Remembering a Heroic Navy SEAL
Scrapbook Remembering a Heroic Navy SEAL Four weeks ago, to accompany Michael Fumento's report from Ramadi, we featured on our cover a combat photo of two Navy SEALs, taken by Fumento during an...
...Predictably, the old slander against Ronald Reagan's first ambassador to the United Nations—that she was an enthusiast of autocratic government—turned up: To take just one example, both the New York Times and the Washington Post (apparently recycling a distortion by the Associated Press) claimed that she supported the military junta in El Salvador, when she and the Reagan administration in fact strongly supported the historic elections and the democratically elected Duarte government there...
...After a third straight day of soliciting war advice from top military and diplomatic officials, Bush gave no clue as to whether he will include that in his forthcoming plan...
...It is no doubt true "some generals" believe this...
...Monsoor's body shielded the others from the brunt of the fragmentation blast and two other SEALs were only wounded by the remaining blast...
...Monsoor and the two injured were evacuated to the combat outpost battalion aid station where Monsoor died approximately 30 minutes after the incident from injuries sustained by the grenade blast...
...He also accepted a transition to democracy, stepping down peacefully in 1990 after losing a referendum...
...Some Reporters Sometimes it's hard to determine a reporter's agenda...
...There was only one access point for entry or exit and Mon-soor was the only one who could have saved himself from harm...
...Yet by now it should be obvious: She was right...
...lives...
...All morning long the overwatch position received harassment fire that had become a typical part of the day for the security team...
...After rehearsing Pinochet's role in the 1973 overthrow of socialist president Salvador Allende and the subsequent brutal repression, the Post continues: It's hard not to notice, however, that the evil dictator leaves behind the most successful country in Latin America...
...Like it or not, Mr...
...A couple of hours later, an insurgency fighter closed on the overwatch position and threw a fragment grenade into the overwatch position which hit Mon-soor in the chest before falling in front of him...
...By way of contrast, Fidel Castro— Mr...
...Instead, knowing what the outcome could be, he fell on the grenade to save the others from harm...
...In "Dictatorships and Double Standards," . . . Mrs...
...Monsoor, as we noted then, was posthumously awarded the Silver Star for his courage under fire while conducting counterinsurgency operations in eastern Ramadi on May 9. Now, Fumento informs The Scrapbook, the fallen SEAL has been submitted for the nation's highest award, the Congressional Medal of Honor, for his actions during the fight that took his life...
...But to no avail...
...Scrapbook Remembering a Heroic Navy SEAL Four weeks ago, to accompany Michael Fumento's report from Ramadi, we featured on our cover a combat photo of two Navy SEALs, taken by Fumento during an April 22, 2006, firefight, while on an earlier reporting trip to Iraq's Anbar province...
...The overwatch couldn't tell where the RPG came from and didn't return fire...
...Which is the point, of course...
...Pinochet were ultimately less malign than communist rulers, in part because their regimes were more likely to pave the way for liberal democracies...
...And, we should add, on this one the Post was right, too...
...Castro also killed and exiled thousands...
...No, just days before he got the sack, Turki fired Saudi consultant Nawaf Obaid for a controversial op-ed published in the Washington Post by Obaid...
...For an example of the latter, we turn to a story from the Associated Press...
...After President Bush consulted with the Joint Chiefs of Staff last week on troop levels in Iraq, the AP's Robert Burns filed a dispatch with the following paragraph...
...Jeane Kirkpatrick Was Right_ Inaccuracy and bias had a field day in the reporting of the careers of Jeane Kirkpatrick and Augusto Pinochet, who died just days apart earlier this month...
...Pinochet's coup is a reminder of a famous essay written by Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, the provocative and energetic scholar and U.S...
...They were providing overwatch security while joint and combined forces were conducting missions in the area...
...Kirkpat-rick argued that right-wing dictators such as Mr...
...And one could take in multiple accounts of the nefarious deeds of the late Chilean strongman and never learn that the nasty general finally acceded to pressure to restore democracy, notably from the Reagan State Department...
...To the dismay of every economic minister in Latin America, he introduced the free-market policies that produced the Chilean economic miracle—and that not even Allende's socialist successors have dared reverse...
...Turki offered this priceless explanation for cutting Obaid loose: "We felt that we could add more credibility to his claims as an independent contractor by terminating our consultancy agreement with him...
...Pinochet's nemesis and a hero to many in Latin America and beyond— will leave behind an economically ruined and freedomless country with his approaching death...
...It is equally true that "some generals" do not...
...But the grownups on the editorial page of the Washington Post redeemed the press with their fine editorial on December 12...
...Rama-di had been a violent and intense area for a very strong and aggressive insurgency for some time...
...He left power peacefully after gaining 43 percent of the vote in a 1988 plebiscite...
...The Navy's narrative of Monsoor's heroic self-sacrifice that day reads as follows: "On 29 September, Monsoor was part of a sniper overwatch security position in eastern Ramadi, Iraq, with three other SEALs and eight Iraqi soldiers...
...Monsoor yelled 'grenade' and dropped on top of the grenade prior to it exploding...
...Pinochet had something to do with this success...
...ambassador to the United Nations who died Thursday...
...The contrast between Cuba and Chile more than 30 years after Mr...
...In fact, a reporter could finish a sentence beginning "some generals believe" with just about anything the reporter wants...
...It also has a vibrant democracy...
...She, too, was vilified by the left...
...To the end he also imprisoned or persecuted anyone who suggested Cubans could benefit from freedom of speech or the right to vote...
...Great Moments in Public Relations Turki al-Faisal has stepped down as Saudi ambassador to the United States to "spend more time with his family," according to an embassy spokesman...
...Some generals believe it would be too little, too late, in a war that already has claimed more than 2,900 U.S...
...Around midday, the exterior of the building was struck by a single rocket propelled grenade (RPG), but no injuries to any of the overwatch personnel were sustained...
...But even when it became obvious that his communist economic system had impoverished his country, he refused to abandon that system: He spent the last years of his rule reversing a partial liberalization...
...In the past 15 years, Chile's economy has grown at twice the regional average, and its poverty rate has been halved...
...Obaid included the usual disclaimer that the views expressed were his own...
...One of the two SEALs in the photo, Michael A. Monsoor, was killed in action on September 29...
...Earlier this year it elected another socialist president, Michelle Bachelet, who suffered persecution during the Pinochet years...
...That hoary cliche, though, is not why we are granting the Saudi potentate The Scrapbook's coveted "Great Moments in Public Relations" award...
...One of the key aspects of this incident was the way the overwatch position was structured...
...And it's one more reason some generals believe the Associated Press is no longer a credible news outlet...
...Sometimes it's not...
Vol. 12 • December 2006 • No. 15
