Comment by jaybear

BC sez:

Murrow continues rolling over in his grave.

Ernie Pyle and Robert Capa too….

Comment by LC Wes, Imperial Mohel

It’s not just innocent civilians who are being endangered by journalistic slander and libel; by demonstrating that they cannot be trusted to report the news fairly, honestly and in an impartial fashion, the media may well be killing the concept of a free press as well.

Today’s (Saturday’s) Kansas City Star ran an interview with William Eckhardt, the military JAG officer who, during the Vietnam War, prosecuted the soldiers responsible for the My Lai massacre. Eckhardt is now a law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and given Eckhardt’s background, my hometown paper apparently thought he would be a good source of commentary on the Haditha allegations as well

The article notes that Eckhardt’s comments were edited, allegedly for “brevity.” Judging from what the paper was willing to print, I would love to have seen a raw transcript of Eckhardt’s remarks; even in edited form it’s obvious the former JAG officer pinned the reporter’s ears back:

… REPORTER: How likely is it that atrocities were carried out by troops in Iraq or Afghanistan that, due to the camaraderie of small units in combat, never comes to light?

ECKHARDT: It’s unfair to besmirch all for the actions of a few.

These people who serve in the military are your next-door neighbors. These are people whose moral compass was set at your synagogue or your church or in your school. You never know when that moral guidance is going to be used. You pray for the right thing.

REPORTER: What do you infer from the fact that these incidents came to light through the work of journalists rather than candor from military officers?

ECKHARDT: The people in the military would expect this to be vigorously reported and to learn what has happened.

But there is absolute, unmitigated hatred among all those serving in Iraq for the press. The press has haphazardly, unprofessionally and amateurishly reported the war.

If there’s a pile-on here the way there was with Abu Ghraib, there will be hell to pay. It’s propaganda for the other side.

REPORTER: Is it reasonable to draw a connection between Haditha and the special rules for detainees held at Guantanamo Bay or reportedly taken to secret prisons in Eastern Europe?

ECKHARDT: That’s a bunch of political folderol. That does not affect what soldiers on the ground do.

We’re in a new era. The rules are going to change. When we were adopting the Geneva Convention, you were dealing with nation states and you could expect reciprocity. That’s gone.

It’s not whether we’re going to have a new set of rules. It’s a question of what rules.

REPORTER: Marines enjoy a hard-earned reputation of operating with greater discipline. Does the Corps’ involvement surprise you?

ECKHARDT: That does surprise me. The lesson of My Lai is that lack of discipline on the battlefield loses wars.

REPORTER: How do you bring the facts of a battlefield to a courtroom?

ECKHARDT: With My Lai, I had a problem because the civilians wanted to use the whole thing for political purposes, and I was stuck choosing whether to use American or Vietnamese witnesses. I wanted to hear what happened come from American lips.

In Haditha, this is different. You have autopsies. It took place in a more sophisticated country. There’s video. It’s closer in time.

But it’s hardly going to be easy. Justice under a microscope is not pretty. Just look at the O.J. Simpson trial.

REPORTER: Can we excuse troops for acting violently when they are put in great danger for prolonged periods of times, and when the line between civilian and enemy is so blurred and shifting?

ECKHARDT: Excuse and mitigation, they’re two different concepts. We don’t excuse murder. We reduce it to manslaughter if there are mitigating circumstances.

This is why we train our officers as enlightened people. A favorite sergeant is found killed and mutilated, and the unit looks at the village and says, ‘Let’s go get ’em.’ That’s why you’re there, lieutenant, to stop them…

One suspects that “folderol” was an example of that judicious editing. I also found Eckhardt’s view on the Geneva Conventions interesting; he’s one of the few people I’ve seen willing to come right out and say that they’re obsolete and completely unsuited for the world in which we now live. And he’s got a point on the importance of leadership and discipline.

But the money quote of the whole piece was Eckhardt’s condemnation of the press - and it’s not just the soldiers returning from Iraq who have come to hate and detest the media, either. And he’s spot on in the implication that Haditha, like My Lai, is being exploited by the same sort of “civilians” for cynical political purposes, at the expense of providing this nation’s enemies with free propaganda.

One wonders if Eckhardt’s “hell to pay” is itself another example of judicious editing…perhaps the original quote ran “Rope, tree, journalist, some assembly required?” Even in edited form, I’m amazed that the Star ran the interview at all.

Comment by juandos

Innocent civilians in Iraq?!?!

Naw!! Don’t buy it…

If they were so damned innocent then why did they allow an ass-clown like Saddam to take and keep the reins of power?

I mean there are excuses aplenty being offered up but when its all said and done that’s all they are, excuses!

Comment by jaybear

O.K….
I gotta vent here. I just finished reading the opinion page in the seattle slimes…er…times. If you want to see what a cross section of moonbattery central sounds like, allow me to quote selected letters to the editor, remember….these are supposedly thinking rational people.
Here’s some selected tidbits from the letters, the title of each letter is in bold followed by the quote. Now to be fair, there were some letters that spoke up in support of our troops, with comments like:

“If we don’t succeed in Iraq, the long term consequences to America will be severe. Yet the media seize on every negative event in Iraq, seemingly rooting for us to fail.”

“America and the West in general, are at war with an enemy, Islamic fascism, that seeks to destroy us”

but most of them were of this flavor:

Restart of darkness
“Enlightened political leaders like Rep. John Murtha, and our own Rep. Jim McDermott are calling for an end to the war in Iraq.”

Borrowing from bankrupt
“The demand that citizens support the troops, no matter what their mission, is profoundly anti-democratic. Why should we support troops waging an immoral and unjustifiable war?”

Who set the stage for Marines’ acts?
“Our illustrious commander in chief made statements for which he how wishes he had used a more “sophisticated” approach, and at the same time tries to distance himself from responsibility in the deaths of some 24 civilians.”

However, the most offensive of all comments were made by this “professional journalist”, Robert Fisk..writing for the independant. Here’s some of his “wisdom”:

“The corpses we have glimpsed, the grainy footage of the cadavers and the dead children; could these be just a few of the many? Does the handiwork of the United States’ army of the slums (my emphasis) go further?”

“What kind of trauma is now being experienced in Iraq? Just who is doing the mass killing?”

Gosh, how many guesses do I get?

“I suspect part of the problem is that we never really cared about Iraqis, which is why we refused to count their dead. Once the Iraqis turned upon the army of occupation….they became Arab “gooks”.”

but…but…I thought you media whores had counted over 100,000 dead Iraqi civilians….

“In a way, we reporters are also to blame. Unable to venture outside Baghdad - or around Baghdad itself - Iraq’s vastness has fallen under a thick, all-consuming shadow….For fear of the insurgent’s knife, we can no longer investigate. and the Americans like it that way.”

Too drunk to drive out into the countryside Robert?…admitting that you’ve been cowed into defeat by the muslim beasts?, better pay that hotel bar tab before they find you.

had enough? I have. This is one of those days when I hope the next big terrorist attack (God forbid)takes out friends or families of these ideaologically blinded idiots. That’s a cold statement to make, but there it is, I pray that they wake up in time…I make no apologies (except for going on so long).