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Troops Aren't Pawns for Antiwar Rhetoric

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posted on Apr, 12 2003 @ 10:28 PM
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www.washingtondispatch.com...



Troops Aren't Pawns for Antiwar Rhetoric


Exclusive commentary by Trevor Bothwell

Apr 12, 2003

By now most people know which side of the aisle they stand on when it comes to the media coverage of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Most people either like it or they don�t. The media are either biased or they aren�t. Some people are either happy our reporters are embedded with coalition forces, or they�re not. You get the idea.

I don�t intend to use this occasion to whine about liberal media bias. Do I think it exists? To some degree, of course. I mean, was Peter Jennings not beating the antiwar drum when he remarked back in August, �It�s no secret, now, that a great many American allies are very opposed to attacking Iraq unless the President makes a better case for it.�?

At the very least, we�ve got a slight discrepancy when countries like France, Germany, and Russia constitute �a great many,� much less that they were behaving at all like �allies,� as President Bush rounded up international support for this war.

But I digress. My true gripe is really with journalists and networks that purport, perhaps even truly intend, to cover the war evenhandedly, but still can�t help but take cheap jabs at our military along the way.

Washington Post Foreign Service correspondent Peter Baker wrote last week what could only be described as a heartfelt account of Mohammed, the brave Iraqi lawyer who risked his life to help rescue Pfc. Jessica Lynch from the hospital where Saddam Hussein�s Fedayeen soldiers held her captive.

�Mohammed was taking a chance� in even approaching the Marine checkpoint outside Nasiriyah, Baker writes, as �Saddam's Fedayeen and their allies had been dressing in civilian clothes to get close to U.S. troops, sometimes even faking surrender, only to open fire at short range.�



 
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