Are They Just Plain Stupid?

Or do they just think that we are?

I’ve had it up to here (pointing to the top of my every graying, balding head) with journalists. Particularly the variety called “war correspondents.”

Foreign and domestic, they are, by and large, in my personal estimation, useless, overeducated morons with a political axe to grind--having no intention of reporting the facts about what is occurring around them. Not to say that they are all bad, mind you, just that most of them are.

These individuals have jobs as reporters, but they have lost sight of the fact that, when it comes to world events, they are supposed to REPORT WHAT IS HAPPENING. Noooooo, that would be too easy, they are now editoralizers and commentators. They have either lost sight of who their audience is, or else they think that we are too stupid to read and listen to the facts and form our own opinions based on the evidence.

History has given us some really great war correspondents. Guys like Ernie Pyle, for example. Ernie Pyle was “embedded” with the US forces in Europe and the Pacific as a reporter during WWII. By “embedded,” I don’t mean that he slept in the Paris or Tokyo Hilton and made day trips to film a drive by “terrorist” car bombing and to send out an anti-war missive in time to be home for happy hour at the hotel bar.

By embedded, I mean that Ernie lived with the troops he reported on. He wore an Army uniform, he ate and slept with the troops and he died with the troops, as a Japanese machine-gun bullet killed him on the island of Ie Shima on April 18, 1945, at the age of 44.

Ernie won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting, but he didn’t win it by despising the young American men he reported on while salivating for a “friendly fire” expose or an Abu Ghraib prison scandal. Ernie was famous for reporting on the lives of the men that were charged with defending our freedom and his life on a day by day basis. Here is an excerpt from an article entitled “Killing is all that matters”:

“WITH THE AMERICAN FORCES IN ALGIERS, December 1, 1942 - From now onward, stretching for months and months into the future, life is completely changed for thousands of American boys on this side of the earth. For at last they are in there fighting.

The jump from camp life into front-line living is just as great as the original jump from civilian life into the Army. Only those who served in the last war can conceive of the makeshift, deadly urgent, always-moving-onward complexion of front-line existence.

And existence is exactly the word: it is nothing more.

You dig ditches for protection from bullets and from the chill north wind off the Mediterranean. There are no more hot-water taps. There are no post exchanges where you can buy cigarets. There are no movies.

When you speak to a civilian you have to wrestle with a foreign language. You carry just enough clothing to cover you, and no more. You don't lug any knickknacks at all.

When our troops made their first landings in North Africa they went four days without even blankets, just catching a few hours sleep on the ground.

Everybody either lost or chucked aside some of his equipment. Like most troops going into battle for the first time, they all carried too much at first. Gradually they shed it. The boys tossed out personal gear from their musette bags and filled them with ammunition.

The countryside for twenty miles around Oran was strewn with overcoats, field jackets and mess kits as the soldiers moved on the city.

Arabs will be going around for a whole generation clad in odd pieces of American Army uniforms. “

Sound Familiar? Other than the reference to the Mediterranean and Northern Africa, this piece could have been written two years ago during the initial invasion of Iraq. Go to the link and read the entire piece if you have time and read more of Ernie’s work here.

Now let’s talk about the little Italian communist Giuliana Sgrena and the stir that her reporting efforts have caused in Iraq:

“The daughter of a World War II veteran, Sgrena was one of the founders of the peace movement in the 1980s.

Before joining Il Manifesto, she worked for the daily Guerra e Pace (War and Peace), but she made her name at the communist newspaper mainly through her avowed affinity with the Arab world.

"For my whole life, I have fought and written on behalf of the weakest," she said in a video put together by those who campaigned to secure her release.

With this in mind, the reporter refused to become embedded with the US military during the war - choosing, instead, to remain in Iraq on her own during the major hostilities of the spring of 2003.

She then returned to the country periodically, focusing on the suffering of ordinary Iraqis brought about by a war she was vehemently opposed to.

Sgrena's outspoken anti-war stance should have endeared her to Iraqi insurgents fighting the US-led forces, said friends and colleagues shocked at her capture on 4 February.”

Wrong, Comrad Sgrena. The only way to endear yourself to the Iraqi “insurgents” is to be an Arab man, grow a long beard, strap explosives to your body or install them in the trunk of your car, and end your life killing as many of your innocent fellow Iraqis while looking for your gaggle of eternal virgins.

And by founding “the peace movement in the 1980’s” isn’t Sgrena about 20 years too late? I thought that the American left started the “peace movement” in the 1960’s in response to the Vietnam War. Come to think of it, isn’t passivism and the “peace movement” was as old as history—supported by the coddled “intellectual” group du jour whom constantly criticize those around them that militarily defend their right to be stupid and complain about society’s ills.

So any way, this silly Italian woman “war correspondent” wanders into Iraq, on her own, because she is against the war and would never allow the American Military to support and protect her presence there. Instead, Sgrena and her fellow “war correspondents” over at Il Manifesto have been running around Iraq undermining the coalition’s efforts. Look at this excerpt from a story published under the headline ’My Name is Giuliana Sgrena: I write for a Newspaper Which Opposed the Sanctions and the War Against Iraq’:

“Sheik Hussein al Zobey, Sunni coordinator of the refugee camps inside the University of Baghdad, uttered an impassioned appeal for the journalist's release: "In the name of truth, free her. I appeal in the name of those who come to help us. I ask the kidnappers to free Giuliana, who has promised to help us. She has laughed and played with our children—and has cried with us."

"Truly moving is the involvement of the Iraqi people in Giuliana Sgrena's ordeal," writes Il Manifesto's correspondent from Baghdad, Stefano Chiarini. "Suffering daily abuses and violence from occupation forces or their proxies, the Iraqis themselves are subjected to routine hostage-taking by the occupiers. If the father is not at home, they arrest his son, or brother, or other relative. Under the pretext of looking for arms, American soldiers and their Iraqi trainees look for jewels and money. And, yet, the whole country has mobilised for the liberation of Giuliana." ”

This is yet another perfect example for the left and the Democrats and the other international “nay sayers” of what kind of animals we are dealing with in Iraq. It doesn’t even matter if you have adopted their side of the fight, if you are not an Arab Muslim you are a potential target. If you happen to be a white skinned woman, your life is even more worthless.

The only reason Sgrena was released was that it was politically expedient for her captors to do so, and she hasn’t yet learned her lesson. Continuing along the path of ignoring the military control and restriction issues brought about by the “insurgent” actions, she and her Italian "James Bond" wannabe protector jump in a used Datsun car and go screaming down a road toward a US Military roadblock.

This story in the anti occupation web site uruknet.info (written by Washington Post reporters) seems to make a case opposite the meaning of their own headline that “Observers Cite Other Shootings at Checkpoints:

“But the circumstances of Friday's shooting of Italian military intelligence officer Nicola Calipari made it particularly vulnerable to calamity, a military source said as he divulged new details of how the car in which Calipari and a newly freed hostage, Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, came to be attacked.

The automobile was traversing onto a route -- the road to the airport -- where soldiers have been killed in shootings and by roadside bombs. U.S. soldiers had established an impromptu evening checkpoint at the entrance to the road about 90 minutes earlier and had stopped other vehicles.

They knew a high-level embassy official would be moving to the airport on that road, and their aim was to support this movement.But no specific coordination occurred between those involved in Sgrena's rescue and the military unit responsible for the checkpoint, according to the source, who said he cannot be named because the military's investigation into the incident is continuing.

Soldiers at the checkpoint have told U.S. military officers that they flashed lights, used hand signals and fired warning shots in an effort to stop the car, which they believed was traveling at more than 50 mph, a typical speed for that road. But Sgrena, who had just been released by Iraqi captors, recalled later that the car was not traveling very fast and that soldiers started firing "right after lighting" a spotlight -- a decision she said was not justified.

Sgrena was wounded by shrapnel in the U.S. barrage.The absence of advance communication between the Italians and the U.S. soldiers at the checkpoint appears to have put the occupants of the car in grave jeopardy, given what many U.S. officials describe as the military's standard practice of firing at onrushing cars from their checkpoints in Iraq."

In my view, the main contributing factor was a lack of prior coordination with the ground unit," the source said. "If requested, we would have resourced and supported this mission very differently."

Military officials in Iraq have said for two days that they cannot answer questions about U.S. rules of engagement because of a need to keep insurgents off guard. Officials have not said whether these rules have changed since the insurgency in Iraq worsened in late 2003. They also have declined to estimate how many civilians such as Calipari have been killed accidentally by U.S. forces -- at checkpoints or elsewhere in Iraq.”

So the bottom line here is that you are going to hear two versions of this story, no matter what the facts actually are. One is what I’ll call the Eason Jordan version saying that the US is targeting journalists. The other version, which makes sense for me, is that these Italian cowboys were running around in a war zone and failed to heed the rules of engagement and got their butts shot off.

Which version are you going to believe?