The Enemy In Our Midst

The LWM strikes a blow for terrorists, again:

Once the lie about the "attack on a mosque" had been planted, it was seemingly impossible to convince those who had credited the original deception that they had been gulled by the terrorists. Yes, the Iraqi special operators had photographed something or other, but why should journalists believe those photographs, when they had seen twenty dead bodies just minutes after the event? And this conviction was reinforced by the locals; the Baghdad city council had by then demanded an immediate American withdrawal.

It's always hard to convince someone that his own eyes are lying to him, and yet by now some of the journalists should have figured it out, and they should recognize that American officials in the field are required to fully document their statements before they talk to the press. But that is easier said than done, because it's not realistic to expect a reporter to wait until American officials find it possible to speak, when the terrorists are flooding the international media with a story that certainly looks plausible.

The fault here is primarily with the Pentagon, which has behaved quite well on the military battlefield, but abominably in political combat, which is equally important. If the practice of taking along journalists in the first weeks of the war was so successful, why not do the same on operations like this one? It would have been invaluable to have had a top reporter see the real scene, and then the fabricated one a couple of miles away. Such a report would have been devastating to the terrorists, and would have done more to educate the American public than any subsequent briefing.

Moreover, in cases like this one — and there are lots of them — the Pentagon should fight with the same intensity as their soldiers on the ground, instead of patiently issuing bloodless statements and quietly briefing journalists who have already filed their stories. We have trained the Iraqis to document their actions. We know that lies are only moments away. Yet the Pentagon, over and over again, is simply unable to provide a timely account of events that would make the terrorists play catch-up. Secretary Rumsfeld constantly remarks on his department's inability to communicate effectively with the public, but this is a tribute to a failure of leadership that ends on his own desk. If the people he's chosen to wage this war can't do it effectively, then let him find those who can, or turn his desk over to someone who has better ideas.

But the media have their own burden to bear in these matters. It is just outrageous to give the same standing to Mohammed Ridha as to Lt. Colonel Swindell, and to refer to Swindell's account as simply "the American version" of events. By now, the press corps has the same eyewitness account as I do, and they know as well as I do that the source is excellent. They should tell the true story and alert their readers that, in this war, information is manipulated by our enemies and initial reports are often misleading.

Alas, as things currently stand, the only reporters who stay with a story long enough to get it right are the top bloggers, and the only citizens who have enough patience and attentiveness to wait before drawing conclusions are the readers of the blogs.

Which is why I read the dead tree media less and less, and spend more and more time in front of the damn monitor.

It's not that they're stupid, although they're not very bright.

It's not that they're being manipulated by experts, as the terrorists' claims are often transparently false (remember the Soviet artillery shell they trotted out claiming it was an American bomb?)

It's that they are working for our enemies, and doing their damndest to ensure we lost this war.

Wonder where all that 9/11 footage got off to?