On Sun, 09 May 2004 19:26:08 -0400, John Gaquin wrote:


"thunder" wrote in message

The press is the press. With all it's failings, I question if any of
this would have come to light if it hadn't been for the press.

That's the conventional wisdom, and no one offers a correction. The fact
is that the allegations came from within the Army, the investigation was
launched by the Army, and the fact of the allegations and the
investigation was publicized by the Army in a press statement within days
of the allegations being made. The Army investigated and the report
started moving up the line, as is its wont, in April. The only reason the
press even noticed was because one of those nimrods was stupid enough to
post pictures on the web. Our press has effected some brilliant
investigative journalism over the years, but this ain't part of it.

Yeah, but, the Red Cross had repeatedly warned the Bush administration
about abuse for over a year. I'll agree this isn't great investigative
journalism, but if it weren't for the press, we wouldn't have known,
Congress wouldn't have known (or at least could have pretended not to
know), and Bush might not have seen the pictures.