Tag Archives: Iraq War

military news, State news

Kyle's killer gets life without parole

This is likely the least-surprising jury verdict to come down in most folks’ memory.

Eddie Ray Routh was found guilty of murdering Chris Kyle and his friend Chad Littlefield at a shooting range south of Fort Worth in 2013.

The case has drawn international attention, as Kyle’s exploits have been portrayed in the acclaimed film “American Sniper.” Kyle was the Navy SEAL sharpshooter who served four tours in Iraq and is credited with 160 confirmed kills, believed to be a U.S. military record.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/killer-of-american-sniper-kyle-jailed-for-life/ar-BBhV9Nz

Routh sought acquittal on the grounds of insanity. The jury, which deliberated in a Stephenville court building for two hours, didn’t buy it.

The verdict and the sentence bring to a close a most dramatic case.

Kyle’s devotion to doing his duty for his country has been honored across the nation. “American Sniper” tells a gripping story of a young man torn by the terrible deeds he did on the battlefield.

The terrible, tragic irony, of course, is that Kyle survived those four harrowing tours of the Iraq War, only to die at the hands of a former Marine who committed an act of brutality against Kyle and Littlefield. He shot them multiple times in the back.

Routh now will be put away for the rest of his life.

The families of Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield have been delivered the justice they deserve.

 

national news

O'Reilly, Williams put media under the scope

Yes, there’s actually a lot of good that can come from the controversies surrounding two prominent broadcast journalists.

It is that the media — both print and broadcast — have been put on high alert to be sure they’re telling the truth and leave no doubt to their readers, viewers and listeners.

The world is watching. Carefully.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/02/oreilly-kill-zone-just-a-slang-expression-202887.html?hp=b2_l1

* Brian Williams of NBC News has suspended without pay for six months. His transgression? “Misremembering,” which is what he calls it, an event in which he reported being shot down by a rocket in Iraq in 2003. It didn’t happen that way, despite Williams’s telling of the tale. His credibility is in tatters and likely is damaged beyond repair.

* Now comes a blistering report that Fox News host Bill O’Reilly allegedly misrepresented his reporting from the 1982 Falklands War fought between Britain and Argentina. O’Reilly has said repeatedly he reported from the remote island battlefields. Mother Jones magazine has challenged O’Reilly’s assertion, to which O’Reilly — as is his style — responded by calling the writer David Corn a “guttersnipe” and a liar. A former colleague at CBS, where O’Reilly was working at the time, also has challenged Bill O’s account of where he was during that brief war. This one isn’t over.

Throughout all of this has been an interesting analysis of how the media do their job.

The U.S. Constitution protects the media from government interference, so there cannot be a government policing arm established to ensure the media tell the truth. That has to come from within the industry. And within all broadcast and cable news networks, as well as all print organizations, there must be some serious in-house discussions taking place to ensure that everyone who reports the news does so with impeccably.

There can be no doubt about the truth of what’s being reported.

The good that comes from all this tempest and tumult must be that journalists of all stripes are put on notice that the world is watching them with keen eyes and is tuning in with ears that hear everything.

***

Williams is unlikely to return to his anchor desk at NBC. As for O’Reilly and his career at Fox, well, stay tuned for that one. O’Reilly is always — always! — ready to unload against his accusers. He’ll just have to answer one question: Can you prove you were in the middle of the fight? If so, then let’s see the proof.

 

national news

Say goodnight, Brian Williams

The Saturday Night Live 40th anniversary special was a hysterical event.

Seeing some of the former cast members, including those from the initial 1975 lineup, filled the evening with nostalgia and lots of laughs.

Including a few giggles at the expense of one Brian Williams, the suspended NBC News anchor.

I came away from the Williams jokes believing more strongly than ever that the anchor’s career is finished. Done. Kaput.

A wise person once said — or perhaps I dreamt it — that when you become the butt of prime-time or late-night jokes, than your career as you’ve known itĀ is toast.

Williams’ career took a serious hit already with revelations that he fabricated a story about being shot down by rocket fire in Iraq in 2003. He said he “misremembered” the event. Whatever. Other reports came forward quickly thereafter: his coverage of Katrina; his reporting about being shot at in the sky over Israel.

NBC sent him packing for six months without pay. The network has launched an investigation into Williams’ fabrications, embellishments, other “misrememberances.”

The SNL special last night, though, sealed it for me. Williams is finished. When the audience laughsĀ at jokes from Jerry Seinfeld and Jim Carrey about the formerly trusted news anchor, well, it’s time — as they say in the business — to “pursue other interests.”

 

International news, military news, political news

Let's stick to the singular 'war'

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A Huffington Post headline contains a word that requires a correction.

It says, “Jeb Bush won’t talk about wars his brother started.”

The operative word here is “wars.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/14/jeb-bush-iraq-afghanistan_n_6683970.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000013

The Huffington Post is no friend of Jeb Bush or of his brother, former President George W. Bush. Having stipulated the obvious, I now shall make a crucial point.

The “wars” referenced in the article are the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. I hereby submit that George W. Bush didn’t start the Afghan War. The first shot — if you want to call it that — was fired on 9/11 when two jetliners crashed into the World Trade Center, another one plowed into the Pentagon and a fourth plane crashed into a Pennsylvania field as passengers fought to retake the aircraft that had been hijacked by al-Qaeda terrorists.

Nearly 3,000 innocent victims died on that terrible day.

President Bush responded to an act of war against the United States. The war began because terrorists headquartered in the Afghan wilderness plotted the dastardly deed and were plotting to do even more damage to this country and to others around the world.

Our military response was in retaliation for what the monstrous murderers did on 9/11.

As for the Iraq War, yes, Bush started that war. The Bush administration relied on bad intelligence — or perhaps fabricated a weapons of mass destruction scenario to justify a military invasion of a sovereign country. Whatever the cause, the Iraq War was ill-conceived and then sold to the public dishonestly as a relatively simple mission.

The world would then learn that Iraq didn’t possess WMD,Ā which only worsenedĀ the public perception that President Bush was out to settle a score withĀ the late Iraqi dictator SaddamĀ Hussein.

That is the war the former president’s brother, Jeb — who’s considering a presidential campaignĀ in 2016 — should keep hidden in the closet for as long as he can.

The Afghan War? That one was justified.

It’s an open question about whether theĀ effort in Afghanistan was worth it. The U.S. combat mission there is over and theĀ Afghans will be left to defend their country against the Taliban and al-Qaeda terrorists who are seeking to retake the country.

Jeb Bush, though, will have his hands full trying toĀ justify the Iraq War and whether the cost of that bloody conflict — more than 4,400 American lives — was worthĀ the fight.

national news

Williams gone for 6 months, maybe forever

That didn’t take long.

I was hoping to cool my jets for a time while NBC News decided how to handleĀ Brian Williams’ “misremembering” tale of woe. But today, the network news division decided to suspend Williams for six months without pay for violatingĀ the No. 1Ā cardinal rule of journalism — which is to tell the truth.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/nbc-news-suspends-brian-williams-for-false-iraq-helicopter-story/ar-AA9eu7i

It does not appear that this will end well for Williams’ once-stellar journalism career. He got caught fabricating a story about getting shot down in Iraq in 2003; he has been saying forĀ years that his helicopter was hit by enemy rockets when, in fact, it wasn’t.

Then came questions about his reporting on Hurricane Katrina in 2005 — and then some head-scratchingĀ regarding his reports about flying over rocket fire in Israel in 2007.

When does it end?

NBC made the right call here. Williams’ credibility is, shall we say, blown to smithereens. His presence now at the NBC Nightly News anchor desk calls attention not to the news he wouldĀ delivering, but to the manĀ who would deliverĀ it — and not in a positive manner.

What happens now is anyone’s guess. Williams will be off the air for at least six months. I suspect it won’t take him that long to decide that perhaps his time in the anchor’s chair is over.

For the short term, the network and the anchorman will have time to work out a separation agreement and a way to announce his departure that seeks to save a little bit of face — for both parties.

There will be plenty of discussion over how this controversy was allowed to explode and how Williams got away for as long as he did telling a storyĀ so many people knew was wrong.

A part of me is sad to witness the implosion of a man’s career.

Another part of me, though, is gladĀ someone is being held accountable for breachingĀ a serious trust between the media and those who expect truth in the information they deliver.

 

national news

Did the work horse become a show horse?

I can’t help myself.

Whenever I see pictures of NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams covering the Big Story — in the flak jacket, or the hip waders — I keep thinking ofĀ terms other than “journalist.”

I keep thinking of terms like “show horse,” “entertainer,” “grandstander,” “show off.”

OK, I know it’s likely unfair at this point of the Williams “Chopper-gate” controversy to pass final judgment, but it’s beginning to look strange and weird as I gander at these pictures of Williams on the job, reporting the news to his faithful viewers. (See the link attached.)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/02/09/questioning-the-ritz-carlton-gangs-that-brian-williams-said-terrorized-him-during-katrina/?tid=hp_mm

The link here, from the Washington Post, talks about another story emanating from Hurricane Katrina. It’s about gangs that reportedly terrorized the Ritz-Carlton Hotel where Williams was billeted during his coverage of the tragic storm.

This all began, of course, with the helicopter story that Williams now admits to “misremembering.” Others are saying he fabricated the story of being shot down in Iraq in 2003. The shoot-down didn’t happen. Williams wrapped his on-air apology in the flag, saying how heĀ “bungled” an effort to pay tribute to the brave men and women who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And the reports of other questionable stories keep coming forward, casting even more doubt on the credibility of a man whose employer, NBC News, had been promoting on air as a man who had earned viewers’ “trust.”

Surely I’m not the only viewer whoseĀ faith in a veteran broadcast journalist has been shaken.

Oh, how I want to be wrong, but I cannot helpĀ thinking this isn’t going to end well for Brian Williams’ career.

 

national news

Williams's story — and reputation — are unraveling

Think of the Brian Williams story in terms of a sports referee.

A journalist shouldn’t ever become the story any more than, say, a football referee should determine the outcome of an athletic event. The Super Bowl played in Glendale, Ariz., the game won by the New England Patriots? Does anyone remember the officials in that game? No. They weren’t part of the story.

Williams, though, has become a story onto himself in light of the “Choppergate” controversy. He has told a tall tale for a dozen years about being shot down in Iraq in 2003. Then it came out he wasn’t shot down. Now we’re learning that his apology might not even add up.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/02/brian-williams-is-in-serious-trouble-202226.html?hp=l1_3_b2

The latest now is that the NBC Nightly News anchor is stepping aside “for a few days” to sort things out.

The media being what they are and with public curiosity crystallizing by the hour over this matter, it is appearing increasingly unlikely that the one-time solid broadcast journalist is going to regain his footing.

I consider myself a serious consumer of news. I get it from several places — online, print, broadcast TV and cable TV. I receive lots of punditry, commentary, editorializing throughout the political and philosophical universe.

I’m trying right at this moment to imagine ever listening to Brian Williams tell me what’s happening in the world without wondering: Is he giving it to me straight?

These men and women trade almost exclusively on the trust they build with their viewers. That trust is constructed with a commodity that isĀ rock solid, but only if it doesn’t suffer damage. Then it becomes highly fragile.

That commodity isĀ the truth, the slightest fudging of which rendersĀ the message being delivered meaningless. It appears to me that Brian Williams has doneĀ more than “misremember” a wartime event.

He has become The Story.

 

national news

Williams story taking on life of its own

A wise person once saidĀ that you know you’re toast when the late-night comics start making fun of you.

Welcome to the world of wee-hour funny stuff, Brian Williams.

His story about “misremembering” a shoot-down in Iraq and now his reporting from Hurricane Katrina is taking on a life of its own. It’s turning into a monster that, if it’s left still kicking, is going to knock down the walls of credibility that formerly surrounded the NBC Nightly News anchorman.

http://www.theneworleansadvocate.com/news/11526453-148/nbc-news-anchor-brian-williams

This is not a pretty sight to watch.

It well might be that the Katrina story inflicts an even deeper wound in Williams’s reputation.

He reported during the storm in 2005 about seeing “dead bodies” floating in the French Quarter — despite the reported fact at the time that the Quarter suffered hardly any flooding. He told viewers about ingesting floodwater, causing dysentery. Others on the scene have doubted that as well.

What in the world is happening to this individual’s once-stellar journalism career? He’s always been thought of as one of the more thoughtful, everyman, honest newsmen in the business. Williams has exhibited none of the erratic behavior that Dan Rather did when he took over from Walter Cronkite at CBS. He’s been rock solid, steady — and at times self-effacing, such as when he makes appearances on late-night shows to talk about stories he’s covered and the foibles he’s endured.

The so-called misremembering being shot down in Iraq by itself stretches credulity.

Add to that now the reporting of deep flaws in his Hurricane Katrina coverage and you start drawing the picture of aĀ broadcst journalist who’s found himself in some deep doo-doo.

This is not fun to watch.

national news

NBC anchor getting pulled under

It’s hard to watch this, but I’m getting the feeling — just a few days into a strange saga of “misremembrance” — that a highly visible TV news anchor may be on his way out.

NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams is still facing questions about a story he made up — or “misremembered,” as he described it — about an incident in Iraq in 2003. He had been saying for a dozen years that a helicopter in which he was a passenger had been shot down by rocket fire. It turns out the shoot-down with Williams aboard didn’t happen.

Williams reported the other day about how an Army command sergeant major had helped rescue him and his fellow passengers after their ship was shot down. The report got a lot of play and Williams stood and accepted the cheers at Madison Square Garden alongside retired Sgt. Maj. Tim Terpak, the young man who engineered the rescue. Other veterans, though, spoke up and said the incident Williams described didn’t happen the way he described it; they saidĀ Williams wasn’t aboard the stricken Chinook helicopter.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/rieder/2015/02/05/brian-williams-unmitigated-disaster/22915325/

Now comes word that Williams might have fabricated what he saw in New Orleans while covering the Hurricane Katrina disaster in 2005. Williams reported serious flooding in the French Quarter. To borrow a phrase: oops! The French Quarter largely escaped the floodwaters that devastated much of the Big Easy.

NBC News has announced it is launching an internal investigation into what Williams said and did in Iraq and in New Orleans.

Williams has traded on the trust he has built with news watchers over many years in the anchor’s chair.

It’s difficult to imagine how a viewer of the NBC newscast each night can trust Williams now with telling us the truth about what he is reporting from the anchor’s chair.

What’s more, his apology has seemed somewhat muted, as he’s sought to wrap himself in the flag. Consider this from USA Today: “On air Wednesday night, Williams said he had ‘made a mistake in recalling the events of 12 years ago,’ that the whole incident was simply ‘a bungled attempt by me to thank one special veteran and by extension our brave military men and women, veterans everywhere, those who have served everywhere while I did not.'”

From where I am sitting, that looks and sound a bit like spin.

NBC’s main anchorman is facing a steep climb back to respectability.

 

military news, national news

So much for 'trust'

My trick knee is throbbing once again.

This time it’s telling me NBC News anchor Brian Williams has some more explaining to do about a made-up story that got him some seriously happy — and falsely premisedĀ — publicity over the weekend.

You see, it turns that Williams erred in recounting a story that he had been aboard a Chinook helicopter that had been hit by enemy rocket fire in Iraq in 2003. He had befriended an Army command sergeant major, Tim Terpak, who — according to Williams — had provided cover for the anchorman and other passengers aboard the downed helicopter.

http://www.stripes.com/news/us/nbc-s-brian-williams-recants-iraq-story-after-soldiers-protest-1.327792

Williams and Terpak went to a New York Rangers hockey game the other evening and both of them stood and accepted the crowd’s applause as the public address announcer revealed the story about Terpak’s heroism in protecting the passengers and crew, which allegedly included Williams.

It now turns out Williams wasn’t there.

This is a serious smirch on Williams’s reputation as a veteran TV journalist who trades on the “trust” he has built with the viewers of his nightly newscast.

Williams has recanted the story, apologized and said he “misremembered” the events of that day. He actually had arrived about 60 minutes after the chopper was shot down.

Misremembered? For a dozen years?

The anchorman came clean only after other soldiers who were there protested, telling others they had no memory of Williams being present when Terpak — who’s since retired from the Army — engineered the getaway of those aboard the Chinook.

ā€œI would not have chosen to make this mistake,ā€ Williams said. ā€œI donā€™t know what screwed up in my mind that caused me to conflate one aircraft with another.ā€

Neither does anyone else.