{"id":60268,"date":"2015-06-08T08:00:48","date_gmt":"2015-06-08T12:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=60268"},"modified":"2015-06-07T15:46:15","modified_gmt":"2015-06-07T19:46:15","slug":"new-york-times-seems-surprised-that-people-die-in-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=60268","title":{"rendered":"New York Times seems surprised that people die in war"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York Times ran an article this last weekend entitled SEAL Team 6: A Secret History of Quiet Killings and Blurred Lines<\/a> written by a fire-team-sized group of journalists, Mark Mazzetti, Nicholas Kulish, Christopher Drew, Serge F. Kovaleski, Sean D. Naylor and John Ismay, in which they express their dismay that SEALs have actually killed the enemies of our country, pretty much on command;<\/p>\n

The SEALs\u2019 armorers customized a new German-made rifle and equipped nearly every weapon with suppressors, which reduce gunshot sounds and muzzle flashes. Infrared lasers enabling the SEALs to shoot more accurately at night became standard issue, as did thermal optics to detect body heat. The SEALs were equipped with a new generation of grenade \u2014 a thermobaric model that is particularly effective in making buildings collapse. They often operated in larger groups than they had traditionally done. More SEALs carrying deadlier weapons meant that fewer enemies escaped alive.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Fewer enemies escaping alive translates to more good guys leaving alive. It’s simple math. But, if you were a regular reader of the Times (still convinced that they provide you with unbiased news that matters) you would come away from the article believing that they are a band of hatchet-wielding blood-thirsty savages that kill indiscriminately anyone who doesn’t speak English fluently.<\/p>\n

Take, for example, the first paragraph of the article;<\/p>\n

They have plotted deadly missions from secret bases in the badlands of Somalia. In Afghanistan, they have engaged in combat so intimate that they have emerged soaked in blood that was not their own. On clandestine raids in the dead of the night, their weapons of choice have ranged from customized carbines to primeval tomahawks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The hatchets again. I’m not going to pretend that I know much about any special operations forces, but I do know the people who fight our wars. The NYT seems to think that the indiscriminate killing of non-enemies is some sort of habitual practice and because everything about SEALs is so secretive, they can accuse them of the murder of innocent people in the furtherance of our national policies. I can assure the casual reader that no innocent non-combatants are intentionally killed in combat, mostly because it serves no purpose and it’s a waste of resources, time and ammunition.<\/p>\n

Are there civilians who get themselves killed, yes, of course. Especially with an enemy that hides behind innocents as a tactic. The enemy also kills non-combatants by the scads because they see civilians as tools, self-propelled sand bags. <\/p>\n

It’s funny (not ha-ha funny, though) that the New York Times in the hundreds of words that they printed on this piece, didn’t bother to mention how the SEALs who went after bin Laden in Abbottabad didn’t kill any of the women or children in the compound, accidentally or intentionally. In fact, they did their best to be careful that none of bin Laden’s family was killed. <\/p>\n

You know, if it had been al Qaeda and they busted into the White House under the same circumstances, they would have ended the Obama blood-line right then and there in the most gruesome manner possible.<\/p>\n

Someone should tell the New York Times’ Mark Mazzetti, Nicholas Kulish, Christopher Drew, Serge F. Kovaleski, Sean D. Naylor and John Ismay that this country is engaged with an enemy which would kill them for no other reason than that they are Americans. The SEALs, Delta, the snipers, the sappers, the pilots, the riflemen are in the business of making sure that the enemy doesn’t get that opportunity by killing those enemy people first. If it makes them feel outraged to think that it’s all done by tomahawk, well, fine, they can think that. I’m just glad that the bad guys are dead and I don’t care how they got that way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New York Times ran an article this last weekend entitled SEAL Team 6: A Secret … New York Times seems surprised that people die in war<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48956,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/48956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}