View Full Version : Three Good Years Flushed by a reckless Reporter and loose lips.
God knows I've heard and told my share of war stories. If ever the saying:"Loose lips sink ships" was true it was recently demonstrated. Violent demonstrations are taking place in Afghanistan because of a story to the effect that US Troops are desecrating the Koran.
Let me present a scenario of what can and probably did happen.
A couple of GI's are sitting around, smoking and BSing and telling stories of how to FU the ragheads. You've seen stories right here. Suddenly someone says it would be neat to remove all of the T-paper from the latrines and replace it with copies of the Koran. It goes on and on and someone says Yeah we should do that. That is all there is, or should have been to it. However, later GI Joe returns to the States and starts telling his buddies "combat stories". One is about how they replaced T-paper in the shitters with copies of the Koran. If Haji wanted to wipe he had to use a page of the Koran. All of the Buds are wide eyed and a couple repeat the story. Suddenly the story has escalatted to a "Wouldn't it be neaT. . . "story to a "fact" picked up by an irresponsible reporter and broadcast around the world. What started out as an innocent BS session trashed three years of hard work in the Middle East. :mad:
NousDefionsDoc
05-14-2005, 11:11
Quiet Professionalism
The Reaper
05-14-2005, 11:20
I've been sitting here the past few days looking at the violence and thinking that all claims for all damages should be sent to Newsweek unless they can substantiate their story.
It also occurs to me that the protesters are all up in arms over an alleged religious slight, while ignoring the horrific acts of terrorism committed by their Muslim brothers.
So let me get this straight. You hate America because of a story of disrespect printed that has yet to be confirmed, but you are not responsible for the sawing off of innocent hostages' heads by your neighbors? You decry comments about the heinous acts as racist and discriminatory condemning an entire religion for the acts of a few? Your religious figures preach hatred and jihad as a way of life, but that is not bad and you do not speak against it?
Hmm.... :rolleyes:
TR
Jack Moroney (RIP)
05-14-2005, 13:00
Unfortunately this is the world in which we live. Technology is a two edged sword and anyone with a computer can pick off irresponsible reporting and claim it as fact and create a disinformation campaign which results in all the crap that is now going on over an incident over which may or may not have happened. They don't need to verify it and we are now in the position of having to disprove it ever happened. Information Ops is something that has just started to reappear in our military strategy. Rummy tried to do it and got his pecker wacked hard because someone admitted that we might just be putting out false reports to confuse the enemy. The hypocritical media in this country rose and wailed that they did not want to be part and parcel to this because their credibility would then be challenged over anything else they might put out; there is a laugh, as if they validate much of anything that goes out over the airways or in print. We really have to get better at this and use it to our advantage or we are always going to be conducting damage control and be on the defensive in this arena. Apparently only SOF have written and understood imperatives that drive their operations.
Jack Moroney-believing that freedom of speech does not mean you have a right to be heard, read, or seen by uninformed/under educated/ or psychologically manipulated masses who do not have the ability to assess your message
NousDefionsDoc
05-22-2005, 17:50
These people are really starting to piss me off...
These people are really starting to piss me off...
More here: http://ridingsun.blogspot.com/2005/05/newsweek-america-is-dead.html
God knows I've heard and told my share of war stories.
Terry;
I learned very early in my mid-east travels to never go anywhere without at least two C-ration TP packs in my pocket. The availability of TP in public "facilities" was at best limited.
Pete
What pisses me off is that Newsweek is supposedly a U.S. Publication. Other than that we can't really expect our enemies to like us any more than we like them.
Think back to the beginning of the war. The Iraqi showed POW's on TV. IMHO they weren't being exploited, in fact their appearance was a favor in as much as it showed them alive. Yet we cried "Foul" and breach of Geneva conventions!! The pictures we now see of Saddam are much worse. Even though the publication was not authorized we can expect our enemies to make the most of them.
The Reaper
05-30-2005, 10:05
"Men with the muckrake are often indispensable to the well-being of society, but only if they know when to stop raking the muck." "An epidemic in indiscriminate assault upon character does not good, but very great harm." "There should be relentless exposure of and attack upon every evil practice, whether in politics, in business, or in social life. I hail as a benefactor every writer or speaker, every man who, on the platform, or in book, magazine or newspaper, with merciless severity makes such attack, provided always that he in his turn remembers that the attack is of use only if it is absolutely truthful."
Theodore Roosevelt
Washington, DC, April 14, 1906