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Saturday, December 18, 2004

Propaganda from the CSM

It's more than a little ironic to find that a church-owned daily is one of the finest examples of anti-Bush bias in the media. Take this CSM article by Brad Knickerbocker - a shameful attempt to undermine the war effort:
The pattern of discontent in US ranks

Griping among the troops is as old as armed conflict, illustrated most memorably by cartoonist Bill Mauldin's "Willie and Joe" characters during World War II. But something more than that is happening now in Iraq with what appears to be growing resistance from the troops.

Evidence includes numbers of deserters (reportedly in the thousands), resignations of reserve officers, lawsuits by those whose duty period has been involuntarily extended, and a refusal to go on dangerous missions without proper equipment. There's also been a willingness at grunt level to publicly challenge the Pentagon - as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld found out recently in a trip to the war zone, where he got an earful about unarmored humvees.

While some don't see much defiance - and, in fact, have been surprised by the depth of solidarity - others see an unusual amount of tension surfacing for an all-volunteer military force.
Notice that Knickerbocker uses the phrase "evidence includes", and then refuses to support any of his assertions with actual evidence. In fact, the only evidence he does supply comes by way of the bastion of journalistic integrity that is "60 Minutes".

At least two of his assertions are false on their very face. For starters, the "grunt" who gave Secretary Rumsfeld an "earful" on his recent trip to Kuwait was coached by a journalist of questionable ethics. That hardly qualifies as a "willingness... to publicly challenge the Pentagon".

But more unscrupulous than that is Knickerbocker's implication that desertion amongst the US ranks are at an unparalleled high (which he returns to several times in the article). He puts the number at "5,500 service personnel" since the start of the Iraq War. True enough. I'm not challenging his number - if anything, it seems a bit low. But by not offering any type of context, Knickerbocker understands that any number will seem to the reader a mass exodus of military personnel.

Luckily for us, UPI gives the context we need (via Will Collier):
The number of annual military desertions is down to the lowest level since before 2001, according to the Pentagon.

The Army said the number of new deserters in 2004 -- 2,376 -- was just half the number of those who deserted prior to Sept. 11, 2001. That number was 4,597.

The numbers of deserters has dropped annually since the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington. The fiscal year 2004 total number of Army deserters is the lowest since before 1998, according to Army data.
I find it hard to believe that a reporter writing a piece about military desertions would not have searched out the Defense Department's figures, which leads me to the conclusion that the CSM is knowingly misleading it's readers. This is nothing more than a propaganda piece.

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