I apologize in advance for this post being overly long
Yesterday evening I wrote a letter to the editor of Naval History Magazine. It was prompted by the magazine carrying a comment by the Former deputy commander of US Naval Forces in Vietnam. He characterized US media coverage of the VN War as being “plain miserable”:. I agreed (I served 4 tours in VN with the Amphibious forces).
Today I just finished watching a young ‘journalist’ being interviewed on CNN spewing one known false narrative after another during the time I was watching. I was dismayed to hear her mention the deaths of two US citizens as caused by ICE. I have probably written this before, but BOTH deaths were not only preventable, but were the direct result of local citizens interfering with federal officers in the performance of their duties. That’s a clear breach of the law. In neither case was there local law enforcement present to deal with the situation. The first case was clearly self-defense as the victim ran down an ICE agent with her car. He shot her, but only after he had been hit by the vehicle. He had to be hospitalized to deal with his injuries. The second case was an individual who came armed with a pistol. He was not an innocent bystander nor was he demonstrating peacefully. The videos show that clearly. The ICE officers acted exactly as they had been trained. One warned his fellow agents that the man had a weapon. The other shot him when he perceived a danger (and according to the sound track, it appears he fired only after hearing another shot fired first). But those facts don’t fit the narrative the reporter wanted to present (nor apparently, what CNN wants viewers to believe).
Of course, that’s only the tip of the ICEberg. The young lady continued with accusations (unproven hearsay, inadmissible in court) about who was being detained and how bystanders expressed their feelings (also undocumented) about what was happening. That makes good theater, and is consistent with the process of “Trial by Media” that CNN is so fond of.
I have spent more than 2 years watching CNN present Hamas propaganda as if it were true (It isn’t). They also routinely underreport Israeli statements and interview Palestinians who have been given scripts. Wars are horrible, but presenting only one side nearly 80% of the time is not my idea of fair journalism.
A separate example of distorted presentation of the facts surfaced this past week. The Israeli cabinet decided to cancel Palestinian laws regarding land ownership and transfer. This is a subject I personally studied in 1966-67 as a graduate student. The laws in question actually date from the period of Jordanian occupation (they called it annexation). Those laws, among other things, prohibit the sale of land to Jews (a death penalty offense for the Arab seller).The Israeli decision also does away with dependence on the old Ottoman Turkish land registry. The British mandate tried to make a new survey and registry, but although it was quite thorough for the coastal plan, it never was completed in the mountain areas of Judea and Shomron. Under Turkish law, land not granted to an individual remained the property of the state. The Turks also granted land to villages as a bloc that was to be distributed by the village Mukhtar. This land has no paper trail of ownership, and, although it may have been farmed by the same family for several generations, legally, it is still state land (CNN claims notwithstanding). The Israeli cabinet decision does not prevent someone currently using the land from filing a claim to it (and thereby opening him to the possibility of having to pay taxes, perhaps even retroactively),
I could probably go on, but this post is already too long.
Wetherhorn 