I’ve been out of the Marine Corps for three-and-a-half decades. Most of what I know, or remember, about combat tactics is out-of-date. I don’t, nor do I want to, own a gun, my only one being the M-16 back then. I’m probably too old to fight, or even run.
Most of what I write about at Democracy-Project.com is not about the war in Iraq or Afghanistan. I prefer to write about today’s problems with health care, something I have more current firsthand knowledge about. Good milbloggers are in the combat zones, or have current experience, so they understand and focus upon the details that aren’t presented in the major media.
Still, many of my posts are about the current war, and more particularly about the media coverage. As an ordinary citizen, I’m concerned to get reliable reporting upon which to make judgments. And, I live in San Diego, where I have to face the many sincere, squared away Marines and sailors whom I see on the street.
We aren’t getting that reliable reporting. Indeed, we usually aren’t getting much of any reporting about what’s happening at the front — the who, what, when, where, why. Instead, most newspaper columns and TV reports focus on a list of casualties, the inside politics in the Green Zone, or speculations built on little information about the latest prejudged atrocity by U.S. forces.
Much of that information is provided, and passed along by our mainstream media, without critical comment or qualifications, from often-suspect Iraqi stringers and press manipulators among our foes.
For the most glaring and recent example, just look at the media brouhaha over Haditha, where some Marines reacting to an attack upon them are under investigation for possibly exceeding the rules of engagement in the deaths of Iraqis. For several weeks, the major media have gone through a succession of sensationalist stories about the incident, and as one of their story lines gets exposed, the media blithely goes on to the next one.
First, the suspect “evidence” that Time magazine’s Tim McGirk, who broke the story, reports that a major human rights organization delivered a video of what is presented asthe results of a Marine rampage. The footage demonstrates nothing of the kind. Then that major human rights organization turns out to be a twosome of hostile Iraqis, who, in the latest of a series of corrections from McGirk, it turns out “didn’t know much about it, they just knew that it came from Haditha.”
It’s now revealed that McGirk’s editor at Time magazine displayed who he instead distrusted, refusing to send McGirk under military protection to Haditha to get more facts, as he didn’t want to “put our safety in the hands of the men that we were then going to turn around and accuse of having gone on a rampage and killed civilians.”
Then, the Iraqi “witnesses” whose allegations that Marines went on a killing rampage are headlined are revealed to be telling conflicting, contradictory and changing narratives. When several of the Marines’ attorneys speak to correct the record, The New York Times weighs in with two anonymous sources whose qualifications are not otherwise detailed to say that some of the secret investigation in progress contradicts the Marines.
In fact, nothing is yet known about the forensics or other investigations conducted by the military and the Iraqis’ families refuse autopsies that would shed more light on what really occurred. What is known is that much of the media tabloid-level speculation has been discredited, but not before the reputation of the Marines and our country has been disparaged on their front pages around the world.
By contrast, narratives about our heroes is mighty scarce in the media. I haven’t counted, but the conservative Media Research Center has:
» Since the war on terror began, the military has awarded top medals to 20 individuals.
» None has been given more than a fraction of the attention that the latest allegations against the military have received. In fact, 14 of the country’s top 20 medal recipients have gone unmentioned by ABC, CBS and NBC.
I don’t want to be a milblogger. However, they, and I to a lesser extent, are forced to be by the severe and serious failure of our mainstream media to provide even elemental balance, not to mention factual reliability.
Whether or not you support the war, you owe it to yourself to at least be better informed before making judgments. MudvilleGazette.com offers a morning roundup of the best milblog and mainstream reporting about Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s easy and fast. And, it’s a lot more than you’re getting from the tube or your local newspaper.
Bruce Kesler, Vietnam veteran, lives in Encinitas, Calif., where he owns an employee benefits consulting and brokerage firm. He blogs at DemocracyProject.com.
