Where Lies the Truth on Haditha?



The world of military operations is replete with maxims which describe the reality that resides outside of field manuals and checklists.

"No plan survives the first contact"
"If it's stupid but works, it's not stupid"
"The important things are always simple
"The simple things are always hard"
"The easy way is always mined"

and of course..."The first reports are always wrong"



Much have what has been said thus far about the incident at Haditha has been based upon these "first reports", along with rampant and opportunistic speculation to fill in the gaps.

The media, and many pundits would be wise to heed that last maxim, as zeal to break or prolong a story may well do injustice to the actual truth (e.g. the 'final report').

Unfortunately, the media rarely heeds this advice (see Valujet, Duke Lacrosse, Afghan winters, 'bogged down' Iraq offensive, etc, etc...), and is never usually called to account.

Much of what first came out sounded horrible, and was put forth as the truth, despite in reality only being one side of the story (being peddled by perhaps questionable sources). Now as the other side of the story begins to get out, the media find themselves backing off of some previous reports.

I don't know what the final outcome will be, and neither does anyone else. That is why we have official investigations. Perhaps some on the moonbat left think that the DoD will protect its own and whitewash the incident, but they couldn't be further from the truth. As shown in many previous instances, like with Abu Ghraib, DoD investigations do send guilty people to jail. If an investigation or Courts Martial board come to a different conclusion than you, after seeing all the evidence, that is not a conspiratorial whitewash.

That being said, I wish the media would avoid a rush to judgement, but it may be too late for that. At least for them to take it back.

Posted: Sun - June 11, 2006 at 11:35 PM          

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