are delays and failures. Yes, we apparently underestimated the Iraqis intent to use terrorist tactics, as well as their capacity for inhumanity. But just because your plans for April in Paris are being ruined by these inconsiderate men who haven't won the whole thing yet, that doesn't mean that we're losing, or even delayed....

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sat. 03/29/03 02:59:03 PM
Categorized as War.

"They Dominate the Air, but Still the Media Can't Win"

Mark Steyn turns up with his usual brilliance in today's London Telegraph:

After little more than a week, is this war coverage in trouble? Already questions are being raised about whether the media's plan was fatally flawed. Several analysts are surprised that, despite overwhelming dominance of the air, television and radio divisions have so quickly repeated the mistakes of Afghanistan. Meanwhile, on the ground, rapidly advancing columns become stalled in Vietnam-style quagmires around the second paragraph.

Speaking live from his armchair, General George S. Patton says, "Look, I'm just an armchair general, but, when I lean forward, pick up the remote and switch on the TV, it seems clear these media sonsofbitches pushed ahead too fast in the first 48 hours and then found their supply lines stretched far too thin. The supply of lines just wasn't getting through. OK, it's fun to write 'embedded' the first half-dozen times, and 'shock and awe', but then what? So the bastards got bogged down, then panicked and went into a complete reverse in a desperate manoeuvre to protect their rear.''

Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery (Retd) agrees that the media are in trouble, but blames it mostly on a confusion of war aims. "The problem is they relied on this two-pronged 'shock and awe' business. On the one hand, you'd have these reporter chappies embedded with your Royal Marines and so forth, 'awed' at how absolutely ripping it is to be in a tank. On the other hand, you'd have your crack columnists in Baghdad, 'shocked' at the scale of Anglo-American carnage, with hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, smart bombs landing on every hospital, nursery schools blown to kingdom come, etc.

"Well, the bally carnage never showed up, so it was a week of awe and no shock. The editors assumed that, by the weekend, they'd have Bush and Blair on the run. Instead, we now stand on the brink of an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe: even as I speak, George Galloway, John Pilger and thousands of others are being systematically starved of material....

(Thanks, Karen.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sat. 03/29/03 02:32:09 PM
Categorized as Media.

Remember September 11

Vide.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sat. 03/29/03 08:51:32 AM
Categorized as Social/Cultural.