thedrifter
01-03-08, 08:04 PM
Who 'Lost' Fallujah? Marines Or Media?
Ibd
Media And War: As the battle for Fallujah raged during 2004, the world's media gave it front-page treatment -- almost all of it negative. Now U.S. intelligence analysts say the media deserve some blame for the setback there.
A report looking back at the first battle of Fallujah, which led to a U.S. withdrawal of forces from that city, concludes that a major reason for the U.S. retreat wasn't military incompetence or an unbeatable foe; no, it was the media.
"The outcome of a purely military contest in Fallujah was always a foregone conclusion -- coalition victory," according to a report from the U.S. Army National Ground Intelligence Center.
"But Fallujah was not simply a military action, it was a political and informational battle. ... The effects of media coverage, enemy information operations and the fragility of the political environment conspired to force a halt to U.S. military operations."
That halt, by the way, meant more U.S. troops were killed in pacifying Fallujah than necessary. The first battle for Fallujah began on April 4, 2004, and ended five days later. The U.S. had to wait six months before going back to finish the job.
Al-Jazeera and Al Arabiya, two Arabic satellite news channels, carried extensive coverage of the battle. They took pictures of dead babies in Fallujah's hospital, "presumably killed by coalition airstrikes," though no proof was ever offered.
"Children were shown bespattered with blood," the report said. "Mothers were shown screaming and mourning day after day."
Many of those Al-Jazeera and Al Arabiya reports were uncritically echoed by the Western media, both in the U.S. and Europe. It led to extreme pressure on the Iraqi government and the Coalition Provisional Authority to halt the Marine attacks on the city of 285,000.
Here, for example, is how The New York Times put it in its April 5, 2004, edition: "Together, the events in Fallujah and the other cities on Sunday appeared likely to shake the American hold on Iraq more than anything since the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein's government last April 9." And that wasn't at all untypical.
In fact, the U.S. Marines entering Fallujah did take casualties and met heavy armed resistance. But without the misleading media coverage that led to political pressure, they would have almost certainly cleaned out what had become a viper's nest of terrorist activity.
When the Marines returned to retake Fallujah in November 2004, they brought with them some of the embedded reporters -- media folks who, to their credit, understood what was going on at the troop-level and were generally far less biased in their coverage. The Marines took Fallujah, and today it's largely quiet.
Just as the media overplayed the troubles the U.S. was having in Iraq early in the war, today they're downplaying the extraordinary successes since the start of the 30,000-troop surge in 2007.
This has given Democratic presidential candidates a chance to keep quiet about Iraq -- an issue on which they were dead wrong.
A New York Times headline put it best Thursday: "On Campaign Trail, Domestic Issues Now Outweigh Iraq." Depends on who's doing the weighing, we guess.
Just five months ago, Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi were pushing hard for legislation to force the U.S. to pull out of Iraq, even as we were winning the war. They were wrong, but the mainstream media have largely given them a pass.
Also recall that, just four months ago, congressional Democrats ripped Gen. David Petraeus for telling them the surge was working. That month, as the Media Research Center noted, the three major networks did 178 stories on Iraq -- many of them negative in tone.
"Victory is not at hand," said CBS News' David Martin in one typical report, "not even in sight." Others said much the same thing.
Since then, U.S. casualties have plunged (see chart), amid growing signs of political compromise. Now the networks have grown strangely silent on Iraq.
Maybe the media, proven so wrong, hope the Iraq issue will just go away. Surely the Democrats do. Unfortunately for both, it won't.
Ellie
Ibd
Media And War: As the battle for Fallujah raged during 2004, the world's media gave it front-page treatment -- almost all of it negative. Now U.S. intelligence analysts say the media deserve some blame for the setback there.
A report looking back at the first battle of Fallujah, which led to a U.S. withdrawal of forces from that city, concludes that a major reason for the U.S. retreat wasn't military incompetence or an unbeatable foe; no, it was the media.
"The outcome of a purely military contest in Fallujah was always a foregone conclusion -- coalition victory," according to a report from the U.S. Army National Ground Intelligence Center.
"But Fallujah was not simply a military action, it was a political and informational battle. ... The effects of media coverage, enemy information operations and the fragility of the political environment conspired to force a halt to U.S. military operations."
That halt, by the way, meant more U.S. troops were killed in pacifying Fallujah than necessary. The first battle for Fallujah began on April 4, 2004, and ended five days later. The U.S. had to wait six months before going back to finish the job.
Al-Jazeera and Al Arabiya, two Arabic satellite news channels, carried extensive coverage of the battle. They took pictures of dead babies in Fallujah's hospital, "presumably killed by coalition airstrikes," though no proof was ever offered.
"Children were shown bespattered with blood," the report said. "Mothers were shown screaming and mourning day after day."
Many of those Al-Jazeera and Al Arabiya reports were uncritically echoed by the Western media, both in the U.S. and Europe. It led to extreme pressure on the Iraqi government and the Coalition Provisional Authority to halt the Marine attacks on the city of 285,000.
Here, for example, is how The New York Times put it in its April 5, 2004, edition: "Together, the events in Fallujah and the other cities on Sunday appeared likely to shake the American hold on Iraq more than anything since the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein's government last April 9." And that wasn't at all untypical.
In fact, the U.S. Marines entering Fallujah did take casualties and met heavy armed resistance. But without the misleading media coverage that led to political pressure, they would have almost certainly cleaned out what had become a viper's nest of terrorist activity.
When the Marines returned to retake Fallujah in November 2004, they brought with them some of the embedded reporters -- media folks who, to their credit, understood what was going on at the troop-level and were generally far less biased in their coverage. The Marines took Fallujah, and today it's largely quiet.
Just as the media overplayed the troubles the U.S. was having in Iraq early in the war, today they're downplaying the extraordinary successes since the start of the 30,000-troop surge in 2007.
This has given Democratic presidential candidates a chance to keep quiet about Iraq -- an issue on which they were dead wrong.
A New York Times headline put it best Thursday: "On Campaign Trail, Domestic Issues Now Outweigh Iraq." Depends on who's doing the weighing, we guess.
Just five months ago, Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi were pushing hard for legislation to force the U.S. to pull out of Iraq, even as we were winning the war. They were wrong, but the mainstream media have largely given them a pass.
Also recall that, just four months ago, congressional Democrats ripped Gen. David Petraeus for telling them the surge was working. That month, as the Media Research Center noted, the three major networks did 178 stories on Iraq -- many of them negative in tone.
"Victory is not at hand," said CBS News' David Martin in one typical report, "not even in sight." Others said much the same thing.
Since then, U.S. casualties have plunged (see chart), amid growing signs of political compromise. Now the networks have grown strangely silent on Iraq.
Maybe the media, proven so wrong, hope the Iraq issue will just go away. Surely the Democrats do. Unfortunately for both, it won't.
Ellie