Obama-Attacking, Pro-McCain Group Gets Free Trip To Iraq

Salon:

On its face, it seems like an idea any enterprising editor could have come up with: Gather a group of veterans of the Iraq war who also have journalism experience, including some highly decorated soldiers. Then send them back to the areas of Iraq in which they served, this time as reporters embedded with the troops still fighting there, and get their assessment of the security situation and whether the surge is working.

Someone has organized just such an expedition, and this Monday eight veterans left for Iraq. But the "Back to Iraq" trip wasn't put together by the Washington Post or the New York Times; it's the brainchild of Vets for Freedom (VFF), a pro-war group. VFF is nominally nonpartisan, but it has a remarkable number of ties -- some previously unreported -- to Republicans generally and John McCain's campaign specifically. And it has run attack ads against Barack Obama.

It's unremarkable to send reporters with thin journalistic credentials to Iraq, or to promise that journalists with a known political bias will report "objectively." Conservative and liberal publications send their preferred reporters to Iraq all the time, and their representatives come home, unsurprisingly, with differing conclusions. But what about sending political activists and GOP operatives to Iraq in the guise of journalists, with the cooperation of the U.S. military and on the taxpayers' dime, so that the activists can come home and proselytize for the Republican presidential candidate's position on the war?

Read the whole story: Salon

Comments

[jahjah]

THEY can try anything they want but not this time OBAMA is the one not this time I am worried more about the economy that iraq, I am worried about what my kids are going to it than iraq, republicans dont care about the economy they care about the war which is costing us a lot of money and making the Iraq people RICHER AT OUR EXPENSE US THE PEOPLE WE CAN STOP THIS MADNESS WE CAN STOP MCCAIN RIGHT NOW LET GO GET THEM

[ibsteve2u]

Did you check out the picture on the VFF website at http://www.vetsforfreedom.org/about/ of the cluster behind McCain? They must not have had an opportunity to get out into the sun much since their service wherever.

I wonder what the ethnicity of their membership roster is...

[Daly]

come on, you can guess, and I bet that none are Farsi speaking or Muslim .

[Podewumun]

Fighting the "Global War On Terror"? What a load of horseflop.

[TrooAmerican]

I cant tell; where i see clothes, i just see a big white splotch of washed out smiley faces.... must have been the flash.

[Zoolie]

I sure hope this backfires on the pentagon.

[poco767b]

Propaganda lives.

[situationcritical]

Give em all guns, and send them to the front lines to really serve the country they love.

[FiLoLi]

Did you read the article? These people were on the front lines and did serve their country. How have you served your country?

[robiform]

One might ask the same question of you.

[bryansmith]

surprise!

[KMan1]

Will it really be any different than what we have now? Their views will be as biased as most of the other 'reporters' that currently report for the MSM.

[08politicaljunkie]

Amen! It's all been government-controlled propaganda. Otherwise:

*** More mortality rates would be published,
*** We'd see more photos of our military guarding the oil fields,
*** We'd see the caskets flown back across the ocean,
*** Reporters would be visiting and interviewing the injured in hospitals, and
*** We'd be seeing documentaries regarding the state of their mental health and the effects upon their families.

When the "war" started, televising the bombs dropping on Iraq was PROPAGANDA too -- devised to appease the nation grieving over 9/11 -- and devised to cover their true intent.

[filo]

What was the first place prize ???

[poco767b]

They can come home.