Tag: Jessica Lynch

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Snipers and Lynch

Sniper teams from the West Virginia State Police were positioned along the route of Private Lynch’s motorcade, and staff from the state’s Division of Natural Resources patrolled the Little Kanawha River, which flows beside the park where Private Lynch appeared. NY Times, July 22, 2003

This was for a personal appearance by Jessica Lynch, the hero of the mighty war against Saddam Hussein. Jessica Lynch single-handedly fought off an entire division of well-armed fanatic Iraqi Mujahideen before repairing her Hummer while it was being sabotaged by a Greenpeace activist and driving a wounded Shiite cleric to the hospital where she set up a foundation to care for his children.

I mean, Jessica Lynch, whose truck rolled over and who was injured and taken to a hospital where she was treated well until the marines were able to rescue her and take her to an American hospital where she could be treated even better.

I like Jessica Lynch. She is on my “Not Sold Out” list because she refused to cooperate with the fanatic capitalist media exploiters who wanted to embellish her story just a little.

But they didn’t need to embellish this part. Yes, there were police snipers positioned along the motorcade route because, I suppose, some absolutely idiotic administrator with the West Virginia State Police actually believed that Saddam Hussein might try to assassinate Jessica Lynch.

[Added December 2003:]

Have you gone to see Peter Pan yet? You ought to, really.

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CNN Duality

“Is this war going to make history by being the first to end before it’s cause could be found?” Geoff Meade, Sky News

CNN fielded two broadcast teams during the Iraq War. Why? Because there were two stories? Obviously, there was only one story– the true story of what happened in Iraq. But CNN showed two versions: one to America, and one to the rest of the world, the “international” version.

The American version was sheer boosterism– giving America the war it wanted to see. The Americans were nimble, quick, clean, and moral. Those unscrupulous, outrageous Iraqi’s dared to resist. Every time the military claimed to stumble into weapons of mass destruction: top of the news. The subsequent correction: who cares? When there was a controversy, as when Americans attacked their own reporters in the Palestine Hotel, CNN reporters were quick to excuse their own military, before gathering any actual facts. Reports in the hotel itself reported that there were no shots fired from the hotel, as alleged by the U.S. military in Islamic Disneyland, Doha, and repeated by Colin Powell.

Americans wanted to know if Jessica Lynch had plans for the future. How did she feel about her experience. One picture in front of the flag, please, one more.

No questions about why a recent air force recruit identified as “Marie” was nearly court-martialed for having sex in the dorms after reporting that she had been raped by a cadet, Douglas L. Meester.