 |
SwiftVets.com
Service to Country
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
shawa
CNO
Joined: 03 Sep 2004
Posts: 2004
|
 Posted: Fri May 20, 2005 4:39 pm Post subject: MILITARY-HATERS IN THE PRESS (Update-Ben Stein Commentary) |
 |
|
If this doesn't make my blood boil!!!
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=4511
| Quote: | Military-haters in the press
May 20th, 2005
The last few years have seen a heightened awareness of the mainstream media's anti-military bias. Plenty of people are noticing it, and even some media brand name correspondents are admitting it. There is plenty of evidence.
The New York Times has run front-page articles regarding the defense forces’ putative reliance on unemployable people opting to become cannon fodder by "volunteering" for the military, to get a paycheck because other employers would not hire them. CBS News has run similar pieces. Neither considered anything so mundane as serving one’s nation or fulfilling family tradition as a possible motivation for enlistment.
The overblown Abu Ghraib coverage, which enflamed the Muslim world, was the product of an editorial inclination to believe the very worst about our military, and to force responsibility up the chain of command, to the very top -a principle the press never applies to its own top management. Few in the press noted that the military justice system was already pursuing the miscreants at the very time the press obtained photos.
The alleged ransacking of an Iraqi weapons cache by insurgents while it was under Army guard did not happen, and the reports were refuted by the blogosphere, not by the vaunted fact-checking editorial function of the mainstream media, supposedly its key advantage over internet bloggers.
The looting of “thousands of priceless artifacts” from Baghdad's museum was lamented as one of the great tragedies of historical preservation, until it was revealed that relatively few pieces were taken, many of them reproductions.
Eason Jordan falsely claimed that the soldiers were deliberately targeting journalists in Iraq. After his evasions failed to get him out of his self-inflicted scandal he was forced to resign his senior management position at CNN. Nevertheless, this urban legend of military targeting journalists seems to live on: the President of the Newspaper Guild just last week repeated this egregious allegation. . Apparently, the efforts to help journalist by embedding them with troops has resulted in few foxhole conversions into Ernie Pyles. Much more aptly, too many journalists may have become Dan Rathers.
The recently allegation of the flushing the Koran down the toilet made by Newsweek was also a false report. It may be a tipping point in terms of media credibility and public perception. Hugh Hewitt interviewed Terry Moran of ABC News who was brave and honest enough to admit that the media did have an anti-military bias born of the Vietnam War. Moran stated,
"There is, Hugh, I agree with you, a deep anti-military bias in the media. One that begins from the premise that the military must be lying, and that American projection of power around the world must be wrong. I think that that is a hangover from Vietnam, and I think it's very dangerous."
Moran has it right. This anti-military attitude dates to the Vietnam era.
Robert Kaplan has pointed out that the media's bias against the military might originate in an elitist class-based prejudice held by reporters . No less so than in academia, the mainstream media have been colonized by Vietnam-era alumni of the left.
Soldiers have become so bewildered and disheartened by the dishonesty and inaccuracy of the journalists stationed in Iraq (many of whom never leave the safety of the security zones guarded by US troops) that they have utilized the internet to try to get their perspectives out to their families and to the public at home. Milblogs (military blogs) have also become a source of honesty and expertise regarding the military.
The pervasiveness and Vietnam era-origins of the lamentable press hostility toward the media are confirmed in the current issue of the New Yorker An article appears there by Thomas Bass, 'The Spy Who Loved Us," about Pham Xuan An, a South Vietnamese correspondent for Time magazine during the Vietnam War.
Pham was able to use his position at Time to spy for the North Vietnamese. Among his "accomplishments" was playing a key role in identifying targets for the Viet Cong preparatory to their savage Tet offensive, which killed thousands of people (and during which the US Embassy was attacked) and chauffeuring one of the key planners around Saigon before the launch of the attack.
Pham’s cover was never blown during the war, and he was rewarded with a promotion to general in the North Vietnamese army. What is telling are Bass's interviews with American correspondents regarding Pham. Despite thousands of Americans and South Vietnamese killed or wounded with the help of this traitor, the American journalists uniformly praise and admire Pham.
Fellow Time correspondent Robert Sam Anson was captured by the North Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge in Cambodia where at least 25 other journalists were already dead or unaccounted for (left unsaid by Bass were the thousands of soldiers enjoying the same status). Through the intercession of Anson's wife, Pham was able to secure his release.
In 1987 Anson asked him why he was saved. Pham responded that he liked Anson. Of course, Anson does not consider the fact that many American soldiers were harmed through his "friend's" efforts. An admiring Anson, to this day, keeps a photo of Pham on his desk.
Bass notes that almost all the journalists who worked with Pham are united in their support of him. Peter Arnett praises him as a "bold guy". Frank McCulloch, who was the head of Time's Asia bureau when he hired Pham said he was "absolutely not" angry when he learned of Pham’s spying and said, "It's his land, I thought. If the situation were reversed, I would have done the same thing."
McCulloch, says Bass, remembers Pham with "tremendous fondness and respect" and says it was a great pleasure to raise thirty-two thousand dollars to send Pham’s son to journalism (!) school in America.
Richard Pyle, the former A.P. Saigon bureau chief, praises Pham for saving Time from embarrassing itself by publishing stories that weren't true (because Pham had sources on the other side). Legendary reporter David Halberstam says he has "no grudges" against Pham and "I still think fondly of An. I never felt betrayed by An." Halberstam and the other reporters did not feel betrayed by An because he helped them in their careers by having the inside scoop about our enemies (and in the case of Anson, springing him from captivity). While their status soared, American soldiers were sinking into the swamps of Vietnam.
Not one journalist interviewed for the article had a negative word to say about a traitor and a spy whose devious efforts helped to cause the death and the maiming of thousands. Not one. |
(Edited to update Post Subject)
_________________
“I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.” (Thomas Paine, 1776)
Last edited by shawa on Thu Jun 09, 2005 1:59 pm; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
NYCnative
Seaman
Joined: 15 Jun 2004
Posts: 151
Location: SI, NY
|
| Posted: Sun May 22, 2005 2:02 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Thank you for posting this article. I never heard of Pham Xuan An before this.
It is so sad how people could hate there own country more than all the evil we are fighting in the rest of the world. The reporters of today are still blinded by their distrust of their own govt. They prefer to look for worse things they can say about America and the military without even trying to balance it with any of the good that is being done.
Weeks of stories of prision abuse while Iraq was meeting every deadline in order to establish a new democratic govt. The sacrifices of our troops and the Iraqi people is lost on the journalists. Every step of the way they wouldn't report the determination of the Iraqi people and the positive strides they are making despite the car bombings and kidnappings.
Truly sad and my blood boils too!
_________________
"From time to time, the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots." -- Thomas Jefferson
"Proclaim Liberty throughout All the land unto All the Inhabitants Thereof." -Inscription on the Liberty Bell |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Me#1You#10
Site Admin
Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 6503
|
| Posted: Sun May 22, 2005 9:12 pm Post subject: |
|
|
It's amazing, I mean TRULY amazing, that we can still stand tall and proud with both our values and self-awareness undaunted by the incessant carping and hammering of OUR OWN PRESS!
With friends like these...  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Army_(Ret)
Lt.Jg.
Joined: 06 Aug 2004
Posts: 108
|
| Posted: Sun May 22, 2005 10:35 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Me#1You#10 wrote: | It's amazing, I mean TRULY amazing, that we can still stand tall and proud with both our values and self-awareness undaunted by the incessant carping and hammering of OUR OWN PRESS!
With friends like these... |
What got me mad after that Koran toilet flushing report, was the fact that they immediately checked to see if it was true or not. It doesn't make any difference if it was true or not. It got people killed! You don't report inflammatory things that get people killed. The MSM still doesn't understand that.
_________________
Peace is acheived through victory |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Armybrat/Armymom
Commander
Joined: 27 Aug 2004
Posts: 335
Location: Central Texas
|
| Posted: Mon May 23, 2005 3:09 pm Post subject: |
|
|
How about putting these so called unbiased truth loving reporters in an airplane, giving them parachutes, pushing them out of the airplane in a rabid anti-American territory with a notebook and an uzi and see which item gets used?  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Army_(Ret)
Lt.Jg.
Joined: 06 Aug 2004
Posts: 108
|
| Posted: Mon May 23, 2005 9:03 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Armybrat/Armymom wrote: | | How about putting these so called unbiased truth loving reporters in an airplane, giving them parachutes, pushing them out of the airplane in a rabid anti-American territory with a notebook and an uzi and see which item gets used? |
Heres one that will make you mad:
http://newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/5/23/120125.shtml
Media want more photos of dead GI's.
_________________
Peace is acheived through victory |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Armybrat/Armymom
Commander
Joined: 27 Aug 2004
Posts: 335
Location: Central Texas
|
| Posted: Mon May 23, 2005 9:49 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| My son is in Iraq and he says over and over that the Iraqi people are very glad the soldiers are there. The soldiers travel with an interpreter (not always the same one because they keep disappearing) and these guys families don't even know what they are doing for a living because it is so dangerous for them and their families. They are being k***** by the insurgents who don't like anybody who doesn't believe as they do. So if the news media wanted to be truthful (hah) they would tell these stories. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
BuffaloJack
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
Joined: 10 Aug 2004
Posts: 1637
Location: Buffalo, New York
|
| Posted: Mon May 23, 2005 9:58 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I think that the embedded reported concept that was in place during the initial Iraq invasion was a truly good thing. It allowed reporters to see what the grunts see and be in just as much danger as them. The problem was that the US military was so efficient, the whole invasion was over in a matter of weeks. Now the non-embedded reporters are all over there sitting in their hotel rooms taking every opportunity to make our boys look bad. There are still a few embedded reporters left, but I've a feeling that they are all the junior guys on the team.
As for Pham Xuan An, I heard of him many years ago and read several stories about him and saw an account or two on one of the various documentary channels (A&E or History or maybe PBS) back then. I had forgotten his name with time, but I always remembered him as the Time Magazine spy.
_________________
Swift Boats - Qui Nhon (12/69-4/70), Cat Lo (4/70-5/70), Vung Tau (5/70-12/71) |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
becca1223
PO3
Joined: 23 Aug 2004
Posts: 293
Location: Colonial Heights, VA
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
shawa
CNO
Joined: 03 Sep 2004
Posts: 2004
|
| Posted: Fri May 27, 2005 2:02 am Post subject: |
|
|
Thanks, Becca.
That is powerful!!!
_________________
“I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.” (Thomas Paine, 1776) |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Navy_Navy_Navy
Admin
Joined: 07 May 2004
Posts: 5777
|
| Posted: Fri May 27, 2005 2:10 am Post subject: |
|
|
Russ Vaugh nails it again!
I don't think most of the talking heads have caught on yet, though, do you?
All those snipers and vipers - they're still blathering on, as if they're completely unaware of what a joke they have become and just how many people are "onto them."
Or maybe they do know. Like the old Lily Tomlin "operator" skit....
"We don't care.... we don't have to.... we're the PHONE COMPANY!" :::snort - click!::: 
_________________
~ Echo Juliet ~
Altering course to starboard - On Fire, Keep Clear
Navy woman, Navy wife, Navy mother |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
LewWaters
Admin
Joined: 18 May 2004
Posts: 4042
Location: Washington State
|
| Posted: Fri May 27, 2005 2:21 am Post subject: |
|
|
The press's treasonous acts are paying off, again, as planned, I believe. Everytime they get a chance, they print something negative about our troops and nothing positive.
Recently, I visited a notoriously left leaning site and read ana rticle ststing our troops shot up a mini-van in Iraq that had simply pulled over to let them pass by. The replies simply amazed me. Things as "it's a wonder they haven't shot more civilians, what are they doing, conserving ammo?"
So much for the "we support the troops, but not the war."
It's only a matter of time before we hear of even more incidents of "spitting" at our returning troops as the looney left and the terrorist supporting media have their field day defaming our troops. All I can say is whoa be it to anyone doing it in my presence.
General Giap showed the world how easy it is to defeat the U.S., simply by engaging the left in their America hating actions.
_________________
Clark County Conservative |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
becca1223
PO3
Joined: 23 Aug 2004
Posts: 293
Location: Colonial Heights, VA
|
| Posted: Fri May 27, 2005 3:37 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Navy_Navy_Navy wrote: |
I don't think most of the talking heads have caught on yet, though, do you? |
Of course not, their greedy lil' heads are way too big! However, unbeknownst to them, they are nursing a bleeding wound, which perhaps over time will turn into a slow death. Then again, they will always have the liberals!
Talk about a downer!!!!!! I'm tired of what's being force feed to me on network news. On the internet, it's easier for me to make the choice of what I want to read about and what garbage I want to completely ignore. I don't have to sit and listen to a bunch of bulls*** I didn't want to hear in the first place!...and changing the channel doesn't work. They're all alike. I haven't watched any news on TV in a long while and don't plan to any time in the near future. The heck with 'em!
Gosh, I pray my computer doesn't crash!!!!! Oh, shwew, I've still got Rush!!!!!  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
shawa
CNO
Joined: 03 Sep 2004
Posts: 2004
|
| Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2005 1:50 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Commenting on that New Yorker Pham Xuan An article, Ben Stein NAILS IT!!
http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=8276
| Quote: | A New Yorker Kind of Guy
By Ben Stein
Published 6/9/2005 12:09:02 AM
If you wanted to see the perfect example of the ethical and moral collapse of the Mainstream Media, you could not do better than a long article in the New Yorker of May 23, 2005. The article is entitled, "The Spy Who Loved Us." Written by a teacher at the University of Albany, named Thomas Bass, it's about a man named Pham Xuan An. Now very old, An was -- among many other things -- a correspondent in Saigon during the Vietnam War for Time magazine. He was apparently considered a particularly brilliant and well-informed correspondent and very well liked by his colleagues in the Western press corps during the war.
He was also a Communist spy, working for the North Vietnamese, informing them of what he knew about American military plans, troop movements, political agendas.
He even helped the Communists win large battles by directing Vietcong and North Vietnamese troops against American and South Vietnamese forces. He helped plan the Tet Offensive of 1968, including helping the man who planned the attack on the U.S. Embassy. This was the offensive where thousands of innocent civilians were massacred by the Communists.
When the war ended, An offered to go to the U.S. and continue spying for the Communists there. The offer was denied and he lives quietly in Ho Chi Minh City, where, among other pets, he keeps fighting cocks -- a practice generally considered barbaric in the circles of New Yorker readers, but another sign of his cuteness to Professor Bass. In fact, the whole article is about how cute and smart and clever and brave a guy An is. A lovable, brilliant, brave man who sent Americans and innocent civilians to their deaths. Bass even explains that almost all of An's former colleagues in the Western press still love the guy after learning he was a spy for America's enemy in the Vietnam War. They even gave money to bring him here for an auld lang syne visit not long ago.
In this article, which I would guess to be about 8,000 words or more, there is not one hint, not one whisper, of sympathy for the American soldiers who fought and died or were maimed in Vietnam. Not one sliver of anger at a man who took American money and helped kill Americans. Not a word about the mass murder of civilians during Tet.
Prof. Bass, the perfect modern academic, obviously greatly admires this man, spent days with him, and has not one bad word to say about An's bosses, who, again, killed civilians without remorse by the thousands, who even sent An to be "re-educated" after the war because he had so much contact with Western ideas.
I am not sure how many mothers or fathers or children or widows of Vietnam war casualties read the New Yorker. I am not sure if anyone who edited the piece -- and it is edited well, although utterly without moral input -- had friends or family who fought there (such as my late father in law, Col. Dale Denman, Jr.). But how insulting, how insulting must an article like this be to them. How insulting it is to us all: to lavish praise on a man who helped kill our fellow Americans, to describe him in endearing terms, to try to make him seem like a kindly uncle.
If the New Yorker is one of the flagships of the Mainstream Media fleet, they are sailing in maddeningly disloyal, contemptuous waters and obviously have been for a while. Small wonder the media gloried in Mark Felt and Watergate last week. In those days, Americans actually trusted the Mainstream Media. The New Yorker piece by Prof. Bass makes it clear how wrong we were. He's a fine writer but a man whose piece lacks any moral compass at all. And what of the fellow journalists in Saigon cheering him on? Now we know a bit more about why the war turned out as it did.
Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer in Beverly Hills and Malibu, and author of "Ben Stein's Diary" each month in The American Spectator. Click here to subscribe. |
_________________
“I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.” (Thomas Paine, 1776) |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
USS Endicott
Seaman Recruit
Joined: 24 Sep 2004
Posts: 46
Location: California
|
| Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2005 4:32 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Army_(Ret) wrote: | | Me#1You#10 wrote: | It's amazing, I mean TRULY amazing, that we can still stand tall and proud with both our values and self-awareness undaunted by the incessant carping and hammering of OUR OWN PRESS!
With friends like these... |
What got me mad after that Koran toilet flushing report, was the fact that they immediately checked to see if it was true or not. It doesn't make any difference if it was true or not. It got people killed! You don't report inflammatory things that get people killed. The MSM still doesn't understand that. |
The thing that bothered me about the Koran story was how quick the media was to pounce on it as another example of US atrocities. This is the same media that has no problem with Palestinians, Iranians, so-called Americans and others burning the US flag. As the media likes to point out, it is ok to burn the flag, display "art" showing Christian religious artifacts in elephant dung, urine, etc. because of freedom of speech. So why is the media so upset if a Koran is placed on top of a tv, touched with an infidel finger, or even flushed down the toilet? What happened to freedom of speech?
The Koran story and subsequent media reports only provide more proof that many in the media want to showcase the US in a bad light. The follow up military investigation proved to me that the military is more than fair in its treatment of the Koran. Only 13 cases of Koran abuse, many accidental, and also about 19 incidents of prisoners abusing the Koran. Newsweek was trying to build a mountain out of a molehill. The Newsweek story was a lie and the only case of Koran pages being flushed down a toilet was done by a prisoner. Of course the investigation did not stop the media from shouting in their headlines that the US "Admits to Koran abuse". I had to find out the truth of the matter from various blogs.
_________________
"God Bless America and keep watch over our military personnel. Thanks to all who have served and are serving now!" from a California American. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
