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Jewish World Review August 12, 2005 / 7 Av, 5765 It's time to teach the media about the war they're covering — they're having a hard time on their own By Jack Kelly
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The 14 Marine reservists killed last week when the amtrac in which they were
riding was struck by a powerful roadside bomb would have been safer if they
had been riding in up-armored humvees, opined CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer.
"I'm very disappointed that we don't have the good vehicles in the al Anbar
province," Blitzer said. "It's a very sensitive issue for me, because I was
there in March."
An amtrac with 15 combat loaded Marines aboard weighs more than 23 tons.
The IED — reportedly made from a 500 lb. bomb — flipped it over like a
toy. An up-armored humvee weighs less than four tons. Only an idiot would
deem it more survivable, especially since an amtrac has more armor than an
up-armored humvee.
Blitzer, alas, is typical of the near perfect ignorance of most in the news
media about matters military. Journalists assert that if the enemy can
inflict casualties upon us, we must be losing.
The bad guys are building bigger bombs, and hiding them better, so that even
though the number of IED attacks has declined, the casualties inflicted by
each attack has been rising. This is worrisome.
But no armed force whose principal weapon is the mine can possibly be
winning militarily. You can't take the war to the enemy with a mine. You
have to wait for the enemy to come to you.
We have, at this writing, suffered 1,831 dead since the invasion of Iraq in
March, 2003. I fear we will suffer 200-300 more before the war is
effectively turned over to the Iraqis by the autumn or winter of 2006.
Each of these deaths is a tragedy. But it's important to remember the
number of deaths in this war is amazingly low by historical standards. We
lost more than 58,000 in Vietnam; more than 34,000 in Korea. In the last
two battles of the Pacific War, we lost nearly 7,000 on Iwo Jima and 12,000
on Okinawa.
It is curious to cover a war by emphasizing friendly casualties, without
reporting the context in which they occur. On June 5th, 1944, our
casualties in the European theater were low. The next day, June 6th, they
were much higher. But what was important about June 6th, 1944, was not that
our casualties rose, but that the Normandy invasion was successful.
Casualties rise when one side goes on the offensive. Typically, it is the
side that is on the offensive that is winning. We currently are engaged in
the biggest offensive since the fall of Fallujah, striking simultaneously at
insurgent strongholds along the Tigris and Euphrates "ratlines" along which
al Qaida terrorists infiltrate from Syria.
This could be the climactic campaign of the war. But while most Americans
know 14 Marines were killed in a single incident last week, few have heard
of Operation Quick Strike, of which they were a part.
About 1,800 U.S. soldiers and Marines, and hundreds of Iraqis are taking
part in the offensive.
The Stryker brigade of the Army's 2nd Infantry Division moved south from
Mosul to seize control of the Rawah bridge over the Euphrates. This
(largely) denies insurgents freedom of movement between the Tigris and the
Euphrates, cuts their major supply line, and sits astride the principal
avenue of escape.
The Marines, with significant participation by Iraqis, simultaneously are
attacking three towns on the banks of the Euphrates — Haditha (for which
the ill-fated amtrac was headed), Halqiniyah, and Barwana, that the
insurgents pretty much have had the run of for the last two years.
"Terrorists will have to choose — to die in battle, to flee to Syria, or to
displace further and further east as the coalition steamrollers behind
them."
The only major news organization to report much about Operation Quick Strike
has been the Los Angeles Times, and then only toward the end of stories
which begin, predictably enough, with reports of U.S. casualties.
If the crepe hangers weren't so busy hanging crepe, they might have noticed
the locus of action has shifted steadily away from the populated areas,
steadily closer to the Syrian border.
But for this to be reported by CNN, someone would have to teach Wolf Blitzer
how to read a map. Some tasks are too difficult even for the U.S. military.
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© 2005, Jack Kelly |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||
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