This story by Kim Gamel of the Associated Press describes the sad death of two women, one of them pregnant, in Iraq. The military describes the incident as follows,
The U.S. military said coalition troops fired at a car after it entered a clearly marked prohibited area near an observation post but failed to stop despite repeated visual and auditory warnings.
"Shots were fired to disable the vehicle," the military said in a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press. "Coalition forces later received reports from Iraqi police that two women had died from gunshot wounds ... and one of the females may have been pregnant."
The family claims that they did not see or hear the warnings. Sadly, this is a tragedy. The kind that has happened in every war since time began. But clearly not an intentional one. If the troops knew who was in the car they would not have fired. If the driver could do things again, you bet he would have either paid attention to what he was doing or heeded the warnings.
It is at this point that the AP and Gamel launch their attack. Of the 22 paragraphs in the story, less than half, 9-10 depending upon how you count them, have anything to do with the tragedy. The rest tie it into the alleged incident in Haditha and attempt to put together a mosaic of US Troops randomly killing civilians. In short, it ties two unrelated incidents together in such a way as to paint an unflattering story of the US, our troops and the war in Iraq. There is even a gratuitous mention of Abu Ghraib just in case you missed the point Gamel is trying to make; We, and our troops, are the bad guys.
The AP and the reporter may say they are all related. That they do not find a problem linking tragic accidents that are made by all involved with ALLEGED massacres and crimes by a few that resulted in punishment. In the reporter's mind, they are all the same, right? Well if that is the case, how come there is no attempt to do the same with the atrocities that we know are committed by the terrorists and insurgents? Why not a mention of the fact that they purposely target civilians? Instead of showing what barbarians the other side is, the press actually seems to think we are at fault for the daily assaults on innocents. Go ahead, read the bulk of stories coming out of Iraq. Rather than show what bastards the enemy is the press slant is "look at what we failed to prevent today."
Seems they are just not going to be happy until we abandon our troops and the Iraqis and come home with our tails between our legs. If that is enlightenment, I prefer ignorance.
Thanks to the Mudville Gazette for the Open Post.
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