BBC report: Jessica Lynch rescue story staged by US military

[ACPlayer]

I often get that feeling. Specially when someone responds to an argument by labeling it or you as: lie, drivel, left wing, commie, liberal, pinko, saddam lover, islamist, the list goes on.

Seems like the rationalist ego is suppressed and the child like id responds to any critique. Yes - i just read Alan Schoonmaker's latest article <Hope i got this part right> LOL.

[Jimbo]

Sorry to burst your bubble Chris but you are not the sole holder of knowlwdge. Your definition of right and wrong may fit nicely into you preconceived notions but that does nat make it right either for me or the majority of people on this planet. Nice try at deflecting the argumerent from the accuracy of the BBC article but most of us here can still see through your attempt at misdirection.

However it is good to have a few paranoids around, otherwise these class "B" news outlets would go bust and layoff innocent people. I suppose you subscribe to the National Enquirer as well. Have you seen Elvis lately Chris?

[Jimbo]

ACPlayer, do you believe the BBC article? Are there any true "facts" supporting the contention? I rest my case. A flying pig is still a UFO until credible evidence is presented. Calling something true does not make it so and neither does an accurate description of an unbelievable report as drivel make it any more likely to be accurate.

[ACPlayer]

That is hardly the point i was making in my note. My point was that your note (and this is not the first time i have seen notes like this) simply took the article and stated your conclusion that this is drivel and lies. Having heard statements like that from your self and others in the past, one has to take them with a very large grain of salt and usually I, for one, just dismiss your notes entirely as being a knee jerk reaction to something you did not like.

However, since you chose to go there:

Question: How do you know it is not true? It certainly could be true. Simply and apparently automatically dismissing it as untrue without either questioning the veractiy of the BBC as a news organization or producing photographs of the bullet wounds does not make the story untrue.

Just as automatically assuming that something said by the Pentagon/Fox/Rush is true.

Frankly there is so much news management on all sides, that anyone who says that something is true or drivel is not listening to the voice of reason.

[Jimbo]

"I, for one, just dismiss your notes entirely ..."

Please continue to do so, thank-you.

[IrishHand]

Your definition of right and wrong may fit nicely into you preconceived notions but that does nat make it right either for me or the majority of people on this planet.
Thankfully, the majority of the people on this planet are far closer to Mr. Alger's beliefs than yours.

the accuracy of the BBC article
What is it about the article that distresses you? If accurate, they spoke with a pair of doctors who treated Ms. Lynch after her unit was engaged in combat. While you're free to question the veracity of their comments, I'm not sure how the article itself could be cause for much objection unless your contention is that the primary news source of our primary ally is a subversive element. [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[bernie]

it was edited huh? so i have to wait for the movie to portray the gratuitous sex scene? why leave that on the cutting room floor? haha

answering the obvious question...yes, id do her!

haha

cya

b

[Cyrus]

"Nice try at deflecting the argumerent from the accuracy of the BBC article. However it is good to have a few paranoids around. Have you seen Elvis lately ?"

No, Jim, the BBC is not on the same league with the Nat'l Enquirer. I do not take everything the media says at face value, and that includes of course the BBC, but I do take notice when a substantiated argument is made.

And the BBC has made an argument that is substantiated sufficiently to warrant comment, follow-up, further investigation, and what-have-you. But not outright dismissal as if it's equivalent to "seeing Elvis".

To wit :

1. There's testimony from two alleged eyewitnesses. Those witnesses are doctors, which takes them a notch above the usual hear-say. True, the eyewitnesses are Iraqis but the fact that they allowed their names and pictures to be taken at a time when the Americans occupy Iraq, adds rather than subtracts from their credibility.

2. The testimony is dispassionate and not filled with any facile propaganda. There's just bewilderement at the attitude of the American military that allegedly tried to create a battle scene when there was no possibility of a battle.

3. The witnesses report that the Iraqi military had fled the hospital before the American troops arrived. The overall picture coming out of the Iraqi war is indeed one whereby the Iraqis are not too keen too engage the American military in classic head-to-head battle. The doctors' version of events, in other words, fits much more with the official war picture.

4. Finally, how can we dismiss so easily the accucation of staging a Hollywood rescue, when the following paragraph from the BBC article is not contested by anyone?

<ul type="square"><font color="blue">The Pentagon had been influenced by Hollywood producers of reality TV and action movies, notably the man behind Black Hawk Down, Jerry Bruckheimer.

Bruckheimer advised the Pentagon on the primetime television series "Profiles from the Front Line", that followed US forces in Afghanistan in 2001. That approached was taken on and developed on the field of battle in Iraq.</font color>[/list]
However, it is easy to see why Americans are not too keen to look deeper into the Iraqi war. The war has been served to the public as the most sanitized dish ever and the public doesn't like to be told they might be eatin' junk food.

BBC article

[Chris Alger]

I count at least five eyewitnesses, three of them identified by name: two Doctors, two nurses and a waiter from a nearby restaurant that told the "rescue" force that the hospital was unguarded, the Iraqi troops having fled the day before. The report also makes several fact assertions that can easily be proven false, if they were false, such as whether she was given blood transfusions by the Iraqis and whether she was shot and stabbed, as prior reports indicated. It is hardly like the BBC to risk such being proven wrong unless it were highly confident of the story.

Moreover, the reports of Lynch being shot and stabbed were debunked more than a month ago by the Lynch family. Nor did is the DOD to blame for that bit of war propaganda -- the Washington Post just made it up. "We have heard and seen reports that she had multiple gunshot wounds and a knife stabbing. The doctor has not seen any of this," Gregory Lynch Sr. said. "There's no entry (wounds) whatsoever." http://216.239.39.100/custom?q=cache8YOsB0PaQ4J:www.sunspot.net/news/nationworld/iraq/bal-jessica0403,0,2342268.story%3Fcoll%3Dbal-home-headlines+"jessica+lynch"+shot+stabbed&amp;hl=en&a mp;start=1&amp;ie=UTF-8

Moreover, consider the Pentagon's response, in light of its access to all the written report of the operation, the eyewitnes accounts of all US mlitary participants, the medial evidence, and a video of the entire escapade:

"A Pentagon spokesman in Washington, Bryan Whitman, declined to release the full tape of the rescue, rather than its edited version. He would not talk about what kind of Iraqi resistance the American forces faced. Nor would he comment on the injuries Lynch actually sustained. "I understand there is some conflicting information out there and in due time the full story will be told, I'm sure," he said."
John Kampfner, The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,956255,00.html

Finally, consider the rhetorical manner in which the rescue was described the next day by Gen. Vincent Brooks, compared to the more specific facts he admitted to when pressed:

Brooks: "We were successful in that operation last night and did retrieve PFC Jessica Lynch, bringing her away from that location of danger, clearing the building of some of the military activity that was in there. There was not a fire fight inside of the building, I will tell you, but there were fire fights outside of the building, getting in and getting out. ... It was a classic joint operation done by some of our nation's finest warriors, who are dedicated to never leaving a comrade behind. ... And some brave souls put their lives on the line to make this happen; loyal to a creed that they know, that they'll never leave a fallen comrade and never embarrass their country."

When pressed by the ABC correspondent, Brooks suggested that the substance of this new BBC report was probably true: "As to who was holding her, the regime was holding her. The regime clearly had done this. It was regime forces that had been in there. ...They'd apparently moved most of them out before we arrived to get in, although, as I mentioned, there were buildings outside of the Saddam Hospital, where we received fire -- or the assault force received fire -- during the night."

[Cyrus]

Instead of pasting a web address in full, you should be posting a link, by hitting "URL" in the Instant UBB Code provided by this software (one of its redeeming features [img]/forums/images/icons/wink.gif[/img] ).