PRESS PATTERNS
"Unprovoked Attack" [Greg Pollowitz]
The media keeps repeating the storyline that the Blackwater shooting incident in Iraq was an "unprovoked attack." For example, on CNN.com:
Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki asked the U.S. State Department to "pull Blackwater out of Iraq," saying the private contractors committed unprovoked and random killings in a September 16 shooting, an adviser to al-Maliki told CNN.
ABCNews.com has surveillance-camera footage of the incident. There are some really unbelievable pictures of the State Department convoy getting blown up, which caused the need for Blackwater reinforcements to arrive on the scene. The argument is that once on the scene, it is these reinforcements that were unprovoked. But the way the media keeps telling the story, there is no mention of the heinous event that precipitated the chain of events. I have no idea if the actions of the Blackwater guards were proper or not, but given that they were responding to an actual attack, I think they deserve a little more credit than they're getting.
10/16 04:10 PM
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