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SWJED
03-18-2006, 01:28 PM
The Adventures of Chester - Fallujah, Media Memes, and Public Debate (http://www.theadventuresofchester.com/archives/2006/03/fallujah_media.html).


... First, US popular revulsion to the images of the four dead military contractors in Fallujah caused the Administration to seek vengeance solely for its own sake.

For a gleeful mob to hang Americans like pieces of charred meat mocked the rationale that the war had liberated grateful Iraqis. The mutilation was both a stinging rebuke and a challenge. National pride and honor were involved. The president's envoy to Iraq, Ambassador L. Paul Bremer III, went on television in Baghdad to denounce the atrocity, vowing that the "deaths will not go unpunished." The spokesman for the JTF, Army Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, followed up by saying the attack on Fallujah would be "overwhelming." Write an order for the Marines to attack, General Sanchez told his staff, and I don't mean any ####ing knock-before-search, touchy-feely stuff.

The Marines, namely the 1st Marine Division, then still under General Mattis, and his immediate field commander, LtGen Conway of the First MEF, had intended to slowly take over various portions of the city over months, not invade it in one decisive action. But they had their orders (apparently very poorly written ones, according to West) and they carried them out.

But then media coverage and perceptions of the attack were once again integral in operational decisionmaking. The CPA had prepared a public affairs plan in support of the offensive, although it didn't address the Arab press.

That left Arab media to shape perceptions of the battle with no American influence at all.

On April 4, Fallujah was dominating international headlines because all major news outlets had rushed reporters and video crews there after the administration's vow of an overwhelming response.

West's chapter entitled "Faint Echoes of Tet" is priceless. Here's an extended excerpt...

Read the entire post at the link above.

SWJED
03-18-2006, 01:37 PM
Also from Josh at the Adventures of Chester - I fully intend to rub the AP's faces in this one day (http://www.theadventuresofchester.com/archives/2006/03/i_fully_intend.html). Nice rant on Assocated Press' constant "reporting" of an Iraqi civil war as under way, a given, a fact...