Sick is too generous a description for FOX NEWS' Jim Angle's recent interview with two severely wounded Iraqi Vets, (almost boys really, they looked under 21), one had lost an eye, another severely wounded by an ied that hit him directly and a Major a veteran of Afghanistan who did not seem wounded . Here's a paraphrase of some of the interchange:
Angle: How many surgeries have you had ?
Vet : Three, I have another one soon
Angle: I hope that 's the last one.
Vet: I don't know, Vet shows Angle a large piece of shrapnel removed from his body.
Angle: It's great that we're able to treat injuries that in other wars soldiers would not have survived . What are your plans now ?
Wounded Vet: I don't know, try to put my life back together, maybe continue my education.
and in the don't ask a question unless you know the answer you're going to get department: Angle tries to push the FOX/Admin line that all is well in Iraq, it's just the reporting that is the problem.
Angle: What is it that the American people should know about Iraq that they aren't seeing reported.
Wounded Vet: That IEDs(improvised explosive devices) are going off all the time not just the ones you hear about hear at home
oops, young man you're off message, didn't you get briefed in the green room ?
This one seemed to have thrown Angle for a loop so he quickly turned to the Major,who had served in Afghanistan, not Iraq.
Major: We're making imporant progress in Iraq and Afghanistan yada, yada.
Also involved in the talk show/fax news/WH/DoD campaign to tell us that the problem is not what is going on in Iraq but that the "mainstream media" don't report all the good things was radio talk show host Laura Ingraham.
Ingraham was just back from a 5 day swing through Iraq hosted by the US military. Judging by her website, she spent the entire time led around the country by US military, never venturing out on her own or hiring an independent Iraqi translator to take her around.
But she came out swinging with NBcs David Gregory on the TODAY Show challenging it to come to Iraq, have the TODAY show broadcast from Iraq "the way it did from the Olympics" (sic). Then they would see the real story in Iraq as she did, not just reporters from hotel roofs reporting on IEDs.
Now what Katie and Matt following Laura's carefully controlled itinerary and reporting from the Green Zone wearing flak jackets would do to increase Americans' knowledge of what is going on in Iraq, I for the life of me can't figure out .Yes, it would further the chance for the military to spin as they granted interviews in the "media center" in the green zone, that Laura made use of. And on a positve note interviews with enlisted men on camera would be grear for family back home. And maybe Katie could bring along a popstar to perform. But that's a USO show, not reporting.
and the reporters missing the story ? they include
NBCs chief correspondent in Iraq who has been there for years and is fluent in Arabic, Time's Michael Ware who has been there for 4 years and often travels throughout the country with Arabic translators, the NYT reporters who have been there and each stay at least a year and make extensive use of Iraqi reporters and translators since it is so deadly for its American reporters to travel in the country (isn't that itself a reflection of what's really going on?).
As Michael Ware pointed out to rt wing talking head Hugh Hewitt as Hewitt tried to trash his reporting as biased: why would the US military continue to give me off the record briefing if they thought my reporting distorted things. ?
The interview was interesting, Hewitt didn't lay a glove on him imo, although in Hewitt's worldview, the fact that Ware thinks the invasion was a mistake, makes all his msm reporting biased Funny he thinks right wing bloggers are no more "biased" than a real reporter like Ware.
But Laura in her flak jacket mugging for poses with US soldiers on her 5 day US military supervised tour of Iraq got us the real story.
Funny, Martha Radatz of ABC commenting on her return from a short trip to Iraq (her tenth) said things were worse than she ever had seen them. She went around the country accompanied by a translator not the US military(and bodyguard no doubt), the translator himself pleaded for help in leaving the country due to the level of violence. She said she visited a group of Iraqi security and asked them with no expectation of a particular response if they were ready to fight on their own, if they had adequate equipment. All of them answered no.
Oh and by the way, the pics and diary of her Iraq trip are no longer on her website She (and the rest of her talk show colleagues) have moved on to trashing illegal immigrants as a threat to our nation's identity.
I guess the real story on Iraq is out now and the American people no longer have to be told what is "really" going on. Or is the news just so bad she can't talk about it. You decide.








Recent Comments