All the news that’s fit to omit

Wednesday, November 2nd, 2005 1:38 pm by Neal

All the news that’s fit to omit is Michelle Malkin’s latest on the hypocrisy of the New York Times. Anyone reading this piece of trash is, and deserves to be, ignorant of the great work that is really happening in Iraq and the men and women in the military who are accomplishing it. This rag is not fit to line a bird cage, and its readers are being fed a pile of propaganda that would make the Ministry of Truth proud. Malkin writes

Last Wednesday, the Times published a 4,624-word opus on American casualties of war in Iraq. “2,000 Dead: As Iraq Tours Stretch On, a Grim Mark,” read the headline. The macabre, Vietnam-evoking piece appeared prominently on page A2. Among those profiled were Marines from the First Battalion of the Fifth Marine Regiment, including Cpl. Jeffrey B. Starr. Here’s the relevant passage:

Another member of the 1/5, Cpl. Jeffrey B. Starr, rejected a $24,000 bonus to re-enlist. Corporal Starr believed strongly in the war, his father said, but was tired of the harsh life and nearness of death in Iraq. So he enrolled at Everett Community College near his parents’ home in Snohomish, Wash., planning to study psychology after his enlistment ended in August.

But he died in a firefight in Ramadi on April 30 during his third tour in Iraq. He was 22.

Sifting through Corporal Starr’s laptop computer after his death, his father found a letter to be delivered to the marine’s girlfriend. ”I kind of predicted this,” Corporal Starr wrote of his own death. ”A third time just seemed like I’m pushing my chances.”

The paper’s excerpt of Corporal Starr’s letter leaves the reader with the distinct impression that this young Marine was darkly resigned to a senseless death. The truth is exactly the opposite. Late last week, I received a letter from Corporal Starr’s uncle, Timothy Lickness. He wanted you to know the rest of the story — and the parts of Corporal Starr’s letter that the Times failed to include:


“Obviously if you are reading this then I have died in Iraq. I kind of predicted this, that is why I’m writing this in November. A third time just seemed like I’m pushing my chances. I don’t regret going, everybody dies but few get to do it for something as important as freedom. It may seem confusing why we are in Iraq, it’s not to me. I’m here helping these people, so that they can live the way we live. Not have to worry about tyrants or vicious dictators. To do what they want with their lives. To me that is why I died. Others have died for my freedom, now this is my mark.”

So, the Times — through a deliberate act of omission — smears the memory and honor of a Marine in order to further their agenda of opposing this war. The Times intentionally misrepresented this soldier’s writings by omitting the most powerful statements that he made in his letter: that not only does he NOT regret going and fighting, but also that he sees helping “these people” “live the way we live” (in freedom) as his noble life’s work, his “mark”. That the writer and even the Times’ ombudsman’s office are unapologetic about this manipulation of the truth is unforgivable.

Shame on you, New York Times. You are pondscum.

Comments are closed.