Media scoundrels Vietnamize Iraq

Every news article I read, every newscast I see, every time the words "Marine" and "Haditha" pop up on my search engine – my blood starts to boil.

I've never been angrier in my life about current events and the world of politics than I am over the media's current obsession with smearing our military.

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While left-wing organizations are busy proclaiming how they've been successful in undermining the war in Iraq, turning popular opinion around to a 75 percent disapproval rate for Operation Iraqi Freedom, the media are playing guilty accomplice with the enemy while men and women are dying horrible deaths.

Our sons. Our daughters. Our sisters. Our brothers. Our friends.

The heroic men and women of the U.S. military have liberated a country from a murderous tyrant who threatened American national security, and the thanks they get is to face an enemy at home that is almost as determined to see Americans lose in Iraq as the terrorist insurgents themselves.

We first saw the media's handiwork during the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. Mary Mapes of CBS News, from the "fake but accurate" scandal involving President Bush's discharge papers, was fast at work advancing her leftist political agenda – using the medium of the mainstream media.

Mapes proudly proclaimed her role in producing a national headline-grabbing, weeks-on-end, breathless series of reports that besmirched our troops, causing severe morale problems. Did the media separate out the actions (most of them akin to frat boy hazing) of a few from the solid conduct of the many? No, of course not.

Our troops were treated to a broad-brushed smear job by the liberal media.

Next came the reports from the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba – Gitmo. We saw even more tabloid reports that again tarred all of the troops with the same brush. And many of the allegations made turned out to be unproven or exaggerated. But the media and their supporters in the left-wing anti-war movement don't care. "Damn the facts! – or at least make them bend to our agenda" seems to be their rallying cry.

And now, finally, the coup de grace for the media – MY LAI HADITHA.

It took a mere 24-hour news cycle to make the comparison the media has yearned to make from the very beginnings of this war. You see, folks, it's official now. Iraq has become Vietnam.

The anti-war liberals who see America as the source of many of the world's problems have been trying their best to Vietnamize this war. They finally have an incident they can use to make a million parallels to Vietnam and beat the American public into submission and retreat.

Despising the media more than I ever thought I could, hating that I have to spend one minute defending our troops from their attacks, let's look at the latest insult with clear eyes, a sense of proportion and something that your networks, newspapers and magazines are incapable of – context.

The facts of that fateful day

Nov. 19, 2005, was a fateful day in the ongoing insurgency raging in Iraq.

Twenty-four Iraqis and one Marine soldier died in Haditha, Iraq, after a roadside bomb exploded, slicing in half the body of Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas. In the wake of the attack, Marines came under small-arms fire, and 24 Iraqis died in the firefight that ensued. There are currently ongoing investigations into the attack that took place that day, and no Marines have yet been charged with any wrongdoing.

Questions surrounding the incident in Haditha

There are many questions that remain unanswered about what really happened in Haditha. Was it a case of improper conduct by a handful of Marines, or were our troops reacting with appropriate force following an attack on one of their own? Was this a case where the insurgents used women and children to provide cover – like they had so many times before?

Lance Cpl. Terrazas' family told Newsweek that they doubt the reports of improper conduct by Terrazas' fellow Marines.

Similarly, the family of Lance Cpl. Brandon Dewey, who died two months later, reported that women and children in that area of the Sunni triangle had been throwing explosives at soldiers. Brandon's stepfather, Scott Conover, told me that critical piece of information yesterday morning, which could have been checked out by the same reporters willing to convict the troops in the court of world opinion.

THE MEDIA: Judge, jury and executioner

It's apparent that most reporters have already come to the conclusions that the Camp Pendleton Marines are guilty of cold-blooded murder. When Time magazine recently broke the Haditha story, they showcased their own anti-military bias.

Time reporter Christopher Allbritton recently made these statements regarding the Haditha incident, which clearly indicate the bias.

I'm incredibly proud to be associated with an outlet that broke this story and which got an investigation going into this. ... Men are going to go to jail for a long time over this, inshallah (God willing).

Comments like this coming from representatives of our major news outlets are both outrageous and unacceptable. The media have made it clear that they no longer consider themselves to be outlets for divulging facts; they are now instead judge, jury and executioner.

In another report on the activities in Haditha, the Washington Post intentionally twisted the words of Brig. Gen. David H. Brahms to suggest that he had concluded the events in Haditha would have an impact that was "worse than Abu Ghraib."

Gen. Brahms was incensed by the Post's report and responded with this statement:

Recent reporting on the events in Haditha, Iraq, have included significant factual errors and/or misleading statements. This includes a quote attributed to me in the Washington Post this morning that was taken completely out of context and its meaning distorted. Many facts that are favorable to the Marines involved have not yet been disclosed.

Not only have our major media outlets decided to judge our Camp Pendleton Marines before the investigation is concluded, but they have gone to great lengths to misrepresent what other military officials are saying, all in an effort to make our troops look guilty in the eyes of the public.

Ongoing investigation

Let us not forget that this is an ongoing investigation. These Marines deserve nothing less than our complete support until and unless wrongful conduct has been proven. There is no doubt that if these Marines engaged in improper conduct, then they should be charged and punished as such.

And one final thought. Our military has a system of justice that is one of the finest in the world. Whatever happened that hellish day in Haditha, none of the people on our side beheaded anyone with a video camera recording the last horrific moments of life and then played it for the world to see on Al Jazeera.

And yet for some reason, the "Blame America First" news media don't recognize that difference. They lie to themselves when they fail to acknowledge the moral differences in the conduct and intentions of the competing sides in the war on terrorism.

And it is by lying to themselves that so many reporters can rationalize their inner desires to see America lose in Iraq and fail in the war on terrorism.

That's the real story.

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