A Battlefield Tourist

Words of War

May 8 at 5:05pm by David Tate

Being in the media and being very interested in the military, it isn’t hard for me to find glaring errors in report after report involving military affairs. Beyond that, it isn’t hard for me to find copy that is plain old sloppy reporting and innuendo that often times cannot be construed in any other way than as intentionally anti-military.

There’s one main example that has reared its head in a non-stop barrage since just about the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom. That example has received considerable overtime this week, so I thought it would be a good time to call it out.  After all, as the US handover in Iraq is set for December, you’re going to be reading this a lot.

It really isn’t complicated. The fact is, just about every time there is an attack of the magnitude that would propel it into the news, this innuendo is added (my paraphrase): “This attack calls into question gains made…”.

Using the latest high profile attack:

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – Afghan security forces on Sunday killed a few insurgents who had barricaded themselves inside a hotel in the southern city of Kandahar, ending a two-day battle that left more than two dozen militants dead, officials said.

Ok, so here we go.

“The battle raised new questions about the effectiveness of a yearlong campaign to secure Afghanistan’s south and Kandahar in particular.”

Oh really? Who is posing that question?

“The fighting began around noon Saturday when a Taliban force launched a major assault on government buildings across the city.”

Major assault, eh? 30-100 troops is not a major assault.  In comparison to other Taliban attacks, this could be stretched into that definition.  However by military definition, 100 troops (if that many) is not major.

“Nearly all the insurgents killed so far had escaped late last month from Kandahar city’s main Sarposa prison, Bashary said. More than 480 militants escaped through a 300-meter long tunnel that took five months to dig.”

Wait a second! A few sentences back the assault “raised questions” about a yearlong security operation and now you say the “major assault” is really part of the breakout scheme (without really saying that). So, really this assault does not raise questions about the yearlong security work since the manpower for the assault is a result of the prison break from a week ago (according to this article). Gee… I wonder if the timing of the prison break and this “major assault” are a coincidence?

“The Taliban claimed more than 100 fighters took part in the Kandahar attack and said their goal was to take control of the city.”

Ok that’s their claim, but do you really think 100 recently escaped Taleb fighters could “take control of the city”?   Afghanistan’s second largest?  No, all this attack was looking for was poorly written copy that questions the yearlong campaign around Kandahar and they scored.  I’m not saying things are peachy in Kandahar, however, to belittle a year’s worth of work across an area much larger than two government buildings and a hotel that were attacked, is just lazy writing that interjects the authors feelings on the big picture opinion rather than focusing on the one event he was assigned to cover.