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★阿修羅♪
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●プライベート・リンチといえば、なんだか密室リンチを連想してしまいますが
小ブッシュが「父親のカタキ」でフセインつぶしの戦争をしていること……
ではなく、米軍が救出した戦争捕虜の若い女性兵士「ジェシカ・リンチ上等兵」
のことです。
●リンチ上等兵は救出当時に致命的なケガをしていると伝えられていました。
『ワシントン・ポスト』などは、何発も銃弾を受けたのに必死で敵兵を撃ち続け
イラクの軍勢をバッタバッタと倒し、しかも忍び寄ってきた敵兵に、背中を
ナイフでグサリと刺されて致命傷を負っていた……とまで報じていたのです。
まるで100年くらいまえの日本の活動写真のチャンバラ活劇の主人公みたいです。（笑）
下記の産経新聞（共同）報道でも、リンチ上等兵は「被弾し、骨折しているが、元気」
だと伝えていました。
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産経新聞
http://www.sankei.co.jp/news/030403/0403kok044.htm
女性兵の救出映像を公開
米国防総省は２日、イラク南部でイラク軍の捕虜となっていた第５０７整備補給中隊のジェシカ・リンチ上等兵（１９）が救出される模様の映像を公開した。
上等兵が米軍特殊部隊とみられる数人の兵士によって担架で運ばれる様子が写されている。撮影日時や場所は不明。米ＣＮＮテレビによると、上等兵は被弾し、骨折しているが、元気だという。
上等兵は同じ部隊の兵士５人とともに移動中、イラク軍の攻撃を受け、南部のナシリヤ近くの病院に収容されていた。（共同）
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● ……と、と、ところがなななんと！
ジェシカ・リンチさんの父親が記者会見で「銃創もナイフの刺し傷もない」
と言ってしまいましたとさ。↓
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The Age （オーストラリア）
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/04/04/1048962910004.html
PoW had no gunshot, knife wounds: father
【ジェシカさんの父親が証言：
救出された戦争捕虜ジェシカさんには、
言われていたような銃創もナイフ傷もない】
April 4 2003
The father of rescued prisoner of war Jessica Lynch today said she suffered no gunshot or knife wounds at the hands of her Iraqi assailants, contrary to reports quoting a US official.
【戦争捕虜ジェシカ・リンチは、米国当局者の発言として報道された“事実”とは逆に、イラク軍によって受けたと伝えられていた銃創もナイフによる傷もないと、彼女の父親であるグレゴリー・リンチ氏が本日あきらかにした。】
In a televised press conference from his home in Palestine, West Virginia, Gregory Lynch said he and his wife had spoken to her after she underwent surgery at a US military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany.
【ウェストヴァージニア州パレスタインの自宅からテレビを通じて記者会見を行なったグレゴリー氏によれば、娘のジェシカさんがドイツのラントスツール米軍病院で外科処置を受けたのち、妻とともにジェシカさんに話しかけたという。】
An examination revealed the 19-year-old private had "no multiple gunshot wounds or knife stabs" Lynch said, adding that there had been "no entry whatsoever".
【診察の結果、19歳のリンチ上等兵は、「複数の銃創とかナイフの刺し傷があるとされていたが、皆無だった」と、グレゴリー氏は語った。そして「特に問題となるような負傷はしていない」と付け加えた。】
The Washington Post, citing a US official, reported that Jessica Lynch had "continued firing at the Iraqis even after she sustained multiple gunshot wounds and watched several other soldiers in her unit die around her in fighting (on) March 23".
【『ワシントン・ポスト』はこれまで、米国当局者の話として、ジェシカ・リンチは「身体のあちこちに銃創を受けながらもイラク兵たちに発砲を続け、先月23日の戦闘のなかで仲間の兵士たちが死んでいくのを間近に見た」のだと伝えていた。】
Lynch said: "The doctor has completed one surgery on her back. They have released the pressure on a nerve and realigned all the discs and put plates and stuff in it."
【グレゴリー・リンチ氏はこう語った――「医者は娘の背中に一ヵ所だけ外科処置をほどこました。神経が圧迫されていたのでそれを解放し、椎間板全体の矯正をおこなって、ギブスをあてたんです」。】
The surgery was performed "because she didn't have any feeling in her feet", Lynch said, and doctors were confident they had corrected the problem.
【グレゴリー氏によれば、「娘は両足の感覚がまったく麻痺していたので」この外科処置を受けたのだという。医者はこれで問題が矯正できると確信していた。】
He said she would undergo further surgery tomorrow for fractures to her legs and right forearm, adding: "She's in real good spirits."
【グレゴリー氏は、リンチ嬢は明日には両足と右前腕の骨折を治す手術を受けるという。「娘は健気にがんばっています」と彼は付け加えた。】
A supply clerk with the 507th Maintenance Company, Lynch was rescued in a pre-dawn raid on an Iraqi-held hospital in Nasiriyah, where she had been held for more than a week.
【リンチ上等兵は陸軍第507整備補給中隊の補給要員だが、ナシリヤのイラク支配域にある病院に一週間以上も拘留されていたところを、夜明け前の襲撃作戦によって救出された。】
Iraqi forces ambushed Lynch's company after it took a wrong turn last month near Nasiriyah, a city in Iraq's south.
【彼女の部隊は、先月の末、イラク南方のナシリアに迷い込んだところを、イラク軍に待ち伏せ攻撃されていた。】
- AFP
The Age Company Ltd
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●下記の毎日新聞報道では、リンチ上等兵の様子はこう記されています――
「ＣＮＮテレビによると、体に数カ所被弾しているが、容体は安定して
おり、救出後、医師のチェックを受けている。」
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2003年４月３日毎日新聞朝刊から
http://www.mainichi.co.jp/news/article/200304/03m/024.html
［追跡・イラク戦争］女性捕虜救出劇に全米興奮−−国民結束の思惑も
１９歳の女性捕虜の救出劇に全米が興奮している。３月２３日にイラク南部ナシリヤの戦闘で行方不明になったジェシカ・リンチ上等兵が２日未明、１０日ぶりに米特殊部隊に保護された。まだ多くの米兵がイラク軍の捕虜や行方不明になっているものの、フランクス中東軍司令官の広報官は「米国は英雄を置き去りにはしない」と宣言、ブッシュ大統領も「こいつはすごい」とご満悦だ。リンチ上等兵が“ヒロイン化”されるのは必至で、電撃的な捕虜救出作戦によって国民の結束を図ろうというブッシュ政権の思惑も見え隠れする。
米中東軍の発表や米メディアの報道によると、救出作戦には海軍のＳＥＡＬなど特殊部隊が参加。リンチ上等兵がナシリヤの「サダム病院」でイラク軍に拘束されているという米中央情報局（ＣＩＡ）の情報に基づき極秘に救出作戦を練り上げ、２日午前０時（日本時間同５時）ごろ、軍事拠点となっている同病院をヘリで急襲した。救出に合わせ、海兵隊の部隊がナシリヤ中心部の政権政党・バース党本部などを一斉に攻撃し、イラク側をかく乱したという。
米中東軍が同日、公表したビデオによると、リンチ上等兵は担架でヘリに収容され、途中で一度だけカメラに向かって安堵（あんど）した表情を見せた。ＣＮＮテレビによると、体に数カ所被弾しているが、容体は安定しており、救出後、医師のチェックを受けている。現場からは１１人の遺体も見つかったが、米兵のものかどうかは確認されていない。
リンチ上等兵は陸軍第５０７整備補給中隊の所属。３週間前にクウェートに派遣され、開戦を受けてイラク入りした。しかし、３月２３日に部隊の車両１５台が道を間違えてユーフラテス川にかかる橋に差し掛かったところで、イラク軍の待ち伏せ攻撃を受け、戦闘中に行方不明になっていた。同中隊の５人はその後、捕虜としてイラク国営テレビで放映されたが、リンチ上等兵の消息は明らかになっていなかった。
イラク軍や民兵のゲリラ攻撃、相次ぐ誤爆、補給路の寸断などで当初の楽観論に陰りが出て、ブッシュ政権の戦争計画への批判が高まる中で、リンチ上等兵の救出は久々の朗報になった。故郷のウエストバージニア州パレスタインの町はリンチ上等兵の無事を祈って電柱や樹木の至るところに黄色いリボンが結ばれていたが、救出の一報に、車のクラクションが鳴り響き、花火が打ち上げられる大騒ぎになった。
地元紙チャールストン・ガゼット（電子版）などによると、リンチ上等兵は教師志望だが、高校卒業後、社会勉強を兼ねて陸軍に入隊した。失業率１５％という田舎町では軍は数少ない仕事先。仲間からは笑顔が好かれ、今回のイラク行きが初めての海外勤務だった。
１９歳の少女までが国のために危険な任務を遂行し、戦闘に巻き込まれながら生還した経緯は、ブッシュ大統領にとって「逆風」をはねのける絶好の機会となりそうだ。ボスニア・ヘルツェゴビナ紛争当時の９５年６月には、操縦していたＦ１６戦闘機を撃墜された米空軍のスコット・オグレディ大尉（当時）が敵陣の森に６日間潜んで救出され、「ボスニアのランボー」として愛国心の象徴になった。米英軍がバグダッドに向けて進撃を再開したタイミングとも重なり、リンチ上等兵がその役割を果たすのは確実だ。【ワシントン河野俊史】
（２００３年４月３日毎日新聞朝刊から）
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●リンチ上等兵については、いちおうこんな“英雄譚”も報じられました。
捕獲される直前にぃ〜、敵をバッタバッタをなぎ倒しぃ〜、
はぁ〜べんべんべん。♪
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The Age （オーストラリア）
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/04/03/1048962876719.html
Private Lynch fought fiercely before capture
【リンチ上等兵は捕虜になる前に猛烈に抵抗していた】
April 4 2003
Private Jessica Lynch fought fiercely and shot several enemy soldiers after Iraqi forces ambushed her unit, firing her weapon until she ran out of ammunition, according to US officials.
Private Lynch, a 19-year-old supply clerk with the 507th Ordnance Maintenance company, kept firing even after she was wounded several times and saw several soldiers in her unit die, one official said.
The March 23 ambush occurred after their convoy took a wrong turn in the southern city of Nasiriyah. "She was fighting to the death," the official said. "She did not want to be taken alive."
Private Lynch was also stabbed when Iraqi forces closed in, the official said, noting that first reports indicated that she had been stabbed to death. No official suggested that Private Lynch's wounds had been life-threatening.
Officials said the precise sequence of events was still being determined. Further information would emerge as Private Lynch was debriefed. Reports so far were based on monitored communications and from Iraqi sources in Nasiriyah, they said.
Pentagon officials said they had heard "rumours" of Private Lynch's actions but had no confirmation.
- Washington Post
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●上記のオーストラリアの新聞記事は、下記の４月３日付け『ワシントン・
ポスト』１面の大げさな英雄譚からの抜粋であることがわかります。
この『ワシントン・ポスト』記事から、米国当局者（軍将校か政府の
文官かは不明ですが）が、リンチ嬢についてかなりのホラを吹いていた
ことがわかります。たとえば、彼女の健康状態については、当局者の
話として、こんなふうに書いていました――
【リンチは《中略》身体のあちこちに銃創を受けながらもイラク兵たちに発砲を続け、先月23日の戦闘のなかで仲間の兵士たちが死んでいくのを間近に見た、と米国当局者は語った。】
【しかもリンチは、イラク兵たちが忍び寄ってきて刺されたのだと、この米国当局者は語った。この当局者によれば、最初の諜報報告は彼女が刺されて死にかけていたと伝えていたそうだ。昨日はリンチが致命傷を負っているなどと言っていた当局者は一人もいなかったのだが……。】
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『ワシントン・ポスト』
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14879-2003Apr2.html
'She Was Fighting to the Death'
Details Emerging of W. Va. Soldier's Capture and Rescue
【「彼女は決死の覚悟で戦っていた
ウェストヴァージニア出身の兵士が捕虜となり救出されるまでの
くわしい経緯がしだいにわかってきた】
By Susan Schmidt and Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, April 3, 2003; Page A01
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写真：
Special Operations forces remove Jessica Lynch on a stretcher. (U.s. Central Command Via AP)
http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/images/I16204-2003Apr03L
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Pfc. Jessica Lynch, rescued Tuesday from an Iraqi hospital, fought fiercely and shot several enemy soldiers after Iraqi forces ambushed the Army's 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company, firing her weapon until she ran out of ammunition, U.S. officials said yesterday.
Lynch, a 19-year-old supply clerk, continued firing at the Iraqis even after she sustained multiple gunshot wounds and watched several other soldiers in her unit die around her in fighting March 23, one official said. The ambush took place after a 507th convoy, supporting the advancing 3rd Infantry Division, took a wrong turn near the southern city of Nasiriyah.
【リンチは《中略》身体のあちこちに銃創を受けながらもイラク兵たちに発砲を続け、先月23日の戦闘のなかで仲間の兵士たちが死んでいくのを間近に見た、と米国当局者は語った。】
"She was fighting to the death," the official said. "She did not want to be taken alive."
Lynch was also stabbed when Iraqi forces closed in on her position, the official said, noting that initial intelligence reports indicated that she had been stabbed to death. No official gave any indication yesterday, however, that Lynch's wounds had been life-threatening.
【しかもリンチは、イラク兵たちが忍び寄ってきて刺されたのだと、この米国当局者は語った。この当局者によれば、最初の諜報報告は彼女が刺されて死にかけていたと伝えていたそうだ。昨日はリンチが致命傷を負っているなどと言っていた当局者は一人もいなかったのだが……。】
Several officials cautioned that the precise sequence of events is still being determined, and that further information will emerge as Lynch is debriefed. Reports thus far are based on battlefield intelligence, they said, which comes from monitored communications and from Iraqi sources in Nasiriyah whose reliability has yet to be assessed. Pentagon officials said they had heard "rumors" of Lynch's heroics but had no confirmation.
There was no immediate indication whether Lynch's fellow soldiers killed in the ambush were among the 11 bodies found by the Special Operations commandos who rescued Lynch at Saddam Hussein Hospital in Nasiriyah. U.S. officials said that at least some of the bodies are believed to be those of U.S. servicemen. Two were found in the hospital's morgue, and nine were found in shallow graves on the grounds outside.
Seven soldiers from the 507th are still listed as missing in action following the ambush. Five others, four men and a woman, were taken captive after the attack. Video footage of the five has been shown on Iraqi television, along with grisly pictures of at least four soldiers killed in the battle.
Lynch, of Palestine, W.Va., arrived yesterday at a U.S. military hospital in Germany. She was in "stable" condition, with broken arms and a broken leg in addition to the gunshot and stab wounds, sources said. Other sources said both legs and one arm were broken. Victoria Clarke, a Pentagon spokeswoman, gave no specifics of Lynch's condition, telling reporters only that she is "in good spirits and being treated for injuries."
But one military officer briefed on her condition said that while Lynch was conscious and able to communicate with the U.S. commandos who rescued her, "she was pretty messed up." Last night Lynch spoke by telephone with her parents, who said she was in good spirits, but hungry and in pain.
"Talk about spunk!" said Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), whom military officials had briefed on the rescue. "She just persevered. It takes that and a tremendous faith that your country is going to come and get you."
One Army official said that it could be some time before Lynch is reunited with her family, since experience with those taken prisoner since the Vietnam War indicates that soldiers held in captivity need time to "decompress" and reflect on their ordeal with the help of medical professionals.
"It's real important to have decompression time before they get back with their families to assure them that they served their country honorably," the official said. "She'll meet with Survival, Escape, Resistance and Evasion psychologists. These are medical experts in dealing with this type of things."
At Central Command headquarters in Qatar, Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks showed a brief night-vision video clip of commandos rushing Lynch, on a stretcher, to a Black Hawk helicopter. Later, television networks showed footage of her arriving in Germany.
One intriguing account of Lynch's captivity came from an unidentified Iraqi pharmacist at Saddam Hussein Hospital who told Sky News, a British network, that he had cared for her and heard her crying about wanting to be reunited with her family.
"She said every time, about wanting to go home," said the pharmacist, who was filmed at the hospital wearing a white medical coat over a black T-shirt. "She knew that the American Army and the British were on the other side of the [Euphrates] river in Nasiriyah city. . . . She said, 'Maybe this minute the American Army [will] come and get me.' " The only injuries the pharmacist said he was aware of were to Lynch's leg, but there was no way to evaluate his statement.
Lynch's rescue at midnight local time Tuesday was a classic Special Operations raid, with U.S. commandos in Black Hawk helicopters engaging Iraqi forces on their way in and out of the medical compound, defense officials said.
Acting on information from CIA operatives, they said, a Special Operations force of Navy SEALs, Army Rangers and Air Force combat controllers touched down in blacked-out conditions. An AC-130 gunship, able to fire 1,800 rounds a minute from its 25mm cannon, circled overhead, as did a reconnaissance aircraft providing video imagery of the operation as it unfolded.
"There was shooting going in, there was some shooting going out," said one military officer briefed on the operation. "It was not intensive. There was no shooting in the building, but it was hairy, because no one knew what to expect. When they got inside, I don't think there was any resistance. It was fairly abandoned."
Meanwhile, U.S. Marines advanced in Nasiriyah to divert whatever Iraqi forces might still have been in the area.
The officer said that Special Operations forces found what looked like a "prototype" Iraqi torture chamber in the hospital's basement, with batteries and metal prods.
Briefing reporters at Central Command headquarters, Brooks said the hospital apparently was being used as a military command post. Commandos whisked Lynch to the Black Hawk helicopter that had landed inside the hospital compound, he said, while others remained behind to clear the hospital.
The announcement of the raid was delayed for more than an hour because some U.S. troops were on the ground longer than anticipated, Brooks said. "We wanted to preserve the safety of the forces," he said.
Correspondent Alan Sipress in Qatar and staff writer Dana Priest contributed to this report.
c 2003 The Washington Post Company
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●『プライベート・リンチ』の救出成功物語は、アカデミー賞受賞を総なめ
にした数年前のスピルバーグの戦争娯楽作品『プライベート・ライアン』を
連想させるかたちで、マスコミが美談仕立てにし始めました。
……ただし、この美談の主人公は、19歳の小娘ではなく、それを救った
“勇敢な兵隊さんたち”という演出になっているようです。まあアメリカ版
の『プロジェクトX』といったところですな。
なにしろ「プライベート・リンチ」は次のような“歴史的価値”があると
いうのですから……。
以下は下記の記事の一部――
【『ニューヨーク・タイムズ』によればリンチ上等兵は、第二次大戦以来、敵の手から奪還できた戦争捕虜の第一号である、ワシントンでは、ブッシュ大統領は救出から一時間後の火曜の午後４時50分にこの作戦を知らされた。大統領はラムズフェルド国防長官に「すばらしい」と語ったという。】
●それではアメリカのマスコミがやんやの喝采で伝えた“プロジェクトX”もどきの記事をご紹介――
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The Age （オーストラリア）
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/04/03/1048962876713.html
'We have the girl. Success'
【「小娘を奪還したぞ、大成功だ」】
April 4 2003
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Picture: AFP
US Private Jessica Lynch.
http://www.theage.com.au/ffxImage/urlpicture_id_1048962894033_2003/04/04/4n_Lynch,0.jpg
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A bold plan devised after a tip-off saved Private Lynch, writes Tracy Wilkinson in Doha, Qatar.
The tip came from an Iraqi.
"She's alive," read the note from a worker at the Nasiriyah hospital where US Private Jessica Lynch was being held in captivity.
Acting on that tip, US Special Forces drew up and carried out a bold plan to rescue Private Lynch - missing in action for more than a week - from Saddam Hospital.
Minutes before the night rescue operation began early on Wednesday, armoured troops launched a decoy attack near a bridge over the Euphrates River.
Then a Black Hawk helicopter, flying with its lights off for stealth and with its crew dependent on night-vision goggles, swooped into the hospital compound just before 1am on Wednesday, local time.
Sniper shots rang out as US Army Rangers leapt out of the helicopter and secured the perimeter while Navy Seals fought their way into the building. Inside, doctors, nurses and patients came out with their hands up. A staff member led them to Private Lynch, who was lying in a bed in a blue hospital gown, suffering from gunshot wounds and broken legs.
It was the first time the US military knew for certain that she was alive. Until then she had been listed as Dust-One: "duty status whereabouts unknown".
They grabbed her, strapped her to a stretcher, and again came under enemy fire as they dashed back to the waiting helicopter. Royal Marine Major Mike Tanner, who led the decoy force, said the retrieval operation took six minutes. Then he heard over the radio: "We have the girl. Success."
The New York Times said Private Lynch was the first US prisoner of war extracted from enemy hands since World War II. In Washington, President George Bush learned of the operation less than an hour later, at 4.50pm on Tuesday. "That's great," he told Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
【『ニューヨーク・タイムズ』によればリンチ上等兵は、第二次大戦以来、敵の手から奪還できた戦争捕虜の第一号である、ワシントンでは、ブッシュ大統領は救出から一時間後の火曜の午後４時50分にこの作戦を知らされた。大統領はラムズフェルド国防長官に「そいつはスゲエや」と語ったという。】
About an hour later, the phone rang in the two-storey wood-frame house of Private Lynch's parents, igniting a joyful chain reaction in Palestine, West Virginia.
Private Lynch was initially taken to a coalition military hospital. Jumpy video footage showed her being carried from the back of the helicopter by five armed commandos. The 19-year-old was smiling wanly, a US flag folded on her chest.
The video, shot using a night-vision lens by a combat camera crew that accompanied the assault forces, was beamed live to General Tommy Franks and his staff at US Central Command in Doha, Qatar as they watched the dramatic snatch unfold. The video was later shown around the world.
Brigadier-General Vincent Brooks, deputy director of operations for Central Command, said there were no US casualties in the mission.
"There was not a firefight inside of the building . . . but there were firefights outside of the building, getting in and getting out," he said.
General Brooks said that Private Lynch was being held by Iraqi paramilitaries, but most had fled the hospital before the rescue team arrived.
Eleven bodies were also seized in the raid, two found in the hospital morgue, and nine others in a freshly dug grave. A Central Command official said that some of them were American, and a forensics team was examining the bodies.
Private Lynch, a supply clerk with the 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company, had been among a group of soldiers ambushed near Nasiriyah on March 23. Two have been confirmed dead; five were shown on Iraqi TV as prisoners of war and seven others, plus Lynch, were missing.
The CIA provided Special Operations Forces with detailed information about where Private Lynch was being held, Administration and Pentagon officials said. CIA officials declined to describe the source of the tip, citing the need to protect their intelligence, although other Administration officials said it came from an Iraqi.
Relatives of Private Lynch told reporters in her hometown that a doctor handed marines a note indicating the wounded soldier was at a hospital.
Military officials said past co-operation with the CIA, and joint training among the Special Operations Forces of all the services, paid off. "The intelligence is so perishable that you have to be able to react quickly," one military officer said. Little else was known about Private Lynch's ordeal. General Brooks said it was not clear whether she had been tortured.
Britain's Sky Television quoted an Iraqi pharmacist who worked at Saddam Hospital as saying he treated Private Lynch for leg injuries, that she wondered if the American army that she knew was nearby would save her, and that she cried a lot.
"Every day I saw her crying about wanting to go home," he told the network. Yesterday she was flown to Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where she was reported to be in stable condition.
- Los Angeles Times, Guardian, New York Times
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●『プラーベート・リンチ』大成功に浮かれるメディアのようすを
論じた『ワシントン・ポスト』の論説――
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ワシントン・ポスト
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19046-2003Apr3.html
The Press Gets Pumped
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 3, 2003; 8:40 AM
Boy, one little POW rescue can sure change the tone of the press coverage.
By the time Ari Fleischer faced reporters yesterday, many of the questions were about who would be running Iraq once Saddam is permanently sidelined.
Goodbye, quagmire.
Of course, it didn't hurt that U.S. forces apparently whipped a Republican Guard unit south of Baghdad. The TV anchors had something to crow about: 25 miles away! 15 miles away!
After a week that produced its share of negative images and stories -- from the Iraqi propaganda tape of American POWs to the awful shooting of Iraqi women and children in a truck that wouldn't stop at a checkpoint -- the rescue of Jessica Lynch seemed to give the press corps a shot of adrenaline. (Journalists were also pumped up over two Newsday correspondents and photographer Molly Bingham being found alive after a week of Iraqi imprisonment.)
A Special Ops helicopter rescue of a wounded prisoner from an Iraqi hospital would be uplifting news in any event. But it has helped personalize -- with a young woman's face, to boot -- the blur of war. The story line shifts to one brave woman and her fight to survive. ("Saving Private Lynch," say the graphics on CBS and NBC.) Reporters descend on her jubilant hometown of Palestine, W. Va., and the family faces the cameras.
Even the stock market shot up.
Things are going so badly for the Iraqis they they're muzzling al-Jazeera.
Fox News is so psyched it's running promo spots featuring axed NBC'er Peter Arnett speaking to Iraqi TV (in contrast to its "fair and balanced" journalism). Will MSNBC retaliate with footage of the now-withdrawn Geraldo drawing his map in the sand?
There's a great New York Post cartoon of Bush driving a convertible past a sign labeled "Victory," with an annoying media kid with a camera in the backseat asking: "Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?"
Yesterday, the media coverage suggested we might be getting there. CNN started headlining it the "March Toward Baghdad."
This is not unlike a political campaign, when setbacks (in the form of bad polls) produces a spate of who-screwed-up stories, while good news (in the form of better polls) produces a spate of comeback stories.
Virginia Postrel has one bone to pick:
"Reporters on Fox News Channel and MSNBC are displaying an exceedingly annoying habit of referring to Pfc. Jessica Lynch as just 'Jessica' in news stories, the better to tug the viewers' paternal/maternal heartstrings. But Jessica Lynch is not the little girl who fell down the well. She is a U.S. soldier serving in harm's way. If you're old enough to be a POW, you're old enough to be referred to as 'Private Lynch.' Even if you're female."
Check out these upbeat stories. The Los Angeles Times:
"With a powerful drive through Iraqi lines south of Baghdad, U.S. forces have reached an important milestone in their 2-week-old war: They are now positioned to encircle and gradually destroy the Republican Guard troops ringing the city. . . .
"The key decision for U.S. war planners now is how long to wait before mounting the final assault."
The New York Times:
"With the new American push toward Baghdad . . . the pendulum has swung decisively in the favor of the United States. After an unexpectedly difficult start, in which allied forces were slowed and harassed by paramilitary forces, the coalition now has the momentum."
The Wall Street Journal:
"The rapid success of U.S. forces in punching through Iraqi defenses south of Baghdad is presenting military commanders with fresh choices about how swiftly they can take the capital while limiting both American and civilian casualties."
The Chicago Tribune: "Pfc. Jessica Lynch's rescue is believed to be the first successful planned military rescue of a prisoner of war since World War II."
The New York Post: "WE CAN SEE BAGHDAD."
Sounds like the fourth quarter of a lopsided football game.
David Frum wants the nattering nabobs of negativity to get with the program:
"Are my ears deceiving me -- or are we hearing the beginnings of a great turn in the press coverage of the war?
"With the daring rescue of American POW Jessica Lynch after 9 days of Iraqi captivity -- the opening of the battle for Baghdad -- the sudden rush of reports of jubilation in liberated Iraq -- and the over-running of Ansar al-Islam's base in northern Iraq, it seems at last to be dawning on the press: The allies are winning.
"So -- can we get all those disgruntled retired generals off the front pages of the papers?
"I am not a believer in journalistic 'objectivity' in wartime. Journalists who cover fires cheer for the firefighters. Journalists who cover crime don't keep neutral between the crooks and their victims. What kind of warped system of values forbids journalists to support their country when the guns are blasting?"
Before we move on to the headlines, media junkies can find our take from The Washington Post on the dangers facing unembedded correspondents, a report on TV's war coverage and a fabricated war photo at the L.A. Times. Too bad we don't get paid by the story.
Slate's William Saletan says we've all gone overboard on Jessica Lynch:
"On television, it was wall-to-wall Jessica. In the newspapers, it's yards of column inches on Jessica. . . . I don't mean to be callous or unpatriotic, but why are we celebrating so loudly? . . .
"Lynch isn't one of the millions of Iraqis we're supposed to be liberating. She's one of the putative liberators. We've said this war isn't an invasion. We've said it isn't for us but for Iraq. And yet, while the average Iraqi's liberation gets no Pentagon fanfare and no air time, the liberation of Jessica Lynch is a 24-hour mediathon. We're celebrating her rescue for the worst of all reasons: because she's American."
Josh Marshall ponders the arguments about "victory" and "defeat" in Iraq:
"By this they mean, how many weeks or months and how many US casualties? Does victory in two months count as success? Is more than three months a failure? Does under 500 battlefield deaths count as success? Over 500? People who are critical of the conduct of this war apparently have to choose their numbers to be credible.
"You start to see how these folks operate. It's sort of like our national debate over the war is a big Iraq-war office pool, like with the NCAA championships or the NFL playoffs. ('I put down for six months and 843 war dead! It was a longshot. But I won big! My foreign policy cred is now assured!')
"But this game-playing is either foolishness or a deliberate attempt to shift people's eyes from what's really being discussed. Duration of combat and numbers of casualties aren't yardsticks for measuring victory or failure. They're costs you incur in achieving your goals. So the numbers game -- in days and bodies -- is bogus. The question is, what are we trying achieve and how close are we to achieving it."
On National Review, Clifford May explores the continuing Saddam mystery:
"Well, one thing's for certain: Saddam Hussein has not hired David Frum and Peggy Noonan as speechwriters.
"After Iraqi state television announced 'Saddam to Address Nation Tuesday Night,' the big event turned out to be a bureaucrat reading boilerplate to a camera. That's like promising the finale of The Bachelorette and getting a rerun of The Dating Game.
"(And isn't it telling that when Saddam's regime sends out a flack to read a statement or to interview a fellow propagandist such as Peter Arnett, he wears a uniform. When they send soldiers out to fight, they're more likely to be dressed in civvies.)
"The Saddam no-show has to be seen as a major flub by what had seemed to be a pretty shrewd public-relations shop. . . .
"At times, Saddam's spokesman sounded almost like a QVC pitchman. He told Iraqi fighters that the war now underway offers 'your chance for immortality' and that, if they acted now, there would be this special bonus: 'Those who are martyred will be rewarded in heaven."
The Weekly Standard's Jonathan Last turns the spotlight on the scribes at CentCom in Qatar:
"These journalists aren't interested in finding out what's going on so much as browbeating the United States. I don't know how representative the sample is, but from the crowd of scribes assembled in Doha, it looks like we've got a planet full of Helen Thomases on our hands.
"And those questions are some of the more respectable ones. At the March 26 briefing, one foreign correspondent proclaimed/asked: 'This war talks about humanity a lot, and according to a Russian radio station that U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter, Elizabeth, is on her way to Baghdad to join an antiwar group who use themselves as human shields to defend further aggression from coalition. What do you have to say to the innocent civilian people who are willing to risk their own lives in a hope to stop this war?'
"A few moments later, another foreign journo--leaning on junk science so discredited that even the U.N. thinks it's bunk--asked: 'General, how much of your weaponry uses depleted uranium? And what are your concerns about the effects of that on Iraqi civilians?'
"On the one hand, it's frightening to realize that the global media operate on a professional level roughly equivalent to a bad college paper. But on the other hand, it's a little bit liberating: After all, with press like this, no wonder the rest of the world hates us--America really is besieged by a vast, left-wing conspiracy."
Since Rummy has been complaining about military second-guessers, Salon's Joe Conason goes to the videotape:
"Rumsfeld didn't hesitate to offer his own criticisms, back when the Clinton administration and NATO, led by Gen. Wesley Clark (now a CNN commentator) were prosecuting what turned out to be a highly successful war in Kosovo.
"Four years ago, he told CNN that he saw a 'similar pattern' to the Vietnam debacle in that conflict. 'There is always a risk in gradualism. It pacifies the hesitant and the tentative,' whatever that meant. . . .
"A few weeks later, Rumsfeld showed up on CNBC's 'Hardball' to reiterate the same critique, while again insisting that with troops in battle he wanted 'to be supportive.' . . .
"'I'm not a fan of how we seem to have drifted into this, and I -- I worry about a gradualist approach . . . I think it was a mistake to say that we would not use ground forces, because it simplifies the problem for Milosevic,' he told Chris Matthews."
The New Republic's Gregg Easterbrook deconstructs the Rummy-bashing as a turf battle:
"Television figures--who don't like Rumsfeld because he fails to defer to TV figures and at times lectures them as if they were children--now twist the news about him in the least flattering way.
"As regards the Pentagon budget wars, the Army, which intensely dislikes Rumsfeld, is using this opportunity to stage a leaking campaign intended to make him look bad. Yesterday's New York Times front pager ("RUMSFELD'S DESIGN FOR WAR CRITICIZED ON THE BATTLEFIELD") surely consists primarily of Army leaks. And they're precision-guided smart leaks at that.
"The Army dislikes Rumsfeld because the 'revolution in military affairs' faction, of which he is grand vizier, wants to cut the Army's divisions and budget, while boosting funding for Air Force and Navy aviation. Making Rumsfeld, a former Navy pilot, look like he doesn't understand land warfare issues is essential to the Army counterattack."
Arnett speaks! To the Los Angeles Times:
"Peter Arnett said Tuesday he was upset with how NBC severed ties with him the day before, and sounded more defiant than apologetic over his decision to grant an interview to state-run Iraqi TV.
"In an interview from Baghdad, where he hopes to stay if he can find enough work, Arnett called the controversy a 'storm in a bloody teacup.' He said he was irritated that he had spent 19 days helping NBC, whose own reporters left citing safety concerns, and 'then I'm being trashed.' . . .
"NBC, he said, 'was just grateful for anything I could give them' and used him up to 20 hours per day. 'But in the end, I was thrown out on the street, and very casually, my reputation in shreds -- for what? For helping them out.' . . .
"An NBC News spokeswoman said: 'On the 'Today' show, Peter Arnett said that he had made 'a stupid misjudgment.' And he apologized to us and the American people. We'll leave it at that.'"
Perhaps Arnett should have left it at that.
Still, this sounds a little harsh:
"Correspondent Peter Arnett should be 'tried as a traitor' for remarks he made in an interview with Iraqi state television, Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., said Tuesday," the Cincinnati Enquirer reports.
"'I think Mr. Arnett should be met at the border and arrested should he come back to America,' said Bunning."
Anyone else you'd like locked up, senator?
Another senator takes aim not Arnett but at Bush, according to the Boston Globe:
"Senator John F. Kerry said yesterday that President Bush committed a 'breach of trust' in the eyes of many United Nations members by going to war with Iraq, creating a diplomatic chasm that will not be bridged as long as Bush remains in office.
"'What we need now is not just a regime change in Saddam Hussein and Iraq, but we need a regime change in the United States,' Kerry said in a speech at the Peterborough Town Library. Despite pledging two weeks ago to cool his criticism of the administration once war began, Kerry unleashed a barrage of criticism as US troops fought within 25 miles of Baghdad."
Finally, we were wondering about this word "cakewalk" that kept getting applied to Iraq (where's Safire when you need him?). Public relations man Chris Ullman tracked down this explanation on the Bedtime Browser:
"Most authorities consider that this saying goes back to the days of slavery in the USA. The slaves used to hold competitions to see which couple could produce the most elegant walk. The best promenaders won a prize, almost always a cake. The extravagant walk required for this type of competition came to be called a Cakewalk and this gave rise to the old fashioned expression 'it's a cakewalk'. However the meaning later came to emphasise the trivial nature of the competition and began to imply that the effort needed was minor and of little account."
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題名には必ず「阿修羅さんへ」と記述してください。
