The article itself didn’t bother me nearly as much as a policy it describes:

As part of their counterinsurgency operations, the marines working in Anbar are under orders to show restraint, a policy rooted in hopes of winning the trust of the civilian population.
Iraqi snipers seem to know these rules and use them for their own protection. They often fire from among civilians, the marines say, having observed that unless the marines have a clear target, they will not shoot. In two sniper shootings witnessed by two journalists for The New York Times, on Oct. 30 and 31, the snipers fired from among civilians. The marines did not fire back.

insomni on November 4, 2006 at 9:27 PM

I think that the public is totally in the dark about this. This is never reported in the MSM whatsoever. If people understood the war was being prolonged by this PC warfighting there would be calls to actually kick some ass and finish it. What we are doing is garrisioning Iraq instead of defeating who the enemies are there.

I saw Flags of our Fathers last night. The battle scenes were a bit too raw for my wife. But as a character study of the 3 survivors of the 2nd flag raising on the mountain, it was a tour De force, especially the actor who played Marine Pvt. Ira Hayes.

I took my mother to see this (my Dad fought at Okinawa, wondered how he would have reacted to this); as is often the case, the book is much better. The narrative aspect was weak as was the editing. Good acting, great cinematography (sp?).

I am sorry to say, that there is NOT an “Ernie Pyle” among them.

There isn’t even a Gomer Pyle among them. Gomer was good-hearted, tried his best, and served his country. Pretty much the opposite of these “journalists”.

I am sorry to say, that there is NOT an “Ernie Pyle” among them. Not one. Pyle cared about the soldiers, about how they lived, and sadly, died.

For a better view than the MSN crap, try any or all of these.
http://billroggio.com/
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/
http://www.patdollard.com/templates/section-view.php?id=1

Thank you.

Thanks to your son for serving his country.

You expressed my thoughts exactly, only more eloquently.

If NYT, CNN, MSNBC, etc think that they can convince smart voters to vote Democratic, they are dead wrong. My kids are smart and they saw through all the smut.

A non-kerryism “If you stay in school, study hard, and make something of yourself, you can become a Republican. If you don’t, you can end up as a lier in the democratic party.”

We saw the movie, as well, my wife and I. Masterful. A must see today, in times like these.

Funny how threads like this one seldom attract trolls.

I saw Flags of our Fathers last night. The battle scenes were a bit too raw for my wife. But as a character study of the 3 survivors of the 2nd flag raising on the mountain, it was a tour De force, especially the actor who played Marine Pvt. Ira Hayes.

This was a serious movie, emblematic of what many of our fathers and grandfathers lived through in WWII. While these three particular men were atypical in that they were excused from further combat to be used to sell War Bonds, the suffered the same survivor’s guilt that many who lived through and survived Iwo Jima, and the many other battles, had.

But what struck me seeing the picture in this thread is that the behavior shown by the Marine SGT protecting his man is was EXACTLY the behavior that the Marines exhibited on Iwo Jima. As the movie put it, they may have fought for their country, but the bled and died for the guys standing next to them.

I know that this is true today from the stories my son told me when he returned from Iraq. And I know that their leadership is just as concerned about not wasting their lives as we, their parents and spouses are. Call it “casualty adverse” or more appropriately “a legacy of Vietnam,” today’s military, in a conscious effort, has turned our armed forces into the most lethal on the planet and this has resulted in US KIA totals less than 1/2 the Iwo Jima total — incurred in only 1 month of fighting — compared to the 3 and 1/2 years of combat in Iraq.

And remember, ladies and gentlemen, we are fighting the war on terror with 1 leg tied up to both hands behind our backs — and we’re still the winner. We are NOT fighting using our total combat power.

In the car on the way home, my wife asked me how I felt about the movie. I didn’t have to waste even 10 seconds before replying.

I felt that had the 1945 media been as TREASONOUS as today’s, we would NOT have defeated Japan (or Germany) — we would have sued for peace, wasting all those lives for nothing.

Today’s media — unlike the one in WWII — is openly acting like TRAITORS. They publish classified information in violation of the law. They slant stories almost ALWAYS at the expense of our troops. They CHEER ON the enemy and happily show their propaganda. Today’s media (with the possible except of Fox News Channel) is openly against winning the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

They openly lie and call it a “quagmire” when it is clearly not. They openly equate Iraq to Vietnam in a brazen effort to undermine public support for the war and sabotage the effort to fight it.

HAD IRAQ been like Vietnam (or rather the reverse), then America would have captured Hanoi in October 1965. Ho Chi Minh would have been dragged out of his spider hole, tried and convicted and sentenced to death for war crimes by March 1969. There would not have been a “Hanoi Hilton” because the US Air Force and Navy would have had complete air supremacy and North Vietnam’s missiles would be destroyed the moment they turned on their targeting radars. There would have been NO John McCain’s rotting in prison camps that openly violated the Geneva Conventions. Hanoi Jane would be on the FBI’s most wanted list for the crime of treason, the way Adam Gahdan is.

In other words, the MEDIA and their patrons, the DEMOCRATS, are FULL OF SHIT! They don’t know jack about this war; they are too busy boozing it up inside the “green line” and relying upon AL QAEDA STRINGERS to give a flying damn about the truthfulness of their product. And those who don’t “phone it in,” are actively misrepresenting what they do see — or their editors are spiking the truth because the truth doesn’t make President Bush look bad.

I am sorry to say, that there is NOT an “Ernie Pyle” among them. Not one. Pyle cared about the soldiers, about how they lived, and sadly, died. Today’s media cares only about the comfort of our enemy — be they in Abu Gharib or Gitmo. Or in delighting in showing THEIR victories over our troops.

Truthfully, I am surprised that the New York Times ran these pictures. They can’t be that stupid to knowingly give us a rallying point. I can only think that they are worried about being indicted for treason or for violating the Espionage Act for their willful publishing of classified information. So they’re trying to act as if they were “patriots” all along, instead of being handmaidens to Osama bin Laden.

Well, it won’t work.

As long as we Americans allow the media to be treasonous without repercussion, the ideologues writing and editing the stories will continue to sabotage any war America fights from now own — they will continue to support our enemies, whomever they are.

DAMN THEM ALL TO HELL!

The NYT certainly is a biased organization with an agenda, but this piece they got right. It accurately depicts one of many incidents that happen everyday in Iraq. I know and agree with many criticisms laid at the Times’ doorstep, but please be very cautious in ascribing intent to a piece that involves the lives of real heroes. I wonder how Lcpl Castillo and Sgt Leach would feel about this discussion, which does not center on them and their struggles, but on this partisan politcal combat between right and left.

Overall, I think the American people can handle seeing pictures of wounded soldiers and they have a right to see them. Reporting the news is more than simple statistics of the number wounded and killed. The American people sent them to war and they need to know the consequences as well as the benefits. This isn’t to say we should see blood everyday, all day either which the NYT isn’t doing but probably could.

Your post, and perhaps I’m wrong, is a minor example of what I see as a disturbing trend. It seems that some on the right are against such pictorials and portrayals in the biased MSM simply because they perceive that any display of tragedy beyond noble and definitively patriotic will undermine the cause, especially given the problems in Iraq and the growing unpopularity of the war. In order to prevent further deterioration of support, they attack anything that can remotely be seen as negative of the war – particularly photographs of casualties.

AP, I hope you are not now beginning to walk down that path because unlike most in the blogosphere you seem to have a measure of reason and the capacity to think critically. So my advice to you is that some battles with the left should be avoided – soldiers, especially wounded ones (and their families), do not want to be the truncheons with which you beat your political opponents.

Thank you.

“I am a soldier, I fight where I am told, and I win where I fight.”

“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather, we should thank God that such men lived.”

I only wish I had a better choice to vote for on Tuesday. Spineless weasels vs. traitors and backstabbers. I only hope to live long enough to some day see the NYT heads on a pike.