Monday, November 22, 2004

Spinning Killing in Fallujah

By now you have all seen the video or read about the Marine shooting a wounded insurgent. I'm not going to analyze why it happened, talk about rules of engagement or right or wrong.

But I want you to notice how they are trying to spin this at the Central Command (or CENTCOM) level. Expect to hear multiple stories like this one below. No proof will be given of course.
They are going to run any story that will give cover to this shooting. They can't just say, "He screwed up. It was wrong, he's been relieved of duty." They are going to help justify what happened with a new narrative. See below:


Today they put out a two line press release:
November 22, 2004
Release Number: 04-11-77

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


INSURGENTS FAKING DEAD FIRES ON MARINES

FALLUJAH, Iraq - Marines from the 1st Marine Division shot and killed an insurgent, who while faking dead, opened fire on the Marines that were conducting a security and clearing patrol through the streets here at approximately 3:45 p.m. on 21 November.

For more information, please contact Capt Bradley Gordon, public affairs officer, 1st Marine Division, gordonbv@1mardivdm.usmc.mil


-30-

New narrative:

"It happens all the time! He was right to kill that guy, insurgents are always pretending to be dead then shooting at us! We don't have proof or anything, but really they are sneaky bastards, these A-rabs. Don't trust 'em. Shoot first, ask questions later."

Expect Rush, Hannity, Savage, Fox and CNN to latch onto this idea. "It's official folks! The soldier was simply PROTECTING himself." Then they will go into ridicule at the left for even mentioning that gee, maybe this was wrong BY THE MARINES' VERY OWN STANDARDS!

The ridicule will include things like, "I suppose you want to fight a more gentle, SENSITIVE WAR? He was doing his job, blah, blah, blah. Don't you support our troops? Spin, spin, spin."

I'm not holding them to some new standards of war. Are they following their OWN standards? I don't know, but watch the spin on this one folks, it will be good.

1 Comments:

thehim said...

I just got done posting about this in response to an idiotic essay in Men's News Daily. I have some sympathy for the Marine because of the life and death stress they're under, but it has to be known that things like this hurt the mission of what we're trying to do. Trying to spin that any other way is nonsense.

9:09 PM  

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