Thursday, July 08, 2004

Duh - he's a Muslim

Missing Marine reappears at embassy in Beirut: "Wassef Ali Hassoun is alive and well"

It seems likely that this incident will be hotly pursued by the press. A hoax kidnapping of a US Marine in Iraq is one way to spin the story. Another way would be to say - oops, we kidnapped a Muslim. We can't kill a Muslim, let's drive Wassef to his family in Lebanon instead. If this is the story, the press will drop it. If the story turns out to be a hoax, the press will hang on to the bitter end.

I’m not sure on this, but I think desertion during a war can carry some pretty nasty penalties, maybe even death. The press would eat that up. I can see it now, a poor Muslim Marine forced to serve against his faith.... we’ve heard it all before.

1 comment:

brad said...

Let's start talking about the press. I was talking with a relative of mine (by marriage) and he was saying the press was pro-american and that I should get my news from the BBC. People's take on the press is so partisan. How does partisanship effect our perceptions? Cool topic.