I have been conversing with Sites through email for nearly a year. I have watched him on MSNBC. Of all the journalists in country, I have confidence in his lack of agenda. If you read his post and still feel he did this for a Pulitzer, nothing he or I could say will change it.

I have a son in 82nd, and another one who is a Marine. Both have spent time in Afghanistan, and the soldier was also in Baghdad. I am a career military man myself. I am quite sensitive to reporting.

In fact, Sites passed the film on to the chain of command. He also gave it to the press pool. I believe he agonized over that decision. I may be wrong, and he may have been wrong. The Marine wasn’t. And that’s what matters.

Most of us feel more compassion for the poor young Marine with his human feelings, Wallace, than for Sites with his urgent need to photo-document a possible war crime committed by our side, which is de facto what he did. For some reason, Sites’ all too human feelings compelled him to sell and immediately share his footage to the world before the military could investigate and determine if any wrongdoing whatsoever had occurred. Do Sites’ “human feelings” include any shame over the fact that, while his protector did his job of protecting our side with a gun, Sites shot him with his cam and took him out, so to speak?

Michael Moore has “human feelings”, too, and could probably do only marginally better in discrediting our side than what Sites managed to accomplish with his dutiful rush to share his damning and misleading scoop. While we’re at it, should we pity the dead insurgent-terrorist fighter who helped lay seige to a city, victimize its citizens, fight to stop democracy from benefitting Iraqis, and kill our soldiers and Marines and Iraqi troops? Let us weep for this man’s human feelings and show the world how he was murdered and martyred at the hand of Satan’s war criminals, so that our forces have more jihadist crazies trying to kill them and innocent Iraqis.

Not all humans wield their human feelings responsibly.

The camera often ìlies.î This inanimate object is simply incapable off providing the necessary context of a particular event. A picture of one individual shooting another tells us nothing about the reasoning behind the act of violence. It could either be morally laudable or a evil act. We rarely, if ever, can tell merely by looking at the photo. Kevin Sites and his employers released this photo too prematurely. They did not allow us ample time to figure out what really happened. Only our enemies benefitted from this despicable display of impatience. And yes, it is very fair to treat Mr. Sites with a certain degree of contempt. He richly deserves it.

My Lai was a war crime. My Lai was the intentional slaughter that was premeditated and brutal. My Lai was not done in a split second decision where waiting could have led to the death of soldiers and media personel. My Lai was a story that needed to be told and exposed whether you supported the war or not.None of the factors that applied to My Lai can be compared to the Sikes story. None of them. I think Sikes had visions of My Lai in his head and he knows how My Lai made Hersh a celebrity and catapolted his carreer.This story could have been handled internally without the negative propaganda effects that have happened. My Lai exposed what was wrong about the Vietnam war and may have saved lives. The Sites story will make our job harder and might cost American lives. This was an isolated incident and was not, even under the worst interpratation of the tape, even close to My Lai and to compare the two is like comparing a highway accident where someone dies to the Charles Manson case.

In my war, Vietnam, over 300 old men, women and children were marched out of their village of My Lai ordered into a ditch and gunned down by my fellow soldiers. Murdered in civilian terminology. Over a year later journalist Seymour Hersh reported the story. This story did great damage to the war effort I was participating in and to the army I loved. The army tried the case and the media reported the facts, good, bad and ugly to the public and to the world. Our citizens agonized over this and our enemies relished it. But did I, and the American people, have a right to hear the facts and make up our own minds?

I certainly hope so if we call this a free and moral society. And as I recall this is the lesson we are trying to teach the Iraqis.

I think it is unfair for Sites to hide behind the shield of objective journalism in regards to this story. This was not an important story. If this had been a obvious uncallous attempt by this Marine to have some fun and shoot up some innocent Iraqi in some kind of twisted sadistic fashion I would say go with the story. I read his open letter and I feel it was an attempt to take an act of greed and turn it into something noble, to make himself the martyr. He had hot pictures that did not give us any deep understanding of the battle but that he knew would be beamed across the globe over and over again. He had to know the duststorm this would create and he had to know how this would aid the enemy. And if he is so morrally confused to think that these fascist thugs are not evil and do not need his help in making them sympathetic then I feel sorry for him. Whether this Marine followed the protocols of battle perfectly is an open question but this did not need to be broadcast around the world consisdering the nearly impossible task these brave men have in trying to keep his fellow soldiers and the journalists alive. Sites should have shown his gratitude by erasing the tape. This story would eclipse the wonderfull work these marines did and he had to know this, he is not stupid. That letter was written to burnish his image to the general public because he knows that most Marines would use his letter for toilet paper and think of him as an ungratefull backstabber and not a crusading journalist.

Commandant, USMC:

703-614-8661

Marine PR Dept

703-614-1492

Defense Dept 703-428-0711

Sites’ footage would have been more edifying AFTER the war is over and when Iraq is free and stable. Moral ambiguity is increasingly the Achilles heel of the West, and during a war is a deadly indulgence for one’s side when life, limb and mission are at stake. How moral and responsible could disseminating out of context and damning images be during a war for heads and hearts, when the enemy most assuredly will use them as unambiguous propaganda for its side? Sites could have waited until after the war to communicate the morally “gray areas of combat” and contexturalized his images more completely or in service to his POV, whatever it is. But he can’t possibly respect our armed forces, their lives, and their fight if he traffics in sensational footage of them that is demoralizing and cheapens their experience, efforts and ultimately their sacrifices while they are in the field and bleeding.

Sites made a clear and unambiguous choice to cast doubt where doubt can kill. Nothing gray about that.

I can’t seem to link it.

I share your thoughts about the NYT article by Dexter Filkins. I guess on one level it was sympathetic to the soldiers (certainly the dead ones). And the portrayal of the Captain as a leader was certainly moving. But even there it was to point out how near panic his troops were before he took over from the LT.

Idi:

I have to say I come down on your side in ref. to Sites. I read some of Sites blog. I guess one could feel he was feeling ambivalent about the mission in that he sympathesized with some of the Iraqis caught in the middle of our soldiers and the insurgents. But I think he is merely trying to articulate the often gray areas of combat. I don’t think he is trying to make an anti-war statement. I read the MSNBC story interviewing him and he seemed to go out of his way to put the film in perspective. He also did give the film to the military right away. He also gave it to his producers. TV thrives on this type of thing – they really don’t need to have a political motive to run it.

But back to NYT. In their defense, they have been very cautious in reporting the story. NOTHING like the Abu Ghraib torture pictures. A few days ago they ran a rather skeptical story about Mr. Sites’ background. I think in this country at least the media has generally been fair and has attempted not to pass judgement. With the exception of Chris “They [terrorists] are not really bad guys” Matthews of course.