Monthly Archives: May 2008

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my email to a reporter after seeing his biased story…

this news story is off-balance! I think at the very minimum you should quote the u.s. position BEFORE you quote an NGO bashing the U.S.position….we all know that (this NGO) hates the bush administration so they are hardly in a position to give an unbiased opinion. also, we (the u.s.) are called upon to protect a lot of other people and entities around the world (peacekeepers, humanitarian workers, heads of state under security threats, the UN workers in iraq). the u.s. is usually the first govt called to protect someone when under threat and this is because we have the best and most up to date system/military. humanitarian workers ask for the u.s. military to go ahead of them in some conflict situations. the u.s. spends more than any other government to eliminate the risk to civilians of all conventional munitions. and our men and women in the military take great care to plan the use of these systems – which usually results in much less collateral damage than other weapons. I think if we are going to second guess the u.s. military in a news story written from an air-conditioned office on the upper east side of new york then we should explore ALL sides of the story, including the perspective of the man or woman at the front of the pack. but to say that our use of cluster bombs are wrong or reckless from only one perspective is unfair. (this NGO) has asked for u.s. protection in some cases – is this a double standard? have they thought through what they are asking the u.s. military to give up? do they understand what we do while planning military excercises? I think there are some angles that should be looked at…and the full u.s. position wasn’t explored in this piece. the piece was written from the perspective of an ngo’s press release. just my thought, hope you are open to my comments – - rg

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