Mamamontezz's Mental Rumpus Room

From a Boot on the Ground

Well, one of the blog-children has a piece that needs to be read. Not only one piece, but two from persons who know intimately the situation not just in Iraq proper, but specifically in Fallujah.

You read pieces like this every day, as I do, on many of the mil-blogs, particularly Blackfive, and even on some of the more mainstream sites. Yet for reasons one can only attribute to blind hatred of our Commander in Chief, the powers that be, whether it is at Network News, the rapidly more obsolete big city dailys, or mass publication magazines either refuses to acknowledge the information in them, or decide to deride it as propaganda from the CIA, as happened within the last few days to Iraq the Model. The item referred to in the BBC piece is in the NYTimes, and if you feel like looking for it, feel free. I, for one, refuse for the most part to register my personal information to read a news item, particularly from a bastion of anti-middle class, anti-military rhetoric such as the likes of the Old Grey Zombie.

What this all amounts to is this: we, as citizens of this country, regardless of our political beliefs or even our stand on matters of state, policy, or military issues, has got to do our homework. We owe it to ourselves as citizens, and particularly to those who sucked it up, took the oath, and stand ready to not only defend our nation from immediate threat, but also from the threat which oozes unchecked from other nations in the form of terrorism, misinformation, or political pressure. We cannot accept as gospel truth anything we read without checking it and often times even double or triple checking what is presented to us as fact.

Dan Rather was not the problem with the media. He was and remains merely a symptom.