This was posted late yesterday so we reposted it for today.
Today the inevitable story on the Iraq war hit the wires — and this was the story, wasn’t it?
A U.S. Army sergeant died of wounds suffered in Iraq, the Pentagon announced Tuesday. The death _ along with two others announced Tuesday _ brought to 2,000 the number of U.S. military members who have died since the start of the Iraq conflict in 2003.
Staff Sgt. George T. Alexander, Jr., 34, of Killeen, Texas, died Saturday at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, of wounds suffered Oct. 17, when a bomb exploded near his vehicle in the central Iraqi city of Samarra, the Defense Department said.
The announcement was made after Iraqi election officials declared that voters had ratified the new constitution, which the United States hopes will boost the political process seen as key to ending the insurgency and enabling the U.S. and its coalition partners to bring their troops home.
Etc.
NO…that isn’t the WHOLE STORY about this story. A key part was this quote:
The spokesman for the American-led multinational force called on news organizations not to look at the 2,000 death as a milestone in the conflict. Lt. Col. Steve Boylan described 2,000 figure as an “artificial mark on the wall.”
“I ask that when you report on the events, take a moment to think about the effects on the families and those serving in Iraq,” Boylan said in an e-mail. “The 2,000 service members killed in Iraq supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom is not a milestone. It is an artificial mark on the wall set by individuals or groups with specific agendas and ulterior motives.”
Boylan said the 2,000th service member to die in Iraq “is just as important as the first that died and will be just as important as the last to die in this war against terrorism and to ensure freedom for a people who have not known freedom in over two generations.”
He complained that the true milestones of the war were “rarely covered or discussed,” and said they included the troops who had volunteered to serve, the families of those that have been deployed for a year or more, and the Iraqis who have sought at great risk to restore normalcy to their country.
SORRY, Mr. Boylan. You make some excellent points about other neglected milestones — but we don’t buy a key part of what you said. In fact, we think some of what you said is this.
This writer has generally supported the war and it is NOT TRUE that the 2,000 mark is “an artificial mark on the wall set by individuals or groups with specific agendas and ulterior motives.”
(1) It is a FACT…spelled F-A-C-T that 2,000 Americans have died.
(2) You don’t have to have an “agenda” or “ulterior motive” to acknowledge this F-A-C-T. If we’re in a war, the American people should most definitely be aware of the ongoing death toll; the idea of sacrifice means you make a judgment on the value of sacrifice and appreciate what is being sacrificed. If the war and the goals are judged valid, Americans will support it no matter what. But the death toll should in no way, shape or form be downplayed or spun as not being what it is.
(3) WHO has EVER SAID that people who died first or will die in the future aren’t as important as those who died at any other time? Where did THAT one come from? Every single death matters.
The FACT IS that the United States is at War. The FACT IS young people are indeed sacrificing and dying. And the fact is, policymakers and citizens on both sides of this issue have differing ideas on the best way to end the conflict, whether the U.S. must stay X amount of time or not, what the overall goal should be or should have been — and how to decide when and if the goal is met so the U.S. forces can leave.
THOSE are things people can debate.
But it is a FACT 2,000 people have died and news organizations doing their traditional watermark stories — also typified by one-year-after-911, two-years-after-911, five-years-after-911 stories — don’t have any “agenda” or “ulterior motive” by noting deaths have hit the 2000 mark.
Nothing except to point out a F-A-C-T.
They do that — and leave the spin to others.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.