The Way Yahoo Spins A Soldier’s Death & Vietnam

by John Hawkins | April 8, 2004 11:59 pm

Many opponents of the Bush administration have noted that they’ve attempted to keep the press from taking pics of the flag draped coffins of soldiers who’ve died fighting the war on terrorism. Well look at the caption below on this pic from Yahoo[1] and I think you’ll understand the Bush administration’s position…

Soldiers from the 82nd Airborne carry the coffin of a colleague killed in Baghdad. In the US military families can only watch and wait for that fateful knock on the door as the toll in Iraq goes up amid some of the bloodiest clashes seen in over a year

“US military families can only watch and wait for that fateful knock on the door”…what is this — Al-Jazeera or Counterpunch?

Since the war on terrorism started, we’ve been hearing Vietnam comparisons. A couple of weeks into Afghanistan it was Vietnam. Then less than a week into Iraq and it was Vietnam. Now we’re absolutely slaughtering Al-Sadr’s militia and a bunch of Sunni gangs and their terrorista allies and that’s Vietnam.

The only thing that I’ve seen that reminds me of Vietnam is the relentless negative spin the left, many Democrats in Washington, and the mainstream media have put on everything that happened since the war on terrorism began. There’s your Vietnam comparison and this attempt to sap the moral of American families with loved ones fighting the good fight overseas is part of it…

***Update #1***: Allah[2] says the following,

“Please note, John: To the best of my knowledge, Yahoo doesn’t write the captions for the photos it hosts. The agency that produced the photo does. In this case, the culprit is–surprise–Agence France Presse.”

It’s entirely possible that what Allah is saying is correct and the AFP actually wrote the caption. But, if that’s the case, then the AFP should be excoriated for writing it and Yahoo should be ripped for running it….

***Update #2***: Little Green Footballs[3] confirms that the AFP wrote the caption and also notes that this picture was originally taken on March 22[4]. So why run a two week old picture now, without revealing that it isn’t current, & with a caption designed to undercut the moral of military families? Draw your own conclusions…

Endnotes:
  1. Yahoo: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/040408/photos_ts_afp/040408080827_xd09mq9t_photo0
  2. Allah: http://www.allahpundit.com
  3. Little Green Footballs: http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=10565_Media_in_Full_Tet_Mode
  4. March 22: http://editorial.gettyimages.com/source/CFW/details.aspx?iid=3121089&print=true

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