Another question is if the majority of the US shares your view …

Point is I get really annoyed when the media is starting to spin something. And not just when it comes to Lynch. Maybe it’s just that when it comes to war which is after all an irrevocable and serious action I would like to see honest and serious reporting at the least. It couldn’t be more important. Especially during a rather sensitive intervention like Iraqi Freedom. Of course I’ve studied my history and know that accurate information has never been synonymous with war. But there is a big moral difference between twisting the truth and withholding information .. and to dehumanize and disgrace the “enemy” (or in this case the ppl that were going to be freed).

LOL at #10! I’m afraid you’re right.

1) Wag the Dog is a great movie. But its just that…a movie. As such its a work of fiction. The moviemaker can make it come out any way he/she wants. Rambo is also a fictional (comic book) character. He can walk on water, see the future, plan perfect operations etc.

2) Jessica Lynch signed up in the army so she could get help with her college expenses. She is a army clerk. As such she processes paperwork. Her job is supposed to be behind the lines. She and the rest of the 507th were behind the main tank force that was sweeping up Iraq. In her group there were fuel trucks, tank mechanics, cooks (Lori Piestewa), clerks and drivers. No combat personnel. It happened that she was driving one of the vehicles because her group was short on drivers. When they were ambushed they remembered their training which says that in that situation they are to drive as fast as they can out of the kill zone. While they were driving fast her truck overturned and she suffered most, if not all, of her injuries. Nobody knows whether her truck took a hit or whether she just accidently overturned it herself since everyone else in her truck died.

3) She was captured by the Iraqis and apparently taken to an Iraqi hospital where she was being treated.

4) For a long time the authorities didn’t know whether she was dead or alive. Meantime the war continued.

5) The next time that the army heard of her was when an Iraqi man came in to the army headquarters near the hospital. He claimed that he had seen her in the hospital. The army sent people to verify his story. It appeared to be true. She was in the hospital there.

6) The army then planned a rescue operation. This operation had all the elements of any action of this kind. A diversion, overwhelming force, surprise etc. The action report finished with the words “Mission accomplished, we met no resistance”. This is the best of all possible outcomes.

7) She was taken to an American field hospital for evaluation. She was then transferred to an American hospital in Germany for further treatment. Finally she was transferred to the Walter Reed hospital in Washington.

Sometime during item 6 the press got hold of her story. In their Chicken Little, “the sky is falling” fashion, they told what they considered to be her story. This tale included all of the elements that you are reacting to. In reality, no one knew the truth. When the truth finally was discovered the press reacted as if they had been lied to when in reality it was a fiction that the press itself made up.

9) Jessica Lynch (“I am an American soldier”) is now home in West Virginia “In the Bosom of Abraham”.

10) The movie version of her story will have her firing her M16 ’till the barrel melts and an Omar Sharif clone will slap her around in the hospital. Rambo himself will come out of retirement to lead her rescue team.

By act I mean to say the Lynch story was blown all out of proportions. All we know for sure is that she was involved in some sort of clash / accident with her group and the vehicle she was travelling in and ended up in an Iraqi hospital. She was later escorted from that hospital after one of the staff had informed the american command. No torture, no Rambo stuff and no daring rescue. Now the question is who made up all those bogus claims. All I know is that the Pentagon did very little to set the record straight.

If that makes her a hero I should get a purple heart every time I crash my bike.

If that makes you a sap I can not tell. I do not know what your idea of the incident is. I was not so precise in my post and neither are you.

You do see the resemblance with the 1997 movie Wag The Dog by Barry Levinson I hope. Don’t you find it at least slightly amusing?