Thursday, December 23, 2004
Tone of Mosul Attack Coverage
Pentagon Briefing - Aired December 22, 2004 - 14:58 ET (See Transcript)
QUESTION: If you do think it's unwise, are either one of you or both going to sound off to Generals Casey and Ham or take them to the woodshed?
MYERS: These are the calls that the combatant commanders make, and any judgment that General Ham is up there not worried about force protection is ludicrous.
We have had a suicide bomber apparently strap something to his body, apparently him, and go into a dining hall. We know how difficult this is to prevent people bent on suicide and stopping them. We understand how difficult that is.
But I think -- this was the insurgents that did this. So it's not General Ham that attacked his dining hall.
We have no front lines. The front line can be the dining hall, it can be the road outside the base, it can be the police station or the governor's office or the mayor's office down in Mosul.
That's their territory. They operate all over that. They can wear, and they do wear clothes like every other Iraqi.
MYERS: This attack, of course, is the responsibility of insurgents, the same insurgents who attacked on 9/11, the same type of insurgents whose attacked in Beirut, the same type insurgents who -- or type of insurgents to attacked the Cole and Khobar Towers. And the list goes on.
So the way you prevent this is you win the war against the extremists. So the way we prevent this is we win. And that's what we're going to do.
Rush: The coverage of what happened in Mosul yesterday and today is a classic example of liberal bias in the media. It is a classic example, and I got an e-mail today for a soldier in Mosul who was eating in a mess hall very close to the one that was hit.
Dear Rush:
I'm a soldier currently stationed in Mosul...
I was reading much of the coverage on the Internet, and I have to say that I am disgusted with what I am seeing. It seems to me that the liberal media is just thrilled this happened so it gives them a good headline to make Bush or Rumsfeld look bad.
Don't these people get it? This is not just about politics in America. In fact, it was never about politics, until liberals -- notice I don't say Democrats, Mr. Limbaugh, but liberals -- was never about politics until liberals made it that way.
I spent a little time in Israel when I was growing up, so I knew about the growing problem of extremist Islamic terrorism before September 11th. September 11th just brought a whole new dimension to it.
We are at war with people who want to kill us. They are not noble or brave. There is no honor in killing yourself for your religion. A real hero would rather live for what he believes, but someone who kills himself along with others for it is just a cowardly murderer. And we were at war with these people.
We were attacked first. And to see the liberals use what happened yesterday as an excuse to make America look bad is just -- well, I can't put it into words. I coulda died. Many of my fellow soldiers did die. Don't they get the seriousness of this? To use their deaths to further their political agenda now?
How can these people who claim to support the troops support us when they seem excited at the political opportunity this attack has given then.
Rush: It didn't matter what network I switched to watch the coverage of this attack, it was clear that the tone here was, "See why this is an unjust war? See why this is wrong? See why we shouldn't be here? American soldiers have died. We don't need to be there. There's no point to this."
The never ending wall-to-wall coverage of this that made it appear as though it was the worst tragedy in the history of American warfare, and the reason they wanted to make it look like the worst tragedy in American warfare is because they are intent, still, on proving to people this is an unjust war.
Well, the audience is much more sophisticated today, and if the recent election results do not tell the left anything, they ought to tell them this.
The American people support this war. The American people support the troops. The American people don't like seeing this. The American people hate it, the American people cry over this, and sob, and everything else, but at the same time it doesn't make the American people think that what we're doing is wrong.
Pentagon Briefing - Aired December 22, 2004 - 14:58 ET (See Transcript)
QUESTION: If you do think it's unwise, are either one of you or both going to sound off to Generals Casey and Ham or take them to the woodshed?
MYERS: These are the calls that the combatant commanders make, and any judgment that General Ham is up there not worried about force protection is ludicrous.
We have had a suicide bomber apparently strap something to his body, apparently him, and go into a dining hall. We know how difficult this is to prevent people bent on suicide and stopping them. We understand how difficult that is.
But I think -- this was the insurgents that did this. So it's not General Ham that attacked his dining hall.
We have no front lines. The front line can be the dining hall, it can be the road outside the base, it can be the police station or the governor's office or the mayor's office down in Mosul.
That's their territory. They operate all over that. They can wear, and they do wear clothes like every other Iraqi.
MYERS: This attack, of course, is the responsibility of insurgents, the same insurgents who attacked on 9/11, the same type of insurgents whose attacked in Beirut, the same type insurgents who -- or type of insurgents to attacked the Cole and Khobar Towers. And the list goes on.
So the way you prevent this is you win the war against the extremists. So the way we prevent this is we win. And that's what we're going to do.
Rush: The coverage of what happened in Mosul yesterday and today is a classic example of liberal bias in the media. It is a classic example, and I got an e-mail today for a soldier in Mosul who was eating in a mess hall very close to the one that was hit.
Dear Rush:
I'm a soldier currently stationed in Mosul...
I was reading much of the coverage on the Internet, and I have to say that I am disgusted with what I am seeing. It seems to me that the liberal media is just thrilled this happened so it gives them a good headline to make Bush or Rumsfeld look bad.
Don't these people get it? This is not just about politics in America. In fact, it was never about politics, until liberals -- notice I don't say Democrats, Mr. Limbaugh, but liberals -- was never about politics until liberals made it that way.
I spent a little time in Israel when I was growing up, so I knew about the growing problem of extremist Islamic terrorism before September 11th. September 11th just brought a whole new dimension to it.
We are at war with people who want to kill us. They are not noble or brave. There is no honor in killing yourself for your religion. A real hero would rather live for what he believes, but someone who kills himself along with others for it is just a cowardly murderer. And we were at war with these people.
We were attacked first. And to see the liberals use what happened yesterday as an excuse to make America look bad is just -- well, I can't put it into words. I coulda died. Many of my fellow soldiers did die. Don't they get the seriousness of this? To use their deaths to further their political agenda now?
How can these people who claim to support the troops support us when they seem excited at the political opportunity this attack has given then.
Rush: It didn't matter what network I switched to watch the coverage of this attack, it was clear that the tone here was, "See why this is an unjust war? See why this is wrong? See why we shouldn't be here? American soldiers have died. We don't need to be there. There's no point to this."
The never ending wall-to-wall coverage of this that made it appear as though it was the worst tragedy in the history of American warfare, and the reason they wanted to make it look like the worst tragedy in American warfare is because they are intent, still, on proving to people this is an unjust war.
Well, the audience is much more sophisticated today, and if the recent election results do not tell the left anything, they ought to tell them this.
The American people support this war. The American people support the troops. The American people don't like seeing this. The American people hate it, the American people cry over this, and sob, and everything else, but at the same time it doesn't make the American people think that what we're doing is wrong.
