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Kucinich can't diminish the rescue of Pvt. Lynch
Cleveland Plain Dealer Before he went off to campaign for the presidency, Dennis Kucinich was known around these parts as a guy who would go to bat for his constituents - or even someone else's constituents across town. He was at his political best when he took on local issues with which Congress, properly, would never concern itself. A hospital in danger of closing, train traffic that tied up busy streets, the assignment of telephone area codes - such issues were his bread and butter in the days when he was focused intently on retaining his seat in the House. But now he must think that 10th Congressional District seat is his for as long as he wants it, because he is mounting a very different style of campaign. He's not seeking the presidency, no matter his protestations of seriousness in that endeavor. What he's after these days is plain old notoriety. Unless, in the interest of political science, he's just trying to see how far off the wall a politician can go and still be taken seriously by anyone. This week, he found the limit. In fact, he may have crossed the line. In an insolent "open letter" to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, which Kucinich released on Monday, the Democratic congressman wondered loudly whether the rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch from an Iraqi hospital was a made-for-TV setup. The BBC has been flogging this tale for a while now. Kucinich wants a full rundown of Lynch's injuries and how she suffered them. And he wants to see the uncut, unedited videotape shot by the rescuers so he can evaluate just how dangerous the whole thing really was. If those requests weren't such an insulting act of self-promotion, they would be laughable. To begin with, it's ludicrous to doubt that Lynch will tell her story when she's ready. But I guess it's not as ludicrous as the notion that Kucinich's Official Seal of Danger Approval would mean anything - not that he'll be willing to bestow it. It would be encouraging if a congressman who says he ought to be the commander-in-chief of this nation's military could keep in mind a few realities of war that the contents of a videotape can't change. The hospital where Lynch was lying immobile was in a part of Iraq where coalition forces had not yet arrived. That alone would be reason enough for concern that a rescue mission could run into enemy opposition. A prudent commander would try to send enough muscle in to do the job right the first time, because if the rescue failed there probably wouldn't be an opportunity for another try. Remember, Lynch wasn't the only soldier captured from her ambushed unit, and there was reason to fear that at least some Iraqi forces were executing prisoners of war. So, was the rescue the dramatic, adrenaline-fueled lightning strike that the parts of the videotape we've all seen make it out to be? Maybe the answer to that depends on whether you were watching it from your La-Z-Boy or whether you were there. Even while using 98 percent of my imagination for other things, I have no trouble visualizing young, lightly armed soldiers leaping out of their helicopter with every nerve ending justifiably on a hair-trigger. Kucinich, however, prefers to see the scene through the lens of his opposition to the war. This past master of political theater says he wants to know whether Lynch's rescue was staged. If he decides it was a milk run, what are we supposed to do? Send her back? Trust your common sense: It was dangerous. The whole enterprise in Iraq was, and remains, dangerous. Better to ask whether the rescue was worth the risk. Kucinich should put that question to Jessica Lynch, or to any of the brave soldiers who went in after her. If nothing else, it would tell us how a dedicated pacifist reacts to being
punched right in the nose. http://www.cleveland.com/search/index.ssf?/base/opinion/1054911371303460.xml?ocobr Kucinich Using War for Political GainKucinich=Asshat Dennis Kucinich, the bloviating moron from Ohio who is launching an unlikely campaign for president, has demanded that the Pentagon release the unedited tapes of the PFC Lynch rescue. I expect the DoD to refuse. However, I would love to see them release the tape with a statement similar in tone to this:
It's incendiary, but so is Kucinich's reprehensible attack on the DoD, in concert with a BBC journalist who cannot come up with a cohesive reason to support his theory that the DoD faked the whole thing. (See this Instapundit post to explain the flaw behind this alleged exposé, namely, the lack of gunfire in the final edit of the video). Kucinich is trying to have it both ways; by accusing the military of a staged event, he can either (A) emerge victorious if the Pentagon did stage the rescue or (B) sermonize that he was just trying to make sure that Americans received the whole story. It's obscene, and he should not be allowed to seize the high moral ground as the expense of the military. I, for one, am damn sick and tired of anti-military (not anti-war, anti-military) lefties who insist that the military is out to kill as many women, children, and unarmed civilians as possible. Kucinich certainly fits that profile. Apparently, Kucinich is troubled by reports that there were no Iraqi forces left defending the hospital, and that American soldiers went into the hospital with their weapons drawn, breaking down doors along the way. One must assume that he would be delighted if there were still Iraqi troops in the hospital, and some of our soldiers were killed in the attempt to rescue Lynch. (Of course, the army had no way of knowing that the hospital had been abadoned by the Iraqi army, so their caution was essential and eminently justifiable.) Another issue raised by the BBC report is that Lynch's injuries were less severe than reported. The reporter attempts to blame this on the Pentagon, but his claims are groundless. The DoD does not detail injuries sustained by specific members because to do so would violate the Privacy Act of 1973 (this applies to all government agencies, not just the military). In fact, the CentCom briefers continually declined to respond to questions about Lynch's injuries. The errors in reporting were not due to governmental efforts to spin the news; the media were doing it all by themselves. Also raised in the CNN article was Kucinich's intention to file a resolution requiring the Bush administration to release the data that we used to justify war in Iraq. The fact that even Hans Blix admitted the Iraqis were in material breach of the 14 UN resolutions has not penetrated his tiny little brain. Not surprising for the only Presidential candidate in US history to preside over a city which defaulted on its loans (Kucinich was mayor of Cleveland when the city essential went bankrupt in 1978). For an extremely well-written and comprehensive rebuttal of the whole BBC report, read this post over at CoIntelPro Tool. Bill Herbert lays out the goods on the whole story. It's a prime example of why the media need the blogosphere to keep them honest; they can't do it by themselves. This CNN article contains the official US response to the BBC story. It clarifies and corrects many of the errors and distortions present in the BBC account, but in all fairness should be taken with a grain of salt. |
