Kevin Sites has updated his blog with his version of the events regarding the shooting in the Fallujah Mosque. (HT Little Green Footballs) I am unimpressed. I sense guilt and fear in his rendition. He should have both emotions in my opinion. Moreover, his “analysis” seems deficient in comparison with his protestations regarding how experienced a “war journalist” he is.

He acknowledges how the intel was that insurgents may have re-occupied the Mosque after the initial attack the day before. However, he chooses to emphasize details without full context:

When we arrive at the front entrance, we see that another squad has already entered before us. The lieutenant asks them, “Are there people inside?” One of the Marines raises his hand signaling five. “Did you shoot them,” the lieutenant asks? “Roger that, sir, ” the same Marine responds. “Were they armed?” The Marine just shrugs and we all move inside. Immediately after going in, I see the same black plastic body bags spread around the mosque. The dead from the day before. But more surprising, I see the same five men that were wounded from Friday as well. It appears that one of them is now dead and three are bleeding to death from new gunshot wounds. The fifth is partially covered by a blanket and is in the same place and condition he was in on Friday, near a column. He has not been shot again.

What about the fact that this group of Marines went in expecting armed resistance because of the reports about re-occupation of the Mosque by insurgents? Did he not expect the Marines to go in firing? What’s with focusing on the allegedly “new” wounds—with NO context or information about what actually happened when the first unit went in to the room that day?

Then there is this:

I look closely at both the dead and the wounded. There don’t appear to be any weapons anywhere.

How closely did he look at them? Can he see through blankets and robes? Did he frisk them? Are we to believe that he got closer to the men than the armed Marines to search for weapons? If so, he is reckless and such recklessness can get our guys killed by booby traps.

I see an old man in a red kaffiyeh lying against the back wall. Another is face down next to him, his hand on the old man’s lap—as if he were trying to take cover. I squat beside them, inches away and begin to videotape them. Then I notice that the blood coming from the old man’s nose is bubbling. A sign he is still breathing. So is the man next to him. While I continue to tape, a Marine walks up to the other two bodies about fifteen feet away, but also lying against the same back wall.

Then I hear him say this about one of the men: “He’s fucking faking he’s dead—he’s faking he’s fucking dead.”Through my viewfinder I can see him raise the muzzle of his rifle in the direction of the wounded Iraqi. There are no sudden movements, no reaching or lunging.

Note this, Sites isn’t looking at the insurgent when the Marine sees something that leads him to believe the guy is feigning death. And if you look at the picture I posted here, even when Sites is filming in that direction, he’s not in a position where he can see what the man’s right hand is doing. There doesn’t need to be reaching or lunging when you are wiggling the pin off a grenade or pulling a wire on a booby trap. The guy was faking—engaging in deceit—engaging in perfidious behavior against the laws of war. Furthermore, when Sites does look in that direction—his eyes would have had to focus impossibly quickly to see as much detail as the Marine was seeing. Sites is extremely vulnerable to cross-examination regarding his “eyewitness” testimony.

I am still rolling. I feel the deep pit of my stomach. The Marine then abruptly turns away and strides away, right past the fifth wounded insurgent lying next to a column. He is very much alive and peering from his blanket. He is moving, even trying to talk. But for some reason, it seems he did not pose the same apparent “danger” as the other man—though he may have been more capable of hiding a weapon or explosive beneath his blanket.

What’s with the italics around the word “danger”? Is this some new tool of objective journalism I missed? Has Sites been trained to make distinctions between those who pose a danger and those who don’t as have the Marines? Did he bother to ask the Marine that question? It appears he makes up news in his own head instead of asking questions.

The other guy who was moving and trying to talk had both arms out of the blanket and was imploring—he wasn’t faking death. He wasn’t engaging in behavior that appeared to be deceitful. Regardless, why didn’t Sites ask the Marine what the difference was? Don’t journalists actually ask questions these days?

This is the part that really gets my goat:

At that point the Marine who fired the shot became aware that I was in the room. He came up to me and said, “I didn’t know sir-I didn’t know.” The anger that seemed present just moments before turned to fear and dread.

I guess all that war journalism has given Sites the power to read minds. How does he know the Marine wasn’t aware he was there? And what’s this with labeling the emotions the Marine was feeling? Some objectivity. I think the Marine was all of those things during the seconds he had to make a decision about a guy faking death who could have blown them all up.

And why didn’t Sites tell the Marines (not just their officer who immediately left the room) that the men were the same ones from the night before? Even if he had, approaching them with caution was advisable since they spent the night unguarded and within reach of other insurgents. And look at this:

It’s reasonable to presume they may not have known that these insurgents had already been engaged and subdued a day earlier. Yet when this new squad engaged the wounded insurgents on Saturday, perhaps really believing they had been fighting or somehow posed a threat—those Marines inside knew from their training to check the insurgents for weapons and explosives after disabling them, instead of leaving them where they were and waiting outside the mosque for the squad I was following to arrive.

He’s saying that because the other unit had been in the room shortly before, that they would have—in accordance with procedure—checked the enemy for weapons and explosives—so the Marine, therefore, should have known he had nothing to worry about. Sites apparently thinks the Marine in question should have totally relied on someone else’s search for weapons—even when he sees with his own eyes that the man is feigning death—which suggests other perfidy is possible. If my life and the life of my buddies was at stake—I don’t think I would take that risk.

When NBC aired the story 48-hours later, we did so in a way that attempted to highlight every possible mitigating issue for that Marine’s actions. We wanted viewers to have a very clear understanding of the circumstances surrounding the fighting on that frontline. Many of our colleagues were just as responsible. Other foreign networks made different decisions, and because of that, I have become the conflicted conduit who has brought this to the world.

Apparently not all mitigating circumstances were included, since Oliver North details a few things that were left out. I also don’t recall a discussion about feigning death being a war crime.

The next part is just plain pompous and self-serving:

So here, ultimately, is how it all plays out: when the Iraqi man in the mosque posed a threat, he was your enemy; when he was subdued he was your responsibility; when he was killed in front of my eyes and my camera—the story of his death became my responsibility.

An enemy is not subdued if he is feigning death in order to blow you up. That’s the situation the Marine saw as a distinct possibility. And don’t give me that stuff about being in the same room. Sites didn’t have the same visual vantage point as the Marine. The video and picture clearly show that to be a fact. And as for Sites’s responsibility—if the death was warranted by the circumstances—it’s not a story. As it is, he gave the tape to Al Jezeera who is using it as propaganda—with no context. Doesn’t he have responsibility for that?

Anyone else get the impression from reading his blog that he’s sweating just a tad?

UPDATE:

Power Line links to two articles making the same points I did above (much more eloquently I might add). One is by former Marine and rifle platoon leader, Mackubin Thomas Owens posted at NRO:

These principles lead us to the conclusion that we need to make a distinction in the case of the Marine in Fallujah. Clearly, a soldier who executes a prisoner, either on his own or under orders, has acted in cold blood and consequently has committed a war crime. Proportionality, humanity, and chivalry guide this judgment. But it seems to me that in the case of the Marine in question, military necessity trumped the other two conditions. He did not kill in cold blood, but responded to threatened danger in an uncertain environment.

And:

Anyone who has ever talked to a veteran of World War II in the Pacific knows that the Japanese, like the rebels in Fallujah, were not inclined to surrender and that, on more than one occasion, they killed Americans after feigning surrender. Pretty soon, the Americans stopped making the offer and resorted to flamethrowers and satchel charges to take care of Japanese defenders.

Then there is Ken Myers—a “war journalist” who, unlike Sites, actually gets it:

The outcry over the killing by the marine passes all belief. Moreover, we actually know the context for the shooting. The marines thought the room in the mosque contained only dead bodies, not wounded. When the marine saw a “dead” man move, he cried out first, and then shot him.

Lance Corporal Ian Malone and Piper Christian Muzvuru, 1st Battalion, Irish Guards, RIP, took no such precautions in Basra in April last year. They simply ignored the body of the dead fedayeen fighter as they dismounted from their Warrior armoured fighting vehicle – and it, being on a suicide mission, promptly rose up and shot them both, before itself being blown apart. Thenceforth, the “Micks” probably made it their business to re-kill every corpse they saw.

I agree it’s not nice. War is not nice – and the US marine that the entire world has now seen kill a defenceless, wounded man, had probably spent the previous two days in street-fighting and house-clearing. This kind of warfare causes unspeakable stress, for soldiers are in danger every second, for hour after hour after hour. It is simply fatuous to sit in high moral judgment on the split-second decision-making of some 20-year-old in the middle of such combat.
In other words, I’m saying the marine who killed the Iraqi did the right thing – he put the lives of himself and his colleagues first. Ask Mrs Malone in Dublin or Mrs Muzvuru in Harare what they now fervently wish their sons had done

Fatuous. That is a perfect word for what Kevin Sites wrote in his blog yesterday. It means “vacuously, smugly, and unconsciously foolish.” Expecially when you read it along with the words of the two men quoted above.

And, as for journalistic and moral responsibility, Ken Myers hits it on the head:

Moreover, an unprecedented struggle awaits us when Iraq is done. We in the media must learn what our role in that struggle will be. Vicarious indignation at so-called atrocities is a moral frivolity: it proves that we are unaware of the scale of the crisis we face, now and into the foreseeable future. Our common enemy has vision, dedication, courage and intelligence. He is profoundly grateful for whatever tit-bits come his way: our media have a moral obligation to ensure that we are scattering absolutely none in his direction.
(emphasis added)

And about that last point, our guys over there are watching the media. Look at this post by American Soldier.

UPDATE II

American Soldier has more to say about the Kevin Sites response:

I may not respect the words that Kevin wrote on his site. However, I felt Kevin Sites’ open letter was fair and in the end were the words of a person just doing his job. He reported, knowing what could become of that Marine. He said in this letter that he contemplated destroying the footage but didn’t. He will have to live with the fact that this may send a Marine to jail and possibly dishonorably discharged from the Marines.

So I say this to you Kevin, this was your choice! You enabled this to come out. You knew that this might of leaked out at some point and in the end you could not accept that. You viewed something extraordinary in that room. However you just viewed it! You were not that Marine who made that shot. You were not staring down that barrel. In fact you have never had to stare down the barrel of a weapon to kill someone. You just don’t know. You only know what it’s like to view that. I tell you that it’s a feeling that haunts you forever. However we (Soldiers) do it to ensure our friends to our left, right and rear don’t get hurt or killed. We don’t do it for any political agenda. It’s war, there is no time for those thoughts. That Marine had his reasons, I highly doubt he did it just to kill another person. I am not that Marine! I am a Soldier who has had to make those tough decisions though. So I can relate to those split second reasons. They all can’t be truly explained!My advice to you is move on. I sincerely believe you have lost all trust no matter how you articulate it. This is what you will have to live with now for your actions!

UPDATE III

Captain Ed at Captain’s Quarters writes about another incident of insurgents faking death and killing Marines. Do you think those guys knew about the Sites video uproar? Perhaps these barbarians—who unlike us are totally oblivious to the laws of war- are hoping the resultant uproar is causing our Marines to second-guess instinct and training—leaving themselves open to death in this sort of situation.

Wizbang asks for your opinion regarding Sites’ blog entry.

On the heels of the Defense Department’s lawyer-driven edict to prevent bases from sponsoring Boy Scout Troops, we now see, as reported by WorldNetDaily, that the Air Force Academy is sponsoring “re-education” of Christians to prevent them from openly discussing their faith:

Gen. Rosa notes that cadets are merely bringing the religious beliefs and values of their families to the academy and they may not understand how talking about religion with others can cross a line.
“It’s not mean-spirited. It’s all they know,” Rosa said. “We must ensure a climate free of discrimination and marginalization.”

This is positively Orwellian. In order to placate a minority of the students, the Academy is telling Christians to shut up about their faith—even in their private e-mail messages:

Academy officials warned cadets this week against including Bible quotations at the bottom of their academy email messages, reported the Associated Press. “None of this (Bible or personal signature notes) is appropriate, and it says this in Air Force instructions,” said Lt. Col. Laurent Fox, referring to a school-wide memo sent in September clarifying policies for using a government email account.

Given how important faith is to our troops in battle—as I discussed here, I predict that there will be a huge stink over this. At least I hope so.

A Real Estate Agent I have worked with in the past grew up in Iran. As the revolution was brewing in the late 70’s, an Iranian General visited his parents’ house (his father had been in the military) and told them to get their son out of Iran. They sent him to a Catholic school in the U.S.. His hatred of the mullahs was palpable. He told of his sister-who remained with his family in Iran- witnessing one of the anti-Shah demonstrations. His sister, like many of the young people in Iran, thought she was attending pro-democracy demonstrations—not riots to install insane mullahs. She was witnessing one of the demonstrations when pro-Khomeni scumbags machine-gunned young people in the crowd in order to blame the carnage on pro-Shah forces.

The fact is that the Persian people are sophisticated and educated people temporarily hoodwinked and imprisoned by insane people. Just read some of their bloggers like this one, Regime Change Iran. Dr. Zin writes of the perfidy of the Iranian mullahs and their claim to support us in Iraq—at the same time they are offering a $500 bounty for each American Soldier. (Scroll down to Iran Attempts to Confuse The Media-Dr. Zin—the perma-links aren’t working)

We need to put Voice of America and every other resource possible in play to encourage the rational people of Iran to rise up and put an end to the present regime. Then, when they do rise up—we need to support them in their quest for freedom.

Bush Pulls Top Security Agent From Fracas

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) – President Bush stepped into the middle of a confrontation and pulled his lead Secret Service agent away from Chilean security officials who barred his bodyguards from entering an elegant dinner for 21 world leaders Saturday night.

What the hell did those security officials think they were doing? I hope that President Bush carries his own piece when he goes to foreign countries. This very easily could have been a set up.

Speaking of Alexander the Great, the admonition against “killing the messenger” began because of the defeat of Darius III, the king of Persia. One of Darius’ most competent Generals, Charidemos, warned Darius that he needed to use Greek mercenaries in the upcoming battle because only they could stand up to Alexander’s army. Darius became enraged and had Charidemos executed. Charidemos was right and Darius was defeated.

Leftist websites are harking back to this old admonition and claiming that our criticism of Kevin Sites is the same as “killing the messenger.” There is a big distinction between Charidemos and Kevin Sites. Charidemos was loyal to his king and country and wanted, on their behalf, to win the war against Alexander. The position of Kevin Sites is somewhat ambiguous on the issue of patriotism. Secondly, Charidemos gave Darius all of the pertinent and important facts. Did Kevin Sites (or his editors) give us all the pertinent and important facts? Let’s examine further.

Today, Blackfive posts commentary by Colonel Oliver North regarding this incident extracting this portion:

For American broadcasts, the actual shot is “blacked out.” But when the tape airs on Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya, Lebanon TV and other Arab media outlets, nothing is left to the imagination. Unfortunately, neither version is accurate—though both are very troubling. Like so much of what’s on television today, only the goriest, most sensational portion of the tape has aired. As a consequence, “the rest of the story”—as my friend Paul Harvey puts it—has been lost in the clamor created by 15 seconds of videotape.

Only a few have seen the footage shot the day before—providing irrefutable evidence that the mosque was a well-defended arms depot. And fewer still have viewed the very next sequence after “the shooting,” which shows two Marines pointing their weapons at another combatant lying motionless. Suddenly, one of the Marines jumps back as the terrorist stretches out his hand, motioning that he is alive. Neither Marine opens fire.

According to the Marines, a Navy medical corpsman was then summoned to treat the two wounded prisoners. In his original written report, Sites, the correspondent who videotaped the shooting, doesn’t mention the medical treatment provided to the injured enemy combatants, but he does note that four of the combatants were some of those who had been left behind from the firefight on Friday. If the NBC reporter knew that from being there the day before, why didn’t he tell this new group of Marines before they rushed into the room?

None of that is included in the tape, which is now being used to raise Islamic ire at the “American invader.” Why? And why did it take more than a day to learn that the Marine seen shooting on the videotape had been wounded in the face the day before if the correspondent knew that when he filed the videotape? Why didn’t the original story include the fact that a Marine in the same unit had been killed 24 hours earlier while searching the booby-trapped dead body of a terrorist?

Additional information left out of Sites’ story as recounted by Col. North includes:

Within hours of the videotaped incident in the mosque, another Marine was killed and five others wounded by a booby-trapped body they found in a house after a gunfight. Why was this not made part of the original story? Even Amnesty International, no friend to the American armed forces, has reported that the Iraqi terrorists have illegally used white flags to lure coalition forces into ambushes. Yet this, too, is absent in the original story.

Compare what Sites focused on and left out of the story to the accounts being discussed on leftist blogs such as this one. Here, the blogger (a columnist and writer named Helena Cobban—does that mean journalist? I am using her blog as she obviously has credentials and the blog exemplifies the thoughts of other left-leaning blogs on this issue) focuses on the fact that Marines from the previous day had stormed the building, disarmed the enemy and confiscated the munitions stashed there. She, therefore, concludes that on the day of the shooting—the terrorists were unarmed and the Marines should have known that. Had she taken the analysis further, perhaps she would have considered that the terrorists were left unguarded for hours and it was, therefore, possible for others to re-enter the building to provide booby-trap materials and arms to the wounded ones.

In fact, the shooter’s Marine unit had received information that the building was being reoccupied by the enemy. Furthermore, how could this particular unit have known that the enemy combatants had been “captured” and disarmed the day before? Though she makes much of the fact that these enemies had been captured previously, she does not explain nor appear to believe it is relevant that the Marine had no way of knowing that unguarded enemy soldiers were somehow “prisoners” because of events the day before to which he was not party.

You will note that there is absolutely no acknowledgement by Ms. Cobban of the fact that these terrorists are in violation of the laws of war when they feign death and then blow up our Marines (H.T. Volokh Conspiracy—read the entire entry at Volokh for arguments on both sides of the issue):


Article 37.-Prohibition of perfidy
1. It is prohibited to kill, injure or capture an adversary by resort to perfidy. Acts inviting the confidence of an adversary to lead him to believe that he is entitled to, or is obliged to accord, protection

under the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, with intent to betray that confidence, shall constitute perfidy. The following acts are examples of perfidy:
(a) The feigning of an intent to negotiate under a flag of truce or of a surrender;
(b) The feigning of an incapacitation by wounds or sickness;
(c) The feigning of civilian, non-combatant status; and
(d) The feigning of protected status by the use of signs, emblems or uniforms of the United Nations or of neutral or other States not Parties to the conflict.

As discussed at Volokh, it is far from decided that this combatant came under the rules protecting the incapacitated or captured as it appeared that he was feigning death. The Marine saw him feigning death and had no information that he had been captured the day before. (I still believe it is ridiculous to say he was a prisoner because he had been captured the day before—he was unguarded and within reach of other compatriots for hours)

Though not discussed by Ms. Cobban, much of the uproar generated by this story comes from Sites’ statement that the Iraqi appeared to be unarmed and unthreatening. First, there seems to be no discussion of the fact that these combatants conceal weapons and explosives in their clothing. Second, look at the picture below from the video and which is the vantage from which Sites was viewing the incident.



Vantage of Kevin Sites

Why is no one discussing the fact that Sites was neither close enough nor at a vantage point to see exactly what the man was doing under the robe or blanket covering him? Sites was not in a position to see the man’s face or his right hand(or the outline if it was under material)—-and probably not his left hand. How could Sites have known at that moment from that vantage point whether or not the man was armed or booby trapped? If his statement about the man being unarmed referred to his opinion as formed during the seconds the Marine had to make a decision perhaps impacting the lives of himself and his fellow Marines, his statement is simply not credible evidence. Again, why is no one discussing this?

And, just like Kevin Sites, Ms. Cobban leaves out any discussion of the fact that the Marines immediately supplied medical aid to the enemy combatants who did not feign death. This is a significant distinction which seems lost in Ms. Cobban’s determination to paint our Marines as nothing but war criminals.

Instead, Ms. Cobban chooses to indict the Marine based on partial information and shoddy analysis. Instead, her focus is that leaving the wounded enemy combatants untended in the building was a war crime. I will leave this to soldiers to address, as I acknowledge, unlike Ms. Cobban, that I have no knowledge of the logistics or required timing of getting medical aid to wounded enemies—though I also acknowledge that the rules require such aid be given.


Ms. Cobban goes on to laud Kevin Sites for:

... having stuck closely to journalistic and humanitarian ethics in this whole incident. I am sure that, for journalists who are embedded with fighting formations in circumstances that for all of them are very scary, there is a huge temptation to ignore or downplay the “excesses” that the embedded-in units might commit “in the heat of battle”. Sites resisted that temptation.

Here is the Code of Ethics for professional journalists. Journalists are to seek truth and report it with honesty. They are neither to distort stories nor be involved or associated in causes that compromise integrity or damage credibility. I would say that leaving out crucial information is distortion. Further, allowing an anti-war website to post your picture without protesting and asserting copyright infringement creates a questionable association for a journalist purporting to objectively cover a war.

I have to agree with Blackfive’s assessment: As I wrote before, Sites had a choice to make, and he chose headlines over our Marines.

I would add: Kevin Sites—you are no Charidemos.

On Monday, Power Line linked an article about Oliver Stone’s upcoming movie, Alexander the Great. The movie intimates that Alexander was bisexual. I KNEW that the Greeks would soon be up in arms about this movie.

During the early 1980’s, I dated a guy from Greece. While I was dating him, I read a historical novel (I can’t recall the name of the novel) that happened to touch upon Alexander’s purported homosexuality. Also, there were some dirty jokes in the same vein going around during that period about Greeks and Alexander the Great.

Georgos (pronounced Yorgos) went ballistic about the novel and the jokes. During the eighties, Greece was very conservative. Georgos’ brother, in fact, had been arrested with a girl (his own age by the way) and forced to marry her in the small village where they lived. (Premarital sex was against the law) There was no way, at that time, that the Greeks would tolerate a libertine view of their greatest and most ancient hero.

Things appear to have changed very little:

ATHENS, Nov 19 (Reuters) – A group of Greek lawyers are threatening to sue Warner Bros film studios and Oliver Stone, director of the widely anticipated film “Alexander,” for suggesting Alexander the Great was bisexual.

UPDATE:

Kay Daly is on this story too and she’s pointing out the hypocrisy of the Europeans criticizing us for our “repressive” ways:

Now that American political correctness seems to have taken on a beloved Greek historical figure important to their sense of nationalistic pride and self-identification, the Greeks are having none of it. A little late to wise up, friends.

Michelle Malkin writes about the disgusting racist insults leveled at Condoleeza Rice by leftist cartoonists. It looks like this venom is not confined to the leftists in our midst in the U.S..

The Currency Lad has written about this and similar garbage being spewed from the mouths of Australian leftists. The latter link regards Australian aboriginals who happen to be conservative. Now, the Currency Lad writes again about those wonderful Australian leftists and how they are shamelessly attacking Dr. Rice with racist rants.

Sickening.

And what about those sophisticated Spanish who were making monkey noises at Black English soccer players as recounted by Power Line and Baldilocks. And don’t forget to read the links at Power Line about the wonderful French attacking Black players.

You have got to go to Stones-Cry-Out and read the e-mail from Rick’s father-in-law, a retired Marine. Here’s a taste:

Our young Marine in Fallujah had to make a split second decision. The bad guy is dead and he is alive. Good decision. Works for him and his Mom. He is dealing with his decision. God bless him as he deals with it. I am so proud of my fellow Marines as they work so hard in Iraq. This is so hard and difficult. They miss indoor toilets so bad. You have no idea how important this is. I remember after I retired and went to a really great civilian job. One day I noticed how stressed out one of my fellow employees was. I was asked, “why was I in such a good mood everyday?” It’s simple… when I got out of bed this morning my feet hit carpeting. No sand in my socks today. It’s going to be a really great day. It’s the little things you learn to appreciate after spending over 20 years as a Marine. During my time in the Marines I watched Marines get better year after year. I never longed for the “old Corps”. The Marines are smarter, stronger and more savvy today than ever.

Go read the whole thing.

I discussed here how the MSM is making Kevin Sites its personal hero of Fallujah. WorldNetDaily.com has even more information on Sites—and it isn’t pretty:

Kevin Sites, the NBC cameraman who shot video of the controversial shooting of a Fallujah insurgent by a U.S. Marine, is an anti-war activist whose photographs of Iraqi prisoners are featured on at least one anti-war website.

Here is the website. And Here.

Update III:

A poster at Free Republic pointed me to this post at Little Green Footballs. Apparently the person who produces Kevin Sites’ website e-mailed Charles at LGF telling him that the site linked above posted the pictures without the permission of Mr. Sites. The poster vouches for the producer and I have no information to the contrary. What is really strange is that the site posts this disclaimer:

Copyright

All photography copyrights are exclusively held by the photographers and their representatives. No images may be copied from this website.

How strange that this site would express such scruples while violating copyright laws itself.

Original post continued…

The WND article cited above contains information found in other articles I have already linked in posts below about how Sites was temporarily captured by Iraqi feyadeen earlier this year—only to be released. This makes me wonder what he told his captors to convince them he should be released. Hmmm..

Oh- and go click on the comments posted at his pages on the anti-war site(see update above regarding information that his pictures were posted without permission) for some good reading. No wonder Sites is in hiding as I discussed here.

Update:

Hindrocket at Powerline posts an e-mail from a Marine with three different scenarios about encountering enemy feigning injury or death. The first two end in tragedy. Kevin Sites may have contributed to making those scenarios more prevalent. I guess that doesn’t matter to Mr. Sites since his photographic work posted on the ant-war site linked above makes it clear where his sympathies lie. (See Update above regarding information that Mr. Sites’ photos were posted at the anti-war site without his permission)

Update II:

Hugh Hewitt discusses this story and, among others, makes this comment:

Did anyone at NBC even bother to ask what the consequences of this airing would be? Recall the internal debate that ABC purportedly had over the airing of the bin Laden tape in the closing days of the campaign. Do networks only debate the propriety of tape airing when the tape might somehow benefit their political opponents, a process suspended completely when the tape is only certain to injure America’s standing in the world and incite violence against Americans abroad?

NBC held the tape for only two days because as their representative says: “To be responsible journalists, we had to do our jobs to put it in context.”

Some context. This statement rings even more hollow: “The last thing you want is these pictures running around without people knowing the facts,” said CBS News senior vice president Marcy McGinnis, who said she supported NBC’s decision to hold off on releasing the footage.”

This begs Hugh’s ultimate question:

Here is the question: Is it aiding and abetting the enemy to release video footage that is certain to inflame anti-American sentiment in the region? If so, what should the penalty for NBC be? If not, are there any circumstances under which the release of video by a news organization leading to the death of Americans would or should be punishable, at least by the loss of licenses granted with the understanding that the broadcaster would serve “the public interest?”

Anti-War sites are up in arms because Freepers are venting about Kevin Sites’ and NBC’s betrayal of our troops. (Despite the probability he did not give permission for his photos to be posted at the anti-war site—I still condemn his behavior in this matter)Talk about misplaced priorities!

Update IV:

Froggy has another brilliant post on this incident and makes the following observation:

If Kevin Sites wasn’t there with his camera, those Marines probably would have double tapped everybody in the room. Site’s presence clearly attenuated the natural response of the Marines in that situation. Which makes the shooting of the one tango all the more justifiable in my estimation. Marines know that they have to be on their best behavior when the press is around, because chances are they were explicitly warned by their unit commander. The fact of the matter is that this Marine acted with RESTRAINT and only shot the one hostile who was acting in a suspicious manner.

Go see the reasoning behind this statement. Froggy goes on:

Kevin Sites certainly owes his life to this and many other Marines he was straphanging with last week. I glad he was able to offer them his gratitude in such a compelling way.

Indeed.

Update V:

Want to read a take on this issue from a soldier who is actually over there right now? Go to American Soldier and read this post. (Hat tip: The Mudville Gazette)

Read the comments where American Soldier interacts. Here he answers the question as to whether Sites is still an embed. Apparently he was as of yesterday (as far as I can tell from the time on the comment)—but Sites seems to have squandered the confidence the Marines had in him. So much for Kevin Sites’ career as a “war journalist.”

This commentor says that Sites is taking the position that the Marine should NOT be prosecuted. He also says that Sites in the original report was being fair. Interesting reading. If Shar’s description of the Sites’ original narrative is correct and a good part of the story has to do with the booby trap issue—we all may have misjudged his motives. That reintroduces the possibility of spin I discussed here. Still, releasing the video at all is questionable under the circumstances.

The permalinks to the individual comments aren’t working. The commentor is named Shar.

Bill Gertz from the Washington Times has another great article on the U.N. oil-for-food scandel investigation. Powerline references this article and other disturbing information about the investigation. Reading between the lines of Gertz’s article arouses some interesting conjecture. It seems that the those in charge of the investigation are directing it in such a way as to avoid scrutiny of certain client nations:

A private intelligence firm hired by the United Nations to look into corruption in the oil-for-food program provided valuable leads to U.N. investigators, but they were ignored, the company’s director says.

This intelligence firm has sources with information who the U.N. doesn’t want questioned:

In a report produced for the IIC, the company uncovered new information and people with knowledge about the oil-for-food activities in Iraq, Cyprus, Jordan, Kuwait, Iran, Dubai, Egypt, Switzerland and France. U.N. investigators asked IBIS to reveal its sources for the data and then said they wanted to limit the scope of the company’s work to Jordan, Kuwait and Cyprus, Mr. Baldwin said.

The new information includes:

• A network of Iranians who were involved in smuggling oil under the U.N. program.
• Connections between the U.N. program and a French organized crime figure who U.S. officials said was a conduit for oil-for-food-related payments to French President Jacques Chirac.
• Information on the Swiss-based company Cotecna, which was involved in border inspections of oil-for-food goods. Cotecna at one point during the oil-for-food program hired Mr. Annan’s son as a consultant.
• Data on the activities of an Egyptian oil broker who took part in illegal activities related to the oil-for-food program.

Does a picture emerge here? According to Mr. Baldwin:

“As an experienced investigator, it became clear to me that the U.N. is failing to act on the leads and intel streams developed by us in specific areas where we were asked to develop leads and intel streams,” said Mr. Baldwin, a fraud investigator and former intelligence official. “That is inexplicable.”

Another interesting aspect is that the UN kept trying to get Mr. Baldwin’s firm to reveal sources with promises of hiring the firm which never materialized.

He said his company pulled out of its agreement to work with the U.N. panel after the IIC kept asking the company to reveal its sources. “They kept telling us they were going to hire us. We had some very, very good sources and directions to go in, and they just kept stalling,” Mr. Baldwin said. “It’s the strangest investigation we’ve ever been involved in, and we withdrew in order to preserve our own credibility with our own sources and our people.”

Protecting those sources may have been a very good idea:

We don’t reveal our sources and methods,” he said, noting that the company has had agents in Iraq since the early 1990s, including former Iraqi intelligence and oil ministry officials. Three of the company’s sources were killed recently in terrorist violence, he said. (emphasis added)

Given as recounted above that the private firm found—Connections between the U.N. program and a French organized crime figure who U.S. officials said was a conduit for oil-for-food-related payments to French President Jacques Chirac.—keeping sources confidential is a very good idea—just in case that French organized crime figure has a few terrorists on the payroll and a source of his own on the IIC.

During a time when our young men in the Marines and Army are freeing Fallujah from the gangsters terrorizing it, uncovering hostage butcheries, and finding WMD’s such as Sarin gas (see second slide—hat tip David LimbaughUPDATE: The vials may actually be test apparatus for sarin gas according to Powerline)—who does the MSM choose to lionize? A Marine? An Army Ranger?

Of course not!! Instead, it lionizes Kevin Sites—the reporter who released the video of the Marine shooting the insurgent who was feigning death and therefore posing a risk to our guys’ lives.

“He is a skilled reporter, a skilled videojournalist who is willing to go and chronicle the news in the difficult places, under difficult conditions,” said Bill Wheatley, NBC News vice president.

Sites handled the incident “completely professionally,” Wheatley said, recognizing the importance of the story and reporting its aftermath.

And get this:

Kevin Sites, a freelancer who works part time for NBC News, was being kept under wraps by the network Tuesday as the investigation into the shooting continued.

No wonder he hasn’t posted at his blog since this incident. Note, he’s closed his comments as well.

Do you suppose that this guy might have a few Marines after him who desire to stomp more than his video to bits ?

If I were the parent of one of those Marines—I’d be storming the Pentagon to get embeds like Kevin Sites out of there. This is not one of those stupid reality television shows—this is a life and death struggle.

This video will only serve to stack the deck against our guys. Expecially if Amnesty International gets its way.

Update:

For additional coverage concerning this “intrepid” reporter visit here. (Hee! Hee!)

An Al-Jazeera spokesman said Mr. Sites and NBC have used their art to “advance the cause of freedom in a fashion reminiscent of Michael Moore.”

Reuters just filed another story on the Marine who shot the insurgent who was faking death that I discussed here. The story leaves out the fact that these people, against the rules of war, are faking death to lure Marines close in order to explode themselves and the Marines into bits. Instead, Reuters takes the “stressed out” Marine approach:

U.S. Marines rallied round a comrade under investigation for killing a wounded Iraqi during the offensive in Falluja, saying he was probably under combat stress in unpredictable, hair-trigger circumstances.

I’d agree that our Marines are probably a little stressed—but this does not mean that they’ve lost self control. The real story here is that the insurgents have absolutely no regard for the rules of engagement. That insurgent was killed because of the dishonorable actions of his cohorts.

But, Reuter’s obviously prefers the Full Metal Jacket approach to the story.

Update:

Hugh Hewitt is reporting that Chris Matthews asked a Full Metal Jacket-type question on Hardball last night. From Hugh:

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, on last night’s Hardball, posing a question about the alleged shooting of an unarmed Iraqi combatant by a United States marine, to Ken Allard, retired military:

“Well, let me ask you about this. If this were the other side, and we were watching an enemy soldier—a rival, I mean they’re not bad guys especially, just people who just disagree with us, they are in fact the insurgents, fighting us in their country—if we saw one of them do what we saw our guy do to that guy, would we consider that worthy of a war crimes charge?”

Hugh asks:

At what point do the folks at MSNBC say “Enough.” This week we have seen the execution chambers of these “insurgents.” It is being reported today that these “rivals”—they are not “bad guys” in Chris’s view—executed the woman who headed the CARE effort in Iraq. These are the brothers-in-arms of the murderers of Beslan and of 9/11. What possible excuse can Matthews offer up for this absurd moral equivalence, other than to say he got it wrong about the Vietnamese communists 30-plus years ago so why change now?

Matthews chooses to demonize our soldiers over the savages he calls “rivals”, ignoring the context (the implications of enemies “playing possum”), ignoring the fact that their acts against hostages prove them to be far outside the boundaries of decent humanity, and in the process endangering our soldiers for political partisanship. Does he want our soldiers to take all of the risk of these encounters. They already do take excessive risks to avoid civilian death. Are they now to do the same with enemy combatants—even if it is questionable as to whether the combatant is actually disarmed or not?

Chris—”rivals” are the guys kicking your butt in the ratings—not sadistic freaks who disembowel defensless women or shoot them in the head on video. If you can’t make distinctions this obvious, you are truly incompetent at your profession.

P.S.:

Rick at Stones-Cry-Out addresses Hugh’s post as well and adds an interesting e-mail from his father-in-law who is a USMC Lt. Col. (ret.) and vet of the first Gulf War and Somalia. Go read the e-mail. His father-in-law also advocates sending the embedded reporters home. I agree.

I still don’t know if this reporter intended for this information to be released in the manner it was—the story I linked in my post from last night shows him to be only a contributor and not the writer so spin from the editor is a possibility. But I agree with Rick’s father-in-law that somebody should have stomped on the video tape. The reporter, Kevin Sites, should be held responsible for releasing it to the fools at NBC even if he is not responsible for the spin in the story.

I hope that he is feeling the heat from the Marines he betrayed.

Regular Red-State folks made their feelings known about the disgusting conduct of the MSM during the Presidential campaign by roundly booing Tom Brokaw during last week’s Sooners game. According to the report:

Oklahoma-Nebraska attendee Tom Brokaw, a guest of OU president David Boren, was booed by the Sooners crowd when introduced Saturday night. White, on the other hand, playing the final home game of his six-year career, received one of the most thunderous Senior Day ovations imaginable (even though it was technically his second Senior Day) when introduced prior to kickoff. And that was before he went out and completed a school-record 18 straight passes, finishing 29-of-35 for 383 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions despite rainy, miserable conditions.

According to a caller and an e-mailer to the Michael Savage show tonight—the booing was quite lusty.

On the way home tonight, I heard a CBS radio news account about the Marine who killed the insurgent who was apparently unarmed. According to the account, the insurgent along with others were placed in the Mosque to await medical treatment by a Marine unit who had previously passed through. The Marine was part of a unit who had received a report that insurgents were re-occupying the Mosque. The radio report I was listening too, mentioned that insurgents were known to “play possum” to lure Marines close in order to explode grenades to kill them.

Upon getting home, I found this account by Reuters. It doesn’t go into the dangers Marines face when approaching insurgents who are down. Instead, it quotes the NBC reporter, Kevin Sites as saying that the insurgent: “did not appear to be armed or threatening in any way.” The Washington Post story also leaves out the risks faced by the Marine—and it’s a real piece of work. The media appears to already be reveling in the opportunities for spin this story presents—and to hell with the impact it has on the troops or the mission.

The NBC reporter, Kevin Sites, who witnessed the incident and first reported the story to NBC, is presently embedded with the Marines in Fallujah. He has a blog here. Go to the message board where the readers of his blog comment for some interesting reading. Sites was one of the first journalists to have a blog—and at one point was commanded to end it—as least temporarily. Here are the results of googling Mr. Sites. Here is a previous report from Sites with a not so optimistic view of the action in Fallujah. I don’t know if Sites has any axe to grind with these reports or to what extent his stories and their headlines are attributable to editors. I will say that the original story to which Kevin Sites actually contributed following the incident contains this important piece of information which is missing from the account given by Reuters and the Washington Post:

At the same time the incident was taking place in the mosque, a U.S. Marine was killed and five others were wounded when the booby-trapped body of a dead insurgent exploded. The judge advocate general heading the investigation of the mosque incident, Lt. Col. Bob Miller, told NBC News that depending on the evidence, it could be reasonable to conclude that the Marine was acting in self-defense.

The Washington Post article , of course, mentions nothing about the dangers of booby trapped bodies or insurgents playing possum to lure Marines within range before setting off a grenade. Instead, it makes this gigantic leap of logic:

The situation in the videotape appears to resemble an incident in Kufa, south of Baghdad, in the spring that resulted in the Army bringing charges of murder and dereliction of duty against an officer in the 1st Armored Division.

In that May 21 incident, Capt. Rogelio M. Maynulet shot the wounded driver for militant Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr. Maynulet then told a fellow officer that the man was so badly wounded, with part of his skull blown away, that he shot him out of compassion, according to a military legal proceeding held in Germany in September.

Say what? How does this situation resemble the May incident? Here we have Marines, in the midst of a heated battle, entering a Mosque that they had been informed was being reoccupied by insurgents. One of the insurgents appears to be faking death—which leads a Marine whose life and the lives of his companions may be threatened by a booby trap to take defensive action—and the Washington Post wants to dredge up a totally different situation with which to compare it? And, then the Post makes the following gratuitous statement:

Several other Army soldiers in Iraq have been charged with murder, manslaughter and other offenses in connection with the treatment of detainees or curfew breakers. Also, four soldiers in the 1st Cavalry Division have been charged with premeditated murder of Iraqi civilians.

Then the story quotes Col. Andrew Bacevich:

Retired Army Col. Andrew Bacevich said that such incidents can only damage the U.S. cause in Iraq. “We cannot prevail in this conflict if our actions suggest that we do not value Muslim life or that we view Muslims as an inferior species,” said Bacevich, who now teaches international relations at Boston University. “My sense is that such an impression has already taken hold in the Arab world. This incident can only reinforce that impression.”

This is the same Col. Bacevich who back in September said:

“The bottom line is, at this moment we are losing the war,” says Andrew Bacevich, a former Army colonel who teaches international relations at Boston University. “That doesn’t mean it is lost, but we are losing, and as an observer it is difficult for me to see that either the civilian leadership or the military leadership has any plausible idea on how to turn this around.”
While “it is certainly a good thing that Saddam Hussein is gone,” it is difficult to say that Iraq is in better shape, Bacevich says. “Iraq was a lousy place to live when Saddam was in power, and Iraq is a lousy place to live with Saddam.

Do you get the idea that Col. Bacevich, Reuters and the Washington Post are elated to have this story in their grubby hands? And, how deeply will they go into the realities of the battlefield and the dangers posed by insurgents faking injury or death to lure Marines close? Put all this together with Drudge’s report about how reckless (crazy) the insurgents are behaving:

Travis Schafer, a 20-year-old Marine, who injured a hand when a shell exploded, said he was sure the rebels were prepared to sacrifice everything. “These guys are ready to fight to the death,” he told the press conference. “I was surprised by the weapons they had,” he added, describing seeing “loads of RPGs (rocket-propelled grenade launchers) and machine guns”.

Do you think that MSM will give this kind of context to their reporting about this incident? And, how about giving the Marines a little credit for acting to investigate this and other incidents.

I mean—after all—do you think that this story reported this past weekend will ever be investigated or even fully covered by the MSM?

Update: Andrew Apostolou was on the O’Reilly Factor tonight and pointed out that it is against the rules of engagement for a combatant to fake death on the battlefield.

Froggy Ruminations emphasizes that this is a safety issue for the troops.

David Limbaugh has posted an excellent column entitled The Moral of the Story. In it, he discusses how the Left has its nose out of joint over the “morals mandate” to which the Left feels itself to be more entitled. After all, the Left reasons, its members are the ones proposing all the social programs dealing with poverty, the environment , etc.

David quotes the general secretary of the liberal National Council of Churches, Rev. Robert Edgar:

“We need to work really hard at reclaiming some language. The religious right has successfully gotten out there shaping personal piety issues—civil unions, abortion—as almost the total content of ‘moral values.’ And yet you can’t read the Old Testament without knowing God was concerned about the environment, war and peace, poverty. God doesn’t want 45 million Americans without health care.”

And, of course, Rev. Edgar’s idea for addressing God’s concern is to have the Government act. This is such a profound misunderstanding of scripture that it is obvious to even a neophyte like me.

As preface, in my real life, I represent health providers who take care of Medicare/Medicaid recipients. As a result of caring for those receiving such benefits, my clients are subject to more regulations than are nuclear plants. In many cases, the judgment of individual regulators (some of whom have never worked in the kind of facilities I represent) trumps the judgment of my clients, though they know their patients/residents inside and out. Freedom and dignity is often discarded for both provider and resident because of the particular agenda of the regulator.

The best description of what Rev. Edgar and his ilk suggest is found in the words of humorist P.J. O’Rourke when he discusses what freedom is not:

“Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It’s not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It’s not an endlessly expanding list of rights—the “right” to education, the “right” to food and housing. That’s not freedom, that’s dependency. Those aren’t rights, those are the rations of slavery—hay and a barn for human cattle. There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.”

What seems to pass as moral values for Liberals involves being granted the power to provide “hay and a barn for human cattle”—their particular client groups. Using Goverment to provide these “rations” is totally distinct from what charity traditionally did in the past—especially religious charities. These charities did not just throw “rations” at their recipients. They also focused on the transformation of people to enable them to eventually bear their burdens on their own. In other words, to set people free from dependence. The best example of this today is seen in the work of the Salvation Army.

Liberals laugh at the phrase “Compassionate Conservatism”. I believe that is because they do not realize what it so truly liberating about the philosophy behind the phrase. It can best be found in one of the declarations underpinning Jesus’ commandment that we “love one another”, that being “comfort one another.” In the Greek, that phrase, among other things, means exhort and counsel one another. In the context of charity, therefore, that would include exhorting and counseling the beneficiary to rise above present circumstances and to assume responsibility for one’s self. A government entitlement program can never be so effective as charity in achieving such a result.

As long as Liberals emphasize the “rations of hay” over the strengthening of the human spirit, their claim to the moral high ground is baseless.