Kevin Sites speaks out and tells his story (the man who filmed the mosque shooting)

Im posting this here because it is not a news story, its sort of an editorial written by Kevin on his blog (its lengthy but a good read):

EDIT: SIZE OF ARTICLE CUT DOWN DUE TO MOD'S REQUEST

To Devil Dogs of the 3.1:

Since the shooting in the Mosque, I've been haunted that I have not been able to tell you directly what I saw or explain the process by which the world came to see it as well. As you know, I'm not some war zone tourist with a camera who doesn't understand that ugly things happen in combat. I've spent most of the last five years covering global conflict. But I have never in my career been a 'gotcha' reporter -- hoping for people to commit wrongdoings so I can catch them at it.

This week I've even been shocked to see myself painted as some kind of anti-war activist. Anyone who has seen my reporting on television or has read the dispatches on this website is fully aware of the lengths I've gone to play it straight down the middle -- not to become a tool of propaganda for the left or the right.

But I find myself a lightning rod for controversy in reporting what I saw occur in front of me, camera rolling.

It's time you to have the facts from me, in my own words, about what I saw -- without imposing on that Marine -- guilt or innocence or anything in between. I want you to read my account and make up your own minds about whether you think what I did was right or wrong. All the other armchair analysts don't mean a damn to me.

Here it goes.

www.kevinsites.net...

[edit on 23-11-2004 by electric squid carpet]

If what this guy was saying is true the Marine was only using his training and fear of the situation and his personal instinct to survive.

Which is fair play in my book, how many of us would feel the same way?

exactly, its people labeling the filmer as "anti American" and a "trator" that get to me.

Networks like Fox took this, made it look like it was a deliberate attempt at discrediting the US army and turned it into an OP/ED piece about how these things are supposed to be necessary (while discrediting the "leftist anti-war reporters), just another example of people using horrible situations like this for personal/political gain


[edit on 23-11-2004 by electric squid carpet]

What I wanna know is why people are calling Kevin Sites a Liberal Activist for shooting then showing this video. I have been visiting his blog www.kevinsites.net... and the impression i get is that he is just trying to rely the facts and put a Human face on the war both Iraqi, Brit and Americans involved in this confllict. Sometimes I get the impression that Kevin Sites is a little calous about the war having been a freelance war correspondant for 5 years now, I do somtimes catch a whiff on his personal opinion but I never seem to pin him down, in all likelyhood he is lefty so to speak, but from what ive seen so far in his blog he holds back alot and tries to be impartial.

Originally posted by rustiswordz
If what this guy was saying is true the Marine was only using his training and fear of the situation and his personal instinct

What part of 'did not follow his training' did you fail to understand? What part of 'didn't seem concerned with the other more threatening people in the room' didn't you understand' what part of 'they were wounded from the other day, had been disarmed then, and even if he didn't know, he just saw the other marines come out and tell them about them, and their training reuired that they be disarmed' do you not understand?

He didn't follow his training, he didn't do what is right, he freaked out. Sure, I would freak out too, and I don't think he needs to be punished severely for this,but why pretend like he didn't do anything wrong? None of the other marines there felt the need to shoot this insurgent, but this guy did. Why? Probably because he had been shot in supposedly similar circumstances. He's obviously under a lot of pressure. He made a mistake. Don't pretend he didn't.

Originally posted by sardion2000
What I wanna know is why people are calling Kevin Sites a Liberal Activist for shooting then showing this video.

Because anybody who presents anything other than a highly idealized, almost fetishised picture of the war, is labeled as weak. A coward. A liberal. A traitor.

Who's doing it? The way I see it, there are four groups of Americans at work here.

People who support the war and love their country and the troops.
People who don't support the war, but support the country and troops.
People who hate the country and troops.
People who get off on war.

Any rational, logical discussion of the war by the first two groups, its effects, outcome, and current status, is stifled by the second two groups by labeling them as fringe in either direction.