WARNING: THIS MICROPHONE KILLS


Who's killing American troops in Iraq? Baathist hold-outs with RPGs? Islamist militants prepared to blow themselves up in a suicide bomb attack? Maybe even a fellow American soldier in a friendly fire incident.

No -- it's the hacks...at least according to Democratic Congressman, Jim Marshall.

His article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is perhaps the most breath-taking piece of sophistry I've read since the war began.

Marshall accuses the media of "hurting our chances (in Iraq). They are dwelling upon the mistakes, the ambushes, the soldiers killed, the wounded...."

What? Is the media making these things up? Of course not. We're reporting them BECAUSE THEY'RE HAPPENING.

He goes on: "The falsely bleak picture weakens our national resolve, discourages Iraqi cooperation and emboldens our enemy." This argument is so weak as to be almost laughable. What Marshall is basically saying is that to claim in media reports that the war is not going "according to plan" is unpatriotic -- and therefore journalists who dare to portray the negative aspects of the conflict are traitors.

I didn't realise independent journalists were expected to reflect American foreign policy at all times. My mistake.

Marshall ends his article by claiming that "the harm done by our media....is killing our troops."

This is a dangerous, misguided and inflammatory allegation. It's all the more distasteful given the series of incidents of American troops in Iraq killing journalists.

"The harm done by our troops is killing our media" would be a more accurate statement.