Journalists call U.S. military ‘other side’

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Donald Rumsfeld: Media Sees Military as ‘Other Side’
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Monday that journalists covering the Iraq war no longer want to be embedded with U.S. military units because they viewed American troops as “the other side.”
In an interview Monday with EIB Radio host Rush Limbaugh, Rumsfeld noted that “far fewer journalists . . . have stepped up to become embedded” compared to the early days of the war.

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The defense chief recalled:

“I asked one reporter about that, and there was kind of the impression left that, ‘Well, if you got embedded then you were really part of the problem instead of part of the solution and you were almost going over to the other side.'”

Rumsfeld then added:

“I think that’s an inexcusable thought, and I don’t know if that’s the case with all reporters.”

The Pentagon leader said that before the press grew disenchanted with it, he considered the military’s embed program to have been a significant success.

“A lot of people who are reporters and journalists were able to work with our troops and see precisely how terrific they are, the wonderful job they do, the kinds of people they are, how professional they are,” he told Limbaugh. “And the rest of their lives they’re going to have an impression of the American military that will be good for journalism, in my view.”

Rumsfeld said he wasn’t overly troubled by recent criticism by six retired generals who have called on him to resign, telling Limbaugh:

“If you started chasing, running around chasing public opinion polls or a handful of people who are critics of this or critics on that, you wouldn’t get anywhere in this world.”

Instead he said he was pleased that former Joint Chiefs Chairman, Gen. Richard Myers, former CENTCOM Commander Tommy Franks, his second in command, Gen. Mike DeLong and Admiral Vern Clark have issued supportive statements in recent days.
Rushlimbaugh.com | Transcript | Rumsfeld | Excerpt:

I think we just have to accept it, that people have a right to say what they want to say, and to have an acceptance of that and recognize that the terrorists, Zarqawi and bin Laden and Zawahiri, those people have media committees. They are actively out there trying to manipulate the press in the United States. They are very good at it. They’re much better at (laughing) managing those kinds of things than we are, and we have to recognize that we’re not going to lose any battles out in the global war on terror out in Iraq or Afghanistan. The center of gravity of that war is right here, and in the capital of the United States of America and other Western capitals, in London, they’re trying. It’s a test of wills, and what’s at stake for our country is our way of life.

[End Excerpt]
More of Rush Interviews Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld

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Wild Thing’s comment……
Western journalists are now primarily interested in being embedded with terrorists. The terrorists are the noble truth tellers in this saga. The American military is cruel deception and torture. Time’s Michael Ware comes to mind.
We need to adapt to a post-treason world and start telling the world bluntly as it is. Too many journalists want our soldiers to die and for terrorists to ’embarrass Bush’