I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
O_o
My Lai Hero Hugh Thompson Jr. Dies
Hugh Thompson Jr., a former Army helicopter pilot honored for rescuing Vietnamese civilians from his fellow GIs during the My Lai massacre, died early Friday. He was 62.
Thompson, whose role in the 1968 massacre did not become widely known until decades later, died at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Alexandria, hospital spokesman Jay DeWorth said.
Trent Angers, Thompson's biographer and family friend, said Thompson died of cancer.
"These people were looking at me for help and there was no way I could turn my back on them," Thompson recalled in a 1998 Associated Press interview.
Early in the morning of March 16, 1968, Thompson, door-gunner Lawrence Colburn and crew chief Glenn Andreotta came upon U.S. ground troops killing Vietnamese civilians in and around the village of My Lai.
They landed the helicopter in the line of fire between American troops and fleeing Vietnamese civilians and pointed their own guns at the U.S. soldiers to prevent more killings.
Colburn and Andreotta had provided cover for Thompson as he went forward to confront the leader of the U.S. forces. Thompson later coaxed civilians out of a bunker so they could be evacuated, and then landed his helicopter again to pick up a wounded child they transported to a hospital. Their efforts led to the cease-fire order at My Lai.
In 1998, the Army honored the three men with the prestigious Soldier's Medal, the highest award for bravery not involving conflict with an enemy. It was a posthumous award for Andreotta, who had been killed in battle three weeks after My Lai.
"It was the ability to do the right thing even at the risk of their personal safety that guided these soldiers to do what they did," Army Maj. Gen. Michael Ackerman said at the 1998 ceremony. The three "set the standard for all soldiers to follow."
Lt. William L. Calley, a platoon leader, was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in the killings, but served just three years under house arrest when then-President Nixon reduced his sentence.
Author Seymour Hersh won the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for his expose of the massacre in 1969 while working as a freelance journalist. The massacre became one of the pivotal events as opposition to the war was growing in the United States.
Hersh called Thompson "one of the good guys."
"You can't imagine what courage it took to do what he did," Hersh said.
Although Thompson's story was a significant part of Hersh's reports, and Thompson testified before Congress, his role in ending My Lai wasn't widely known until the late 1980s, when David Egan, a professor emeritus at Clemson University, saw an interview in a documentary and launched a letter-writing campaign that eventually led to the awarding of the medals in 1998.
Please raise a glass to this American Hero. Only God knows how many lives he saved.
But there's so much good news in Iraq!
Cover?
-
Ann Garrels?
Is she still in Baghdad?
Ugh. I hate this war, and I blame this president, who must be impeached.
Well, this is obviously a sign of desperation.
Anyone seen Amanpour?
It would be so convenient...
Where is ms Amanpour?
Anyone would be awful, but Garrels' reporting has been singular among broadcasters.
No hint from Simon et al. on West Coast Weekend Edition West Coast feed...
"Anyone seen Amanpour?
It would be so convenient...
dave™"
Watch it turn out to be her, and the military will find her after having triangulated her latest cell phone call.
Then Powerline will explain that tapping journalists is saving their lives.
Ms. Amanpour is not an American.
Regardless of the person's identity, this kind of news story fills me with dread.
Thompson represented the ideal to which every American military man or woman should aspire.
It's a high bar.
Certainly one that supporters of the deserting coward can never hope to reach.
Now in reality is it an actual known journalist or a producer et al that could also be called a journalist?
If it is someone well-known, whooo boy.
"It was the ability to do the right thing even at the risk of their personal safety that guided these soldiers to do what they did,"
Rest in Peace Hugh Thompson.
bink--she was raised in Britain and is married to a US national.
Watch it turn out to be her, and the military will find her after having triangulated her latest cell phone call.
Then Powerline will explain that tapping journalists is saving their lives.
DING DING DING DING DING!
We have a weiner!!!
If I was an insurgent in Iraq, the last people I would be fucking with is journalists. Do they really want us to get news from Iraq only from the US military?
Hugh Thompson saw his duty and did it.
Oh shit, I hope to hell it isn't Amanpour - goddamn.
Well, I guess it's terrible no matter who it is -
Yes, saw this and wondered who it was. But the journalists I've seen lately are men, so I don't even know what women are over there.
Anyone would be awful, but Garrels' reporting has been singular among broadcasters.
She's one of the few NPR reporters that I respect anymore.
Where is ms Amanpour?
Teen LaQueefa
If it's her, the wingnuts will recommend she be beheaded. She's the "war slut," doncha know?
Please raise a glass to this American Hero. Only God knows how many lives he saved.
Bing Crosby
I remember seeing a 60 minutes piece on him. A hero, a real one. Made me sad when i read that news on americablog earlier this morning. Rumsfeld would send such a man to guantanamo i'm afraid.
If it's her, the wingnuts will recommend she be beheaded.
That's their thing. They are so openly in love with all of the methods of the terrorists, especially the decapitation.
I agree about Ann Garrels, she's done some really good reporting out of Iraq.
I hate this.
yeah, every time I hear garrels I think it's time to end the war just so she can come home.
fox called amanpour a spokesperson for al qaeda
Someone should ask Colin Powell for his comments on Mr. Thompson's passing. Since if Colin had had his druthers it all would have been swept under the rug.
From Khaleej Times online (UAE)
BAGHDAD - Gunmen kidnapped a female American journalist and killed her Iraqi translator in western Baghdad, an Interior Ministry official said on Saturday.
Maj. Falah Mohamadawi said gunmen kidnapped the American journalist and killed her translator.
According to Mohamadawi, the translator told police before he died that she had been kidnapped and that they had been heading to meet Adnan Al Dulaimi, head of the Sunni Arab Iraqi Accordance Front who lives in the Adel neighborhood - dominated by Sunni Arabs and considered one of toughest in Baghdad.
Hail and farewell, Mr. Thompson.
i hope your legacy is the imitation of others, and not new policies and procedures to prevent others from doing as you did.
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Ugh. I hate this war, and I blame this president, who must be impeached.
On the Clock
and then turned over to the hague for trial for crimes against humanity.
,,
When the ninjas wailed on their guitars, the pirates started spraying diarrhea on each other and loved it.
``
REAL ULTIMATE POWER!!!1!
Let's all watch out for posthumulous swiftboating of Hugh Thompson by the Wingnutters
If she's blond, FOX will demand that we immediately nuke Iraq, Iran, and the Grand Duchy of Fenwick.
the name is Jil Kieily.
There were people who wanted Thompson's head at the time. One Congressman suggested that he be the only one put on trial.
This is very worrisome, and who knows if in fact it's true.
Amanpour is one of the pleasures of traveling in Europe. CNNi is nothing like its bastard cousin in the US.
fox called amanpour a spokesperson for al qaeda
Atrios
Funny, al-Zawahiri was just saying that about Bush yesterday.
Please raise a glass to this American Hero. Only God knows how many lives he saved.
Bing, you got it-here's to Mr. Thompson. I saw his story on Sixty Minutes-what a true American hero.
I wish there were a million of him.
I wonder how the chickenhawks feel about female liberal journalists having more courage than they do. To have women go to Iraq and risk personal safety to pursue their convictions must really sting for those pasty-faced scaredy-cats hiding behind their keyboards. To be shown up by liberals who are women, no less.
I don't wish this fate on anyone, but I sincerely hope it is not Jane Arraf from CNN International. She is Canadian but the writer of the article could assume she is American by association. http://www.cnn.com/CNN/
anchors_r...arraf.jane.html
Jil Kieily (per Euro wires)
fox called amanpour a spokesperson for al qaeda
(pushes keyboard aside, bangs forehead on desk)
That's the Duchy of Grand Fenwick.
And Faux should face some serious censure for calling Amanpour that. They should be hounded by demanding calls and letters and every decent guest (these are our conjectural guests, who show up on O'Reilly and can't stop giggling at him) should insist on asking if they honestly believe that and have any follow-up plans to incarcerate all Jews since on the same logic they're all Mossad.
Nur,
what paper/news outlet is she affiliated with? Does it say?
'scuse me, Duchy of Grand Fenwick. A slip of the fingers.
I just hope that there are some like Hugh Thompson in Iraq.
One of him is worth a million chickenhawks like Bush/Cheney.
Then again, that may not be saying much since a million times nothing still adds up to nothing.
what paper/news outlet is she affiliated with? Does it say?
No one comes up on Google.
Impeach. Convict. Hand Over to the Hague.
did we know that Ariel Sharon is really Arik Scheinerman?
She is Canadian but the writer of the article could assume she is American by association.
We heard a year ago that so many Americans wore maple leaves on their clothes and luggage that the Iraqis take for granted that prominent Canadian symbolism marks an overreaching American.
This article from Kuwait identifies her as Jewel Carrol:
http://www.kuna.net.kw/home/Stor...=en&
DSNO=803261
I can't back that up with anything else, so take with grain of salt.
Yes! "turned over to the hague". Can you get them to say that on FOX? Please...
sheets
Oh, I bet it's "Jill Carroll" of the Christian Science Monitor. She is currently in Iraq and her named matches names transcribed from Arabic in Middle Eastern news sources.
Doesn't anyone give the slightest shit about her translator? That was a human life too.
"Doesn't anyone give the slightest shit about her translator? That was a human life too."
Give me a break.
Alan John Ghazi, an Iraqi Christian
Not Lara Logan!
Jill Carroll sounds right...she did a story for NPR on 29 December.
Yep. She was still filing stories from Iraq as of Thursday.
Shit. I scrolled down hoping it wasn't Ann Garrels, but hearing another name isn't any consolation. How terrible.
Oh no. I hope it isn't Jenny Eccleston. I am very fond of her.
http://home.planet.nl/~wolf0620/
...n.jennifer.html
Here are Jill Carroll's recent bylines via Google
http://tinyurl.com/96mkq
awful...
http://
www.csmonitorservices.com...equestid=108082
Here's a link to a bunch of stories written by Jill Carroll of the Christian Science Monitor.
I goggled Jill Carroll and the one from a news site showed a male--are we sure that Jill Carroll is a woman?
On the Clock--you beat me to it!
Jill Carroll sounds right...she did a story for NPR on 29 December.
oh, fuck.
Interesting and relevant Carroll article:
http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=3829
It's probably not a video reporter, otherwise they would have mentioned the cameraman and/or producer as well as the translator.
From Carroll's AJR piece:
"Iraq is an expensive place for freelancers to operate," Brandon says. Besides the cash needed for hotels, translators, cars and satellite phones, there's the stress of writing something that sells. "Finding new and interesting stories somewhere like Baghdad, where all the reporters are based, can be a real struggle, so the easier solution is to head out to lesser-visited places--Najaf, Kurdistan and Basra in particular--bearing in mind that staffers are often reluctant to leave Baghdad in case they miss something major."
Freelancers are our front-line reporters in the Stenography Age.
Christiane Amanpour know too much about the NSA spying. She was actually kidnapped by an undercover NSA team. I'm kidding, but it's actually fairly plausible, given the criminal nature of the current regime in Washington.
Only US outlet carrying this story so far are Fox and USA Today. Kuwait New Agency lists the name as "Jewel Carrol". Seems odd that there's nothing from the CSM about this though..
Her latest piece on CSM is dated 1/6/06 http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/01...07s02-
woiq.html
http://ladyofarabia.blogspot.com/
This blog appears to be about Ms. Carroll, written by her sister...
Anyway, doesn't Amanpour speak fluent Arabic already? If so, the fact that there was a translator along would seem to have ruled her out from the start.
She may not be identified yet because the network/newspaper hasn't been able to reach her family. Having once witnessed the upset caused by the report of a bad car accident overseas involving a reporter whose elderly mother hadn't been told, I think her name doesn't need to be revealed right this instant.
A reasonable request for radio silence on the journo's identity has come down over at Kos, and is being abided for now. Not sure what material difference it makes, since Mideast agencies are the source, but I'm willing to have my comments iced.
Alan John Ghazi, an Iraqi Christian
Another of the anonymous 20,000 or 200,000 Iraqis who've died in this gory fiasco but who aren't real enough to get mentioned and tallied on network news.
I gotta check back on how Cronkite, Murrow, et al., handled this during the Normandy invasion. When they discussed casualties did they provide statistics that ignored the existance of our British and Canadian allies? And all the French civilians caught in the crossfire?
I know at least four. Oh this is terrible. I'm sick.
"Anyway, doesn't Amanpour speak fluent Arabic already? If so, the fact that there was a translator along would seem to have ruled her out from the start."
I don't know if Amanpour speaks Arabic. She is half Iranian, but in Iran the language spoken is Farsi, not Arabic...
Who is the Renee Zellweger look alike?
What do these thugs, these sick, disgusting, repugnant, Koran-cultists think they're accomplishing by harming innocent journalists?
editoress thanks for the explanation. I still question why news of the kidnapping itself is slow to make the headlines.
La Reppublica is reporting "Jill Carroll"
American reporter Jill Carrol, was kidnapped today in Baghdad. An Iraqi colleague was killed in the abduction. Carrol worked for the US newspaper "Christian Science Monitor". She was with Alan John Ghazi, an Iraqi Christian who worked as her translator and chauffeur as she was headed to a rendezvous with a Sunni Arab leader.
The "Christian Science Monitor" is a century-old publication started by the First Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston. The last article published by Carrol in CSM concerned violence in Iraq following the December elections and its consequences on the different ethnic groups. Up until a year and a half ago, Carrol worked for the [Italian left-wing] news service, Ansa. [Like Giuliana Sgrena].
Horrible for any reporter but, oh, Jill Carrol is a pretty good and generally responsible reporter.
From her sister's blog:
>None of the US soldiers on her patrol spoke Arabic. There is one Arabic interpreter assigned to the company, and multiple squads go out on patrol 24 hours a day. Jill was told that more Arabic interpreters are coming. But for now, most of the soldiers patrol without any way to communicate with Iraqis.
>That put Jill in an uncomfortable position of doing a job that should be done by US military personnel. "If I begin to interview anyone, others gather around and ask for help. Mostly, they want to know if there will be compensation for the homes that were destroyed. One woman, with blue tattoos on her face, her tribal markings, said her son had been detained by US forces. She wanted to know how to find out what had happened to him," says Jill.
>"The captain told me to tell her that there would be teams coming in soon that would help. He told me to tell them that these marines look for bombs. Others would come to help with their houses and families."
>Jill says that the marines often misunderstood as people approached them. "They think the residents are angry at them. But culturally, it's normal to get close and touch someone when asking a question. This is how you ask for help here. They're not hostile, just upset."
>"As a journalist, I worry about the precedent I'm setting. I don't want Iraqis to think that journalists secretly work for the military. We're supposed to gather information and be neutral, like the Red Cross. But under the circumstances, it's hard not to facilitate communication if it defuses tension," she says.
http://ladyofarabia.blogspot.com/
>A reasonable request for radio silence on the journo's identity has come down over at Kos
Okay, ice my comments. (But please remember to check if the icing was necessary or just something to keep this out of the news. I mean, come on, she's a missing white woman, seems like the networks should be going apeshit.)
Ms. Amanpour, for the record, is married to former Clinton admin official Jamie Rubin, which would grant her American citizenship.
Not necessarily earth shattering info but it does make her just as liable to targeting as any other American.
It is sickening no matter who the lady in question may be.
Being married to an American official does give you a fast track to citizenship. I am not sure whether they required it of her though and not sure whether she would have chosen it.
Amazing. All info is being blocked. Even the blog http://ladyofarabia.blogspot.com/, which appeared to be of J. C.'s sister is not working anymore..
I've heard Reporters Without Borders is shielding her name in order to secure her release. Let's hope she comes out safe and sound from this one
Part 1:
First, let me say that I entirely agree with the principle of witholding the names of abductees. And, the principle seems to be working.
The blog that the journalist's sister kept has been pulled, and the reporter's name is largely absent from what few reports have filtered through. Sure, the name is out there in the asian press and a few blogs, but most bloggers are cooperating, and many are redacting any specific information.
More significantly, most of the MSM are utterly silent about the kidnapping, a full day after it occurred. There is simply no story. And, while I utterly concur with the principle, I can't help but be struck by the irony.
When a journalist is at risk, the news organizations demonstrate utter solidarity and restraint, but when a member of the general public is concerned, they will stop at nothing to run the information to ground, intruding on the private grief of families and co-workers in the belief that the "public has the right to know" everything and immediately.
I hope that, once the full story comes out, and once the kidnapping is over, there is, at least, some discussion about why journalistic self-censorship was appropriate in this case, but not in so many others (the West Virginia debacle being a case in point or, even more so in a story like this one).
(continued on next post...)
Part 2:
Having been on the receiving end of the obtrusive and insensitive press, I have always been saddened by their willingness to ride roughshod over victims' sensibilities with such indelicacy, and to jeopardize ongoing policework and investigations - always claiming that the 'public' has a 'right' and a 'need' to know everything, even though that 'need' is mostly nothing but prurient interest.
With so much real reporting - government and corporate hypocrisy, corruption, inaction...AIDS in Africa...feasible and affordable solutions to widespread social and medical problems - it is sad that the profession has decided that 'up-to-the-minute' reporting is the gold-standard for journalism.
In fact, what's missing from the 24-hour news cycle is not immediacy, but historical context. Not once in all the current Iraqi conflict have I seen a detailed and comprehensive report on American involvement in the Middle East, including both positive and culpable interventions. No one ever mentions this for instance (sorry about the cached version, but the original requires sign-up).
So, congratulations to the MSM in protecting the safety and privacy of a terrific journalist, and I hope that their efforts result in a quick and positive end to the kidnapping. But I also hope that, along with recent events at the NYT and the WP, it provokes some discussion and debate about the real role the media should be playing, and what should be their first priorities.
In the midst of this terrible Iraq debacle it would be very refreshing, for instance, for someone to ask the White House if this statement might have been ill-advised: "Let me finish. There are some who feel like -- that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, bring them on. We've got the force necessary to deal with the security situation."
I don't know if Amanpour speaks Arabic. She is half Iranian, but in Iran the language spoken is Farsi, not Arabic...
Ah. My mistake then; I had thought she was half Jordanian, not half Iranian.
At any rate, given her long-term presence and freedom of movement throughout the Middle East, I wouldn't be surprised if she speaks both Arabic and Farsi at least passably well. Oh, and French, too. And I strongly suspect that she can dunk a basketball and juggle chainsaws while riding a unicycle.
I read Garrel's book "Naked in Baghdad" about a year ago - it talks about her and the unimbedded reporters operation in Baghdad before the war and during the first invasion. Very powerful stuff, excellent insight into local Iraqi thinking before the war. I highly recommend it. It's too bad NPR doesn't have more like her; they're leaning a little right these days for my tastes, or just being lazy. A shame. Dan Schorr was my college graduation speaker.
Dears, we are wholehearted with you anxiously waiting for news coming from Irak about Jill.
Would you tell her when she comes back that here in France we covered in full dimensions her mishaps .
"Reporter sans frontères" ( Reporter without borders) were first to launch a solidarity campaign claiming for her release.
Jill is the type of reporter whom I personnally admire after fourty years as a bureau chief for the French New Agency (AFP) throughout the world.
Faithfully yours
Bertrand C. Bellaigue
editor in chief (e.r)
Anyone found more information on Jill's background? I grew up with a Jill Carroll, age is the same, year of college graduation is the same, grew up in southern NH one street away. Hope to hell it's not the same one. Please email me any info that is turned up.
Thanks!
Anyone found more information on Jill's background? I grew up with a Jill Carroll, age is the same, year of college graduation is the same, grew up in southern NH one street away. Hope to hell it's not the same one. Please email me any info that is turned up.
Thanks!
oh i agree - When we get piled upon one another in large cities. as in Europe. we shall become as corrupt as Europe.
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