Before They Blamed Newsweek...
Kevin Sites: Show the Shooting in the Mosque
The NBC cameraman who shot the controversial video in Fallujah that showed a Marine involved in killing an unarmed, wounded insurgent, wants Americans (like those abroad) to see the actual shooting. "You can not bury the truth," he says. The Marine has been cleared by the military.
By Allan Wolper
NEW YORK (May 23, 2005) -- Kevin Sites has the scene embedded in his psyche. Once again he sees a Marine corporal cursing, "he's f------ faking he's dead" just before shooting an unarmed Iraqi insurgent slumped against a wall in a Fallujah mosque. Another Marine, standing nearby, says, quietly, "Well, he's dead now."
One more body in the bloodiest battle of the war in Iraq -- the American-led assault on Fallujah.
Sites, a 43-year-old freelance television correspondent for NBC, captured the entire episode with his camera. The U.S. networks, including NBC, broadcast the story of the mosque but blacked out the actual shooting. But the Arab world saw everything -- and reacted with revulsion.
American conservatives attacked Sites for shooting an incident that they claim unfairly undermined the morale of the Marines, while antiwar activists used it to attack the war itself. Still, in this country, it became the shooting few people saw.
Sites said that must change. "People need to see the full video, so that they can make up their own minds about what happened," he told me during an interview from his California home. "It is important to show the reality of war. It is important to tell the truth, the whole truth. ... You cannot hide the truth. You cannot bury the truth. You cannot destroy the truth."
He paused, making certain he was understood: "We are a nation of adults. The video has been seen around the world. We should be able to show it here."
It is important now because the military recently cleared the still-unidentified corporal of any wrongdoing. "The reason I didn't identify the soldier is that I felt that the issue was important," Sites said. "Those kinds of things happen in war. It was not about judging that particular individual." But Sites believes Americans still need to see what he witnessed.
"It is shocking what happens in war," he said. "Maybe we are not conditioned to see much. The stuff that is shown is fairly well sanitized. ... War is about killing people."
Sites knows broadcasting the actual shooting might reprise the horrors that he and a former girlfriend endured when the story first broke last November. "We received some valid death threats," he said, recalling the "thousands and thousands" of e-mail messages and telephone calls he received from angry supporters of the troops. "People would say, 'We know what kind of car you drive.' Every time I'm on the air or there is a story on the video, the death threats start all over again. When you write this, it is going to happen, too."
More..Link in headline...
The NBC cameraman who shot the controversial video in Fallujah that showed a Marine involved in killing an unarmed, wounded insurgent, wants Americans (like those abroad) to see the actual shooting. "You can not bury the truth," he says. The Marine has been cleared by the military.
By Allan Wolper
NEW YORK (May 23, 2005) -- Kevin Sites has the scene embedded in his psyche. Once again he sees a Marine corporal cursing, "he's f------ faking he's dead" just before shooting an unarmed Iraqi insurgent slumped against a wall in a Fallujah mosque. Another Marine, standing nearby, says, quietly, "Well, he's dead now."
One more body in the bloodiest battle of the war in Iraq -- the American-led assault on Fallujah.
Sites, a 43-year-old freelance television correspondent for NBC, captured the entire episode with his camera. The U.S. networks, including NBC, broadcast the story of the mosque but blacked out the actual shooting. But the Arab world saw everything -- and reacted with revulsion.
American conservatives attacked Sites for shooting an incident that they claim unfairly undermined the morale of the Marines, while antiwar activists used it to attack the war itself. Still, in this country, it became the shooting few people saw.
Sites said that must change. "People need to see the full video, so that they can make up their own minds about what happened," he told me during an interview from his California home. "It is important to show the reality of war. It is important to tell the truth, the whole truth. ... You cannot hide the truth. You cannot bury the truth. You cannot destroy the truth."
He paused, making certain he was understood: "We are a nation of adults. The video has been seen around the world. We should be able to show it here."
It is important now because the military recently cleared the still-unidentified corporal of any wrongdoing. "The reason I didn't identify the soldier is that I felt that the issue was important," Sites said. "Those kinds of things happen in war. It was not about judging that particular individual." But Sites believes Americans still need to see what he witnessed.
"It is shocking what happens in war," he said. "Maybe we are not conditioned to see much. The stuff that is shown is fairly well sanitized. ... War is about killing people."
Sites knows broadcasting the actual shooting might reprise the horrors that he and a former girlfriend endured when the story first broke last November. "We received some valid death threats," he said, recalling the "thousands and thousands" of e-mail messages and telephone calls he received from angry supporters of the troops. "People would say, 'We know what kind of car you drive.' Every time I'm on the air or there is a story on the video, the death threats start all over again. When you write this, it is going to happen, too."
More..Link in headline...
posted by Christy at 8:23 AM
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