{"id":476,"date":"2003-04-09T11:18:36","date_gmt":"2003-04-09T16:18:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=476"},"modified":"2003-04-09T11:18:36","modified_gmt":"2003-04-09T16:18:36","slug":"news_flash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/04\/09\/news_flash.html","title":{"rendered":"News flash"},"content":{"rendered":"

I know this may be a difficult concept, but in the middle of a war zone, shit happens<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you’re staying in a hotel in downtown Baghdad, you may find your building targeted. Especially if there is fighting in the area. Especially if there are visible lenses atop the building, which may or may not (to approaching forces) look like spotters for enemy fire.<\/p>\n

If the tank commander who fired on the Palestine Hotel was really the sort of war-crime-committing, gun-happy, blood-thirsty sort that he’s being accused of by some folks, it would have been more than one shell. <\/p>\n

Of course, the same could be said for the US military in general. If our goal was, as ANSWER puts it<\/a>, to destroy Baghdad and kill tens or hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, we would have done it by now<\/i>. If the US military wanted to kill the unembedded journalists, the Palestine Hotel would be a pile of rubble under air and ground assault.<\/p>\n

The loss of life is to be regretted. But let’s not make more of this than it is. At worst, this was a tragic error. As currently described, though, it seems to have just been one of those things that happens in war, without malice or even negligence. That the news media in the Palestine Hotel have been magically thinking that their status would create a force field around the building says something about their own sense of importance; that they assumed that it was Iraqi fire at first should say something about what the record shows about the US military actions to date.<\/p>\n

(via Command Post<\/a>)<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I know this may be a difficult concept, but in the middle of a war zone, shit happens. If you’re staying in a hotel in downtown Baghdad, you may find…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitical-brouhaha"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":300,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/05\/06\/you_have_no_ide.html","url_meta":{"origin":476,"position":0},"title":"“You have no idea how well things are going”","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 6-May-03 2:25pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Jonathan Foreman writes from Baghdad in The Standard that the Baghdad press corps seems to be seeing a completely different Baghdad than what he's seeing. To an amazing degree, the...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4201,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/01\/20\/also_from_the_b.html","url_meta":{"origin":476,"position":1},"title":"Also from the “Birds of a Feather” page …","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 20-Jan-03 10:35am","format":false,"excerpt":"Saddam thanks anti-war demonstrators. I'll bet he does. To be fair, a lot of folks against war in Iraq are certainly not fans of the Baghdad regime. That they think...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":494,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/04\/07\/rubble.html","url_meta":{"origin":476,"position":2},"title":"Rubble","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 7-Apr-03 9:01pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I know it's too early. I know it is. But I see a lot of pictures of Baghdad up on the screen. And I see a city. An intact city....","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3808,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/03\/26\/bulges.html","url_meta":{"origin":476,"position":3},"title":"Bulges","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 26-Mar-03 3:26pm","format":false,"excerpt":"It's difficult to write about particular goings-on up-to-the-second on the war (go to the Command Post for that). But I've been scratching my head ever since I heard of a...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":328,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/05\/01\/more_good_news.html","url_meta":{"origin":476,"position":4},"title":"More good news","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 1-May-03 6:24pm","format":false,"excerpt":"As folks are beginning to actually investigate on the ground at the Baghdad Museum, the losses are looking to have been not nearly as severe as originally reported. Col. Matthew...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9860,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/10\/19\/target_date_of_opportunit.html","url_meta":{"origin":476,"position":5},"title":"Target Date of Opportunity","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 19-Oct-06 8:18am","format":false,"excerpt":"I mention this article only because I recall the hoot and holler over the prospect of US military action during Ramadan back in 2001 and 2002 ... 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