Jules Crittenden: "War Tourists" ... And Other Frauds

Jules Crittenden has a rather emotional screed over at the Boston Herald. It has been getting a lot of favorable reviews. HERE, HERE, HERE.

It's his way of praising the war correspondent. And it begins a little defensively.

My profession is an easy one to kick around. It isn’t brain surgery: going places, asking questions, taking pictures, writing it up, broadcasting it. There are some skills. There are some things you have to learn. But it isn’t hard for anyone, looking at what we do, to say, "I could do that."

Nor is it difficult for anyone, looking at the mistakes we make or the assumptions and biases that color our reports, to say, "I could do that better. That guy’s an idiot." Whether you work at the New York Times, CNN, the Boston Herald or the Fox News Channel, you are guaranteed to make someone angry almost every time you tap a key or open your mouth. It is part of the job. You will be reviled. You can never win.

Well, yes Jules. You can win. It’s hard to argue with the truth. There would be somewhat less criticism if a meaningful number of your pictures were not either photoshopped or staged. If you don't go into cover-up mode when caught doing something wrong (as the AP has done with "green helmet"). If you reports were accurate, and if you did not act as the propaganda arm of Islamofascists who – I grant you – will threaten to kill you unless you report what they want you to report.

And then he goes on to describe his friend Mike who’s “full of rage” and his friend Sig who has “been counseled for post-traumatic stress.”

He then concludes :

I’m willing to bet a lot of those people who think they could do it better, couldn’t touch what Mike and Sig and Steve and Olaf spend their lives doing. But right now I am just grateful that two strangers, my brothers Steve and Olaf, are on their way home.

Well, I think that there are people who are doing a better job than Mike and Sig and Steve and Olaf are doing. They are the Milbloggers, who include both soldiers and ex-military men who are going back to the Middle East to tell the stories that have not been told by Mike and Sig and Steve and Olaf.

And on a final note:

Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig get captured and convert to Islam while denouncing their country. After their release they praise the “beautiful” Palestinian people. They are now not Steve and Olaf, they are Khaled and Jakob.

Islamic jihads get captured and sent to Guantanamo. There they try to kill their jailers and pray to Mecca five times a day.

Compare and contrast.