Thursday, February 10, 2005

UPDATED: CNN top dawg: U.S. soldiers intentionally killing journalists

If they did, is there a jury in America that would convict them? I'm kidding!!! Nothing like a little shock-value morbid humor to grab the ol' attention, huh?

Anyway, it's been buzzing around the 'Net for a while, but needless to say, the MSM isn't touching it with a ten-foot pole. I'm talking about CNN's Eason Jordan, who (according to published reports across the 'Net) happened to accuse American military personnel of deliberately targeting (and killing) journalists in Iraq. Jordan has since disputed the characterization of his remarks. These remarks were made at the World Economic Forum gathering in Davos, Switzerland.

The bigger scandal seems to be the coverup going on. According to Michelle Malkin:
Forum organizers have stonewalled citizen attempts to gain access to a videotape or transcript of the Davos meeting. But American businessman Rony Abovitz, who attended the panel Jordan participated in, reported immediately after the forum that "Jordan asserted that he knew of 12 journalists who had not only been killed by U.S. troops in Iraq, but they had in fact been targeted. He repeated the assertion a few times, which seemed to win favor in parts of the audience (the anti-U.S. crowd) and cause great strain on others."

Another panel attendee, historian Justin Vaisse, wrote on his blog that Jordan "didn't mince words in declaring that the intentions of journalists in Iraq were never perceived as neutral and were made deliberate targets by 'both sides.'"
Even liberal Democrats are throwing Jordan under the bus, and are distancing themselves from his comments.
Panel member Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., also told me that Jordan asserted that there was deliberate targeting of journalists by the U.S. military and that Jordan "left open the question" of whether there were individual cases in which American troops targeted journalists.

Finally, panel attendee Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., issued a statement in response to my inquiry that he "was outraged by the comments. Senator Dodd is tremendously proud of the sacrifice and service of our American military personnel."
Of course, the man has a long track record of being anti-American. Hell, in 1999, Jordan proudly proclaimed: "We are a global network, and we take global interest[s] first, not U.S. interests first." If you're simply reporting the news, why take any interests first?

Then again, ol' Eason admitted a couple of years ago that CNN knew about Saddam's atrocities all these years, but they never reported it because they didn't want to jeopardize access to the Butcher of Baghdad! Wow! People died because CNN didn't do their job and report. That is what they're supposed to do, right...report?

Let's see how this pans out, and when (if at all) the MSM will pick up on this!

UPDATE: In the interest of journalistic fairness, here is CNN's lame ass face-saving rebuttal.

UPDATE: Senator George Allen (R-VA), with support from Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), is now calling for a release of the videotape of the event in question. Link