March 2, 2007:
Spokesmen for
Multi-National Forces-Iraq ( MNF-I) have decided to go toe-to-toe with the
Associated Press again. This time, it centers around reports claiming 18
children were killed in a bombing at Ramadi. This attack, like a reputed air
strike during a firefight in January, seems to have never occurred. This time,
MNF-I states that the casualties were inadvertently caused during a controlled
detonation, just as spokesmen previously denied the January air strike.
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This is the latest blow to the
credibility of the mainstream media. The Jemil Hussein controversy is still
festering, and that was just one of the media scandals in the war on terror
that involved questionable news reporting. In August 2006, Reuters had to pull
photographs, that had been doctored to create the appearance that Israeli air
strikes in Lebanon were doing more damage than had actually occurred. Other
photos taken during the summer fighting were discovered to have been staged by
Hezbollah. In 2005, media reports that guards at Guantanamo Bay had flushed a
Koran turned out to have no basis in fact (the actual flushing was done by
detainees).
Now, the media has been caught with
more stories from sources who could not be verified. This is a disturbing
pattern that has drawn notice from the blogosphere. For instance, the photos
used by the media in various reports as late as 2005 on the detainee camps at
Guantanamo Bay took things out of context. The images used then were of Camp
X-Ray, a temporary camp that was replaced by Camp Delta in April, 2002. Camp
Delta is on par with the latest correctional institutions in the United States.
A detainee Time magizine profiled in 2005 was slated to be the 20th hijacker -
the fifth person on Flight 93. Another detainee traveled to Pakistan in 1998
with an Iraqi intelligence officer to carry out an attack on the American and
British embassies using a chemical mortar. Nor has the media mentioned the fact
that at least a dozen detainees that have been released, have gone back to
fighting with al Qaeda. The media has also neglected to point out that al Qaeda
manuals instruct members to make false claims of being tortured if they are
captured.
The media mistakes are becoming too
frequent to dismiss as accidents. There has been a pattern of such
"mistakes", all of which have made the United States look bad. An
increasing number of readers, journalists and bloggers have been calling
out the media on this. Reporters are upset at incidents like a story about the
3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, that was rewritten by editors in New York because
the original submission made the American troops look "too heroic".
That incident only added to the suspicion of the mainstream media among
bloggers and the military. It seems that once again, the mainstream media is
going to have some serious explaining to do. People who want to get the straight
scoop from Iraq or other matters involving the war on terror should check out
Central Command's newsroom website
(http://www.centcom.mil/sites/uscentcom2/FrontPage%20Stories/Forms/AllItems.aspx),
MNF-I's web site (http://www.mnf-iraq.com), or the Department of Defense's
website (http://www.defenselink.mil/). - Harold C. Hutchison
([email protected])
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