Real news, finally. 5/5/07
A story of the sort you don’t see enough of, from a blog called OPFOR, which is military jargon for Opposing Force. Point being that they are the opposing force to the mainstream media and its liberal, anti-war bias.
TWO-DAY MISSION PROVIDES MEDICAL CARE FOR ABOUT 550 IRAQIS
By Spc. D. A. Dickinson Multi-National Division – Center PAO April 17, 2007
Mahmudiyah, Iraq — After providing more than 330 Iraqi citizens with medical attention April 11, Soldiers from Fort Drum, N.Y., helped 217 more people the next day.
Soldiers from 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, brought medical assistance and supplies to the people of Mamudiyah, Iraq. The previous day’s mission was carried out in Latifyah. The missions were part of an effort to improve relations with the local Iraqi people.
The units conduct such medical operations at least four times a month.
The clinic was set up at a local boys’ school with soldiers of the 4th Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment of the Iraqi army assisting with security.
An American soldier was quick to praise the efforts of his Iraqi counterparts, such as Capt. Assad Muhammad Hamad. “He’s a little guy with a big heart – the heart of a lion.”
In spite of the disappointment of not being able to provide long-term solutions, Soldiers who participated in the mission had positive things to say about the end results. “We helped 217 people today,” said Sgt. John Sniadecki, a radar operator and the commander of the relief for Mamudiyah Base Defense Operations Center.
And, for contrast, from the LA Times…
2 IMPORTANT AL QAEDA-LINKED MILITANTS KILLED IN IRAQ
By Tina Susman
Times Staff Writer
7:59 AM PDT, May 4, 2007
BAGHDAD — A U.S. offensive dubbed Operation Rat Trap killed two important Al Qaeda-linked militants in addition to the insurgent propaganda chief whose death was announced earlier, the U.S. military said today.
Also today, the military announced the death of a U.S. Marine when a roadside bomb went off south of Baghdad. No other details of the attack were announced.
U.S.-led forces also said they had detained 16 people suspected of smuggling Iranian-made explosives into Iraq from Iran. The raids took place in Sadr City, a stronghold of the militant Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr.
You know what I hate? I hate the way the mainstream media constantly hammers away at us with these stories of military victories, and ignores the stories about the humanitarian victories achieved by the military every day. They’re so morbidly pro-war, with the body counts, the munitions captured and secured, the neighborhoods rendered safe with walls and checkpoints, the general sense of American military triumphalism that accompanies their stories of enemy dead. Sometimes I think these reporters enjoy death and violence, with the loud bangs and booms, and the shouting, and all the human drama and chaos that makes existence profound and complex for us back here in our gated community, lolling around poolside in our bourgeois boredom, helplessness, and sheeplike cowardice. A simple story about some ordinary Iraqi citizens getting some much needed medical assistance? No, that’s not news. Soldiers who aren’t dead aren’t heroic enough, and Iraqis that aren’t insurgents or militia or politicians are just dull, dull, dull.
You know what worries me? What if one of the very few terrorists who knows how to get online gets a wild hair up his ass, surfs outside the mainstream media, reads the story about the medical assistance, and blows the place up? Then what? I can’t believe the US military posts these kinds of stories, with the location and everything right there where anyone can read it. It’s so self-defeating, so risky. They should leave those stories to the mainstream media to cover, since the bloodthirsty liberal bastards can’t be torn away from describing death and carnage long enough to just give us the flip side of the struggle.
I don’t know what to think when I have to turn to the military for a straight story. It’s a little ironic, I think. The military is often seen as a right-wing propaganda machine, telling Tillman/Lynch type lies so their families don’t feel bad that their child is dead or maimed, possibly for nothing. Not so, it appears. Take heed, LA Times et al. Your hegemonic days are nearing the end.
- Scot Crawford