Two from the Christian Science Monitor worth reading in full:
Iraq Story: how troops see it.
BROOK PARK, OHIO – Cpl. Stan Mayer has seen the worst of war. In the leaves of his photo album, there are casual memorials to the cost of the Iraq conflict – candid portraits of friends who never came home and graphic pictures of how insurgent bombs have shredded steel and bone.Yet the Iraq of Corporal Mayer’s memory is not solely a place of death and loss. It is also a place of hope. It is the hope of the town of Hit, which he saw transform from an insurgent stronghold to a place where kids played on Marine trucks. It is the hope of villagers who whispered where roadside bombs were hidden. But most of all, it is the hope he saw in a young Iraqi girl who loved pens and Oreo cookies.
. . . . .
“What the national news media try to do is figure out: What’s the overall verdict?” says Brig. Gen. Volney Warner, deputy commandant of the Army Command and General Staff College. “Soldiers don’t do overall verdicts.”
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on the difference in approach between American and Iraqi forces:
NEW OBEIDI, IRAQ – Iraqi Army Capt. Khalid Hussein grew impatient as he explained what seemed like the obvious.
“They are the enemy,” he says, exasperated, to his American counterpart. “They killed my friends.”Marine Capt. Clinton Culp doesn’t waver. “I know sir. I’ve lost men, too. But if we beat [up] the enemy, then we are no better than him.”
These two stories go right to the heart of the problem with the current debate on Iraq: the total lack of a balanced “picture” of the conflict. That failure literally adds insult to the injuries suffered by our troops, and those suffered by the people of Iraq.
“Support our troops” means understanding – and publicizing – the way they perform the tasks they’ve been assigned. It does not mean walking over them on the way to make a point.
Why is it so bloody hard for the left to acknowledge the good work performed by our people on the ground?
“Why is it so bloody hard for the left to acknowledge the good work performed by our people on the ground?”
I am unaware that the left denies such good work as occurs, rather, supposed good work is so loudly trumpeted by the media that it is not really our place to spend our voices on it.
But even if hooking the local kids on industrial-made chocolate cookies is a good thing, it just doesn’t weigh heavily on the scales against the American use of depleted uranium artillery shells and white phosporus bombs. The troops are not to be blamed for being assigned a task that is both wrong and wrong-headed–that blame is for others to take. They are blame-worthy when they violate the Geneva Conventions in the field: “I vas just following orders” is a defense neither legally nor morally.
In this context it is hard to see how chocolate cookies are relevant.
Your response makes it clear you prefer to focus on the negative at the expense of balance. If you have some evidence that the “good works” are so “loudly trumpeted” in the media, present it. If you have read, heard, or seen Howard Dean “trumpeting” those works, or including specific references to them in any speech he’s given, please provide a link.
Good luck.
We are watching the beginning of the end–the destruction of the United States by criminal arrogance and misjudgement.
A losing stategy is about to be followed by a larger, more criminal, losing strategy.
Who remembers now the good works of the German Nazis? You have to dig deep: Their crimes cancelled that all out.
So it is with us. Or will be. Each misstep brings disaster forward–ahead of its time–and digs it deeper.
Truth I care about.
What should I care about balance?
Truth I care about.
What should I care about balance?
Presenting only carefully selected aspects of events distorts reality.
If not, they should consider an IPO.
Rendon doesn’t own the CSM.