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Monday, May. 19, 2003 / 1:23 a.m. ~Enlightening~
This is from Moby's 'Tour Diary', which we all know is just a journal/diary, like all the rest, but still, I love that he posts articles like this - it increases awareness:
5/16/2003 - New York City i found this to be a very interesting example of the way in which our media and our military work together... Interesting account by BBC World News of the Pvt Jessica Lynch "story": Private Jessica Lynch became an icon of the war, and the story ofher capture by the Iraqis and her rescue by US special forces became one of the great patriotic moments of the conflict. But her story is one of the most stunning pieces of news management ever conceived. There was no [sign of] shooting, no bullet inside her body, no stab wound. Private Lynch, a 19-year-old army clerk from Palestine, West Virginia, was captured when her company took a wrong turning just outside Nasiriya and was ambushed. Nine of her comrades were killed and Private Lynch was taken to the local hospital, which at the time was swarming with Fedayeen. Eight days later US special forces stormed the hospital, capturing the "dramatic" events on a night vision camera. They were said to have come under fire from inside and outside the building, but they made it to Lynch and whisked her away by helicopter. Reports claimed that she had stab and bullet wounds and that she had been slapped about on her hospital bed and interrogated. But Iraqi doctors in Nasiriya say they provided the best treatment they could for the soldier in the midst of war. She was assigned the only specialist bed in the hospital and one of only two nurses on the floor. "I examined her, I saw she had a broken arm, a broken thigh and a dislocated ankle," said Dr Harith a-Houssona, who looked after her. "There was no [sign of] shooting, no bullet inside her body, no stab wound - only road traffic accident. They want to distort the picture. I don't know why they think there is some benefit in saying she has a bullet injury." Witnesses told us that the special forces knew that the Iraqi military had fled a day before they swooped on the hospital. "We were surprised. Why do this? There was no military, there were no soldiers in the hospital," said Dr Anmar Uday, who worked at the hospital. Some brave souls put their lives on the line to make this happen "It was like a Hollywood film. They cried 'go, go, go', with guns and blanks without bullets, blanks and the sound of explosions. They made a show for the American attack on the hospital - action movies like Sylvester Stallone or Jackie Chan." There was one more twist. Two days before the snatch squad arrived, Harith had arranged to deliver Jessica to the Americans in an ambulance. But as the ambulance, with Private Lynch inside, approached a checkpoint American troops opened fire, forcing it to flee back to the hospital. The Americans had almost killed their prize catch. When footage of the rescue was released, General Vincent Brooks, US spokesman in Doha, said: "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." Private Lynch is said to have lost her memory. The American strategy was to ensure the right television footage by using embedded reporters and images from their own cameras, editing the film themselves. 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. As for Private Lynch, her status as cult hero is stronger than ever. Internet auction sites list Jessica Lynch items, from an oil painting with an opening bid of $200 to a $5 "America Loves Jessica Lynch" fridge magnet. But doctors now say she has no recollection of the whole episode and probably never will." (The paragraph breaks are mine - there weren't any in Mo's diary) Cost of the War in Iraq
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