1115.org

On Wednesday, Reuters, who should really know much better, put out a news story written by Dan Whitcomb, which reads like it should be filed under some combination of “Fantasy & Science Fiction” and “Revenge Stories”.

You can’t get the full impact unless you read the whole damn thing yourself, but I’ll try and summarize it (because it really isn’t worth your time to read the whole damn thing).

And if you’ll pardon me for so doing, I’ll indulge in a little fantasy myself, to begin with. You see, by the time I was done reading the story, I had two questions:
1) What on earth possessed Reuters, who should really know better, to run this drivel?
2) What on earth possessed Whitcomb, who should really know better, to write this drivel?

My crystal ball, unfortunately, is not able to penetrate the mind shields erected by Reuters over their inner mental processes, so I’ll restrict my psychic fantasy to the second question.

I imagine Whitcomb was sitting around, feeling really bummed out by how life was passing him by, and while all kinds of journalists were doing very nicely indeed out of the twin wars on Terror and Iraq (Jeopardy answer: Who is Judith Miller? My perverse I-insist-on-answering-the-damn-question answer: one of the leading print media prostitutes of our time. Jeopardy answer #2: Who is Bob Woodward? Perverse ditto answer: the other one), his damn journalistic career was just sitting there, going nowhere.

And so he said to himself, let me just take a deep breath and analyze this logically. What’s the biggest twin wars story going around? , Answer: Haditha (this was, of course before Zarqawi’s death). Okay, why can’t I write an exclusive, sensational story about Haditha? Answer: no damn reason at all, especially if I totally suspend disbelief.

And so the next morning, Whitcomb hauled ass to wherever Sources looking for gainful employment for the day hang around early in the day, the Deep Throat version of Home Depot, if you know what I mean. And damned if he didn’t find himself a live one!

Now, unfortunately, there was a good reason why Dan Whitcomb’s journalistic career was just sitting there going nowhere. When they were passing around the minimum required dose of journalistic skepticism, our Dan was downing a double shot of credulity. So it never occurred to Desperate Dan to ask why this source was hanging around outside the Deep Throat version of Home Depot if he had a direct line to the marines of Kilo Company. Instead Dan snapped up the source, quickly negotiated a reasonable rate for his exertions (the source’s), and then sat himself down and milked him dry. Unfortunately, the rate negotiated was an hourly rate, and much to Whitcomb’s surprise, the source turned out to have a heckuva lot to say.

And so here’s Dan Whitcomb’s story, in a nutshell. According to “a source close to one of the soldiers under investigation”, a “source (which) declined to be identified because military prosecutors have yet to press charges”. (If that makes any sense to you, be sure to let me know. For what it’s worth, my guess is:
D.W.: “Can I use your name?”
The S: “Nope.”
D.W. “What reason do I give?”
The S: “Dunno. You’re the journalist. Make something up.”)

…what happened (at Haditha) was part of a bigger picture in which soldiers were fighting insurgents for several hours.

“There wasn’t just this skirmish,” the source said. “There seemed to be a lot of combat that occurred for hours. Some insurgents threw hand grenades at Marines. In the immediate area there were insurgents engaging Marines. There were aircraft involved. We dropped a 500-pound bomb on a building where some alleged insurgents were.”

Both the source and Capt. James Kimber, who was commander of a company several miles away that day, said news coverage had not fairly represented fighting in the area.

“They are making it sound like, ‘Oops, Marine rampage, cover-up, end of story’,” the source said. “Life’s not that black and white … Nobody has ever brought up the possibility of this being an accident or collateral damage or part of the horrors of war.”

Forgive me, O great Source, for daring to question you, you who Dan Whitcomb has already vetted and found credible. But I believe that’s still a sore point with the U.S. military establishment, and still the source of much distress to the likes of Lt. Col. Michelle Martin-Hing. Because the marines of Kilo Company not only tried that one already, but you will recall that they actually succeeded in selling it to the military for a while. That was before the preponderance of the evidence started to hoot and holler and call attention very rudely indeed to the fact that there was no way this could be true. That was about the time that the military decided they better turn the whole damn thing over to the NCIS.

“You go on patrol, you’re going down the road and you get attacked. Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys?” the source said, adding that some of the Iraqis killed in the incident could turn out to have been insurgents.

In my experience, it’s usually a pretty reliable rule that the guys who are pumping bullets for no reason into unarmed and defenseless women and children and old men in wheelchairs are probably the bad guys. The unarmed and defenseless women and children and old men in wheelchairs cowering inside their houses are probably the good guys. Just a wild guess, of course.

Kimber, who was relieved of his duties in April for reasons unrelated to Haditha, was commanding a company in another Iraqi city several miles away at the time of the incident.

“All three cities got attacked that day,” he told Reuters in an interview. “There were multiple firefights going on in Haditha. Marines got wounded by grenade fragments. This was not just one (bomb) going off.”

Kimber dismissed any notion of a massacre, saying that as a company commander in the next city he would have known.

Relieved of his duties in April for reasons unrelated to Haditha, huh? So then he’s mad at the military authorities. And then he goes to himself: “Now they’re after the marines of Kilo Company, are they?” And he thinks, deep in his heart of hearts, where no one can penetrate, cetainly not our Danny Boy: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend. And I’ll do anything for my friends, anything. Just the way I am.”

But Kimber still makes a good point, doesn’t he? From all the semi-official leaks to date, it does indeed look very much like the NCIS investigation has totally ignored the relevance and significance of the fighting that took place in other cities that day.

Can we please hold Capt. Kimber to that last statement when it is proved that a massacre happened? Can we charge him with knowing and lying about it?

“There were no atmospherics to indicate something like this,” he said. “We heard about it if we broke the lock on somebody’s door … It would have been all over the city by the next day.”

At some point it may occur to Kimber that the guy who talks openly about breaking the lock on someone’s door may not talk quite so openly about pumping bullets for no reason into unarmed and defenseless women and children and old men in wheelchairs. Hopefully that will be about halfway into a long prison sentence for conduct unbecoming to an officer, and concealing evidence, and perjury, and insulting the national intelligence.

“You have a professionally trained (Marine) force that goes to great lengths to follow the rules of engagement and then you have an insurgent force with absolutely no qualms about beheading people … Who do you think did this?” he said.

I should really have cued in some dramatic music before I gave you that last quote, because that’s the climax right there. Now let’s get this straight. Kimber is (or was) a Captain in the military, and is therefore presumed to have an IQ exceeding his age. Dan Whitcomb is a reporter in good standing with Reuters, and is therefore presumed to have an IQ exceeding his age. Kimber’s thesis is that:
a) the 24 Iraqi civilians were shot to death in cold blood by insurgents.
b) the marines of Kilo Company, in the spirit of universal brotherhood, then decided to lie to “cover up” the crime of the insurgents, and swore that most of the civilians had died due to a roadside bomb rather than admit that they had been shot to death in cold blood by the insurgents
c) when the roadside bomb story didn’t fly for some strange reason, the marines of Kilo Company, in the continuing spirit of universal brotherhood, said that the Iraqi civilians had been accidentally killed by the marines themselves, caught in the cross-fire as the marines battled the insurgents

And Whitcomb is buying all of this and writing it up with a straight face? And Reuters is buying all of this and publishing it with a straight face?

I propose in all seriousness that there should be an annual Hall-of-Shame awards ceremony for the national media, and organizations like Reuters should have past Pulitzers taken away from them for such brazen acts of journalistic dishonesty.

Kimber said he would be “completely amazed” if Marines were ultimately charged with murdering unarmed civilians.

It is not clear if the basis for Kimber’s perfect certitude is the fact that he knows for sure that every one of the 24 Iraqi civilians who was killed that day had a pair of arms each. At least before the killing started.

I cannot end without saying one last thing. What makes Dan Whitcomb’s piece thoroughly immoral, in my opinion, is that not once in the entire piece does he point out any of the inconsistencies between what The Source and Kimber said and the facts that are already in the public domain. Not once does he put any of what The Source and Kimber said in any kind of perspective.

The source keeps putting out whatever sh** his buddies from Kilo Company (and their lawyers) want him to, and Whitcomb dutifully takes down every word and repeats it. Kimber keeps putting out whatever sh** he wants to (and who knows for what reason,) and Whitcomb dutifully takes down every word and repeats it.

That’s some pretty high quality journalism right there, innit?