Before now poetry has taken notice
Of wars, and what are wars but politics
Transformed from chronic to acute and bloody?
from "Build Soil"
Robert Frost

Monday, July 16, 2007

/Rant Part 2

Look Down Fair Moon

Look down fair moon and bathe this scene,
Pour softly down night's nimbus floods on faces ghastly,
swollen, purple,
On the dead on their backs with arms toss'd wide,
Pour down your untainted nimbus sacred moon.

-Walt Whitman


Michael Yon provides pictures, video, grid coordinates and interviews to verify a mass grave, and the most definite news byte that the Associated Press will print is that mass graves "reportably" exist in Baqouba? That isn't even up to the level of the common complaint that the media fails to report good news. That's failing to report the bad news correctly. In response to an email wondering why the AP did not pick up Yon's excellently sourced story, the AP replied that no military press release had been issued, so they would not print the story. Excuse me? Your job is to seek out and find news- not wait for it to be handed to you by the military PAOs you claim to distrust. If the APs only source of news items is another news service, what reason is there for it to exist? It took days of intense and growing criticism by sources all over the internet for the AP to finally publish any of Michael Yon's journalism.

How about how talking heads still debate whether it was really al-Qaeda we fought in Baqouba, despite the public proclamation of al-Qaeda in Iraq that Baqouba would be their capital? Yon hits another nail on the head, by the way- AQI militants don't issue ID cards. We call an enemy fighter al-Qaeda not because we wish him to be so, but because he belongs to a group that has identified itself with al-Qaeda and that embraces al-Qaeda's cruel and barbaric tactics.

Whomever we fought before- feyahadeen, Sunni nationalists, Shia zealots- this war in Iraq is now against al-Qaeda and similar terrorists. Al-Qaeda capitalized on the opportunity to grow radical cancer within a disorganized and lawless state, and they have become our most dangerous enemy in skill, tactics and threat, if not actual numbers. Bill Roggio does an excellent roundup of the claims, myths, and facts about the strength and presence of al-Qaeda in Iraq. I suggest you check it out.

Blog the war, folks. It's the only way you'll learn anything.

14 comments:

  1. You have just jumped on top of the problem, the news services have an agenda which do not in the reporting of facts, just opinions. Michael Yon has shown photographs and location of "reportably" people who are dead, it is a sad situation and you put yourself at risk to allow these people to lie or tell half truths.

    I hear that Michael Yon reported that Al-Qaeda had roasted a 12 year old boy and served him to his parents for dinner. Do you have knowlege of this?

    ReplyDelete
  2. hi td, i linked this post today on my blog, hope you don't mind. be safe my friend, wonderfully written as always...

    smiles, bee

    ReplyDelete
  3. thank you1 for giving the right places to find information about what is truly happening there. I have my "soldier" there. and it took awhile to find the real stories. I have learned to take the MSM with a grain of salt with their 'war reporting'.

    ReplyDelete
  4. So glad we have an option to the MSM! THANKS!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Wow, that is unreal. Thank you for your accurate news is all I can say...

    And please stay safe!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Trackbacked by The Thunder Run - Web Reconnaissance for 07/16/2007
    A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.

    ReplyDelete
  7. You write the truth, Teflon Don. I'm glad you do.

    Be safe...

    ReplyDelete
  8. You keep blogging, and we'll keep getting it passed around.

    Gratitude and prayers,

    ReplyDelete
  9. TD-

    "Blog the war, folks. It's the only way you'll learn anything."

    Amen to that! Please keep us up to date on the truth. Thanks.

    www.greensrealworld.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous16/7/07 18:01

    Sarge Charlie, that story was not confirmed, but very few doubt AQ would do such a thing. TD, I hope the media explains themselves one of these days. It would be interesting to hear why they operate the way they do. All the successes you guys have reported are brought out only very reluctantly and long after y'all have told the story. I wonder if they even bother reading these blogs.

    ReplyDelete
  11. The media at large is as strong in their convictions as our "pendulum politicians". Anymore, it isn't even "if it bleeds, it leads", that guides them. It is anything that will make our Commander-in-Chief look like he is failing that drives them. Snakes in the grass, the lot of them.
    I read this blog, Badgers Forward, and a dozen or so others, then read FOXNews.com and that is it. TV is for entertainment, not at all for enlightenment these days. And this computer has never, and never will look up the Alphabet soup news sources.
    Thanks TD for being among the best of the best.
    nuf sed

    ReplyDelete
  12. I gave up on the media when Anna Nicole Smith died and Paris Hilton went to jail! They really showed their stripes.
    The other day on FOX, Shep Smith refused to show a clip of Paris Hilton and actually had the people in the booth delete it! Way to go, Shep! Wish more of them had the chutzpah to do that.
    If it weren't for you guys fighting and blogging, we'd all be in the dark.
    Coram Deo,
    ~~~Blessings~~~

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous18/7/07 11:02

    Amen to all the other comments. What an expert roasting of the MSM. Thanks, TD, and keep your head on a swivel.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anonymous24/7/07 19:30

    I have 10 blogs I visit regularly.

    But yours is my favorite.

    Thank you.

    ReplyDelete