HOME | POLITICS | SPORTS | LIFE | SCI/TECH | OPEDS | HELPFUL TIPS
|
June 13, 2003 For those of you who haven't already figured out that you can't actually get news from U.S. mainstream media, allow me to direct you to a U.K. publication called The Independent. On May 15, they published in their online newsletter The Guardian the following: "American media tactics, culminating in the Lynch episode, infuriated the British." Why? Well, it seems that in the wee hours of the morning on April 2nd journalists in Doha, Qatar were summoned to Centcom for a media blitz. Thinking that perhaps Saddam Hussein himself had been captured, they naturally jumped out of bed and rushed to a press briefing, bed hair and all. But the story they were told did not involve Saddam Hussein or any of the infamous faces from the now defunct Baath Party. Instead, they were told of the daring rescue of 19 year-old PFC Jessica Lynch. They were given the gory details of a young and frightened woman with stab and bullet wounds, who was abused and interrogated by the blood-thirsty Iraqi Fedayeen. But thanks to the heroic efforts of an Iraqi lawyer named Mohammed Odeh Al-Rehaief (who reportedly risked his life to inform Lynch's comrades of her whereabouts), her life had been saved in a late-night assault during which PFC Lynch was dramatically pulled from the hospital (where she'd presumably been tortured for days) into the safety of a waiting helicopter--all while under constant enemy fire. Not only was this story hand-fed by Centcom to news correspondents in Doha, but within hours of its release the video of the daring rescue was beamed, via satellite, to viewers in the United States. But according to The Guardian, doctors in Nassirya tell a very different story about PFC Lynch--her treatment and her rescue. For one thing, according to hospital staff, while Lynch did suffer broken bones and a dislocated ankle, she had no gun or stab wounds. And far from being tortured, Lynch was assigned one of two specialty beds and given a private nurse. The nurse, who was interviewed by a UK correspondent, claims to have developed something of a mother/daughter relationship with Lynch and said she provided the best care possible throughout Lynch's stay. In addition, doctors at the hospital where Lynch was held, said that the Iraqi military had fled the hospital the day before the rescue--making it unlikely that any shots were fired during the rescue mission. So how does one explain the graphic video of PFC Lynch's now famous rescue? According to Dr. Anmar Uday who was at the hospital when the rescue occurred, the U.S. forces were told prior to the rescue that all Fedayeen had left the day before. Still, they came in, guns blazing. "It was like a Hollywood film," Dr. Uday said. "They cried, 'Go, go, go,' with guns and blanks and the sound of explosions. They made a show--an action movie like Sylvester Stallone or Jackie Chan." And during the entire episode, naturally, the cameras were rolling. As for PFC Lynch--the one person who could easily confirm what really happened-- conveniently, she remembers nothing. ------------ Email Laurie Fosner: laur@pacbell.net Comment on this column in the forum. ------------ |
||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
