Times Disassembles Truth, Strips Words of Meaning, Reassembles

Let tell you what pisses me off about the New York Times. Its not so much that they flat out lie, but that they're extremely selective with the truth when it suits them.

An example can be found in today's International section in an article titled 'A Trail of Pain From a Botched Attack in Iraq in 2003' regarding a "friendly fire" incident that claimed the lives of 3 US soldiers and wounded 5 in April 2003. An Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle mistook a US artillery unit for an Iraqi missile battery and fired on them with a 500-pound bomb.

Where the Times departs from the truth is when they claim that the soldiers involved - and the public in general - were kept in the dark about the incident, and that the fact that it was friendly fire has been covered up. They go as far as suggesting that the soldiers involved were, in fact, pressured to conceal the truth.


Specialist Coyne, now retired from the military, received a Purple Heart for his injury. But he says that at the award ceremony at Fort Sill, Okla., his superiors instructed him to keep quiet about his suspicions that he had been bombed by American forces.

What they fail to mention is that an investigation into the incident was under way just hours after the incident, and the facts of the case were already common knowledge just days afterwards.

Until recently, some believed the explosion was caused by an Iraqi grenade,
while others blamed non-American coalition forces.

Who are these 'some'? Along with others, CNN reported the incident as friendly fire just days after the event:


An accidental F-15E Strike Eagle airstrike killed three U.S. service members and injured five others, U.S. officials said.


In addition to this, the father of Donald Oaks Jr., one of those killed on April 3rd, was actually informed by the Pentagon of how his son had died on April 4th, 24 hours after he was killed:


The Pentagon would only tell the family that Donny was killed by "friendly fire" on April 4.


Does it sound like they were trying to cover anything up to you?


Cross-posted at Dean's World.