The Other Side of the Story
Margaret Wente
Globe and Mail

This post will hark back to the Charles Adler post I made last week ... its on the CPT rescue and all the controversy it seems to be generating. I wonder why people like Wente can't see that they are engaging in as much propoganda as the accuse CPT of? The following is the text of a letter to the editor (and cc'd to Wente herself) about this piece.

This was an interesting piece, but there is something in all this that Ms Wente and other critics of the CPT miss. She says "Were they right to put others in harms way for their political beliefs?" They did no such thing ... they chose to go to Iraq, and never requested any rescue attempts. Anyone who put their life at risk because of the CPT in Iraq, did so by their own choice (or by their commanders choice). She goes on to ask "Are we obliged to rescue people who say they don't want to be rescued?" Why in the world would be be obliged. The CPT in Iraq did not ask the US or any military to mount a rescue ... they went to Iraq of their own accord, and it was no one elses business what they were doing there.

For people like Wente to complain now because the CPT haven't been "grateful" enough for their rescue is ridiculous. The CPT were in Iraq for their own political purposes, and those purposes are definately anti-American. Its their right to be political and to protest on whatever way they want. The fact remains they never asked to be rescued because they were making the political points they wanted to make. They haven't expressed gratitude for their rescue because the rescue was something they didn't request, was carried out based on rules they wouldn't have approved of, and was done for the express purpose of propaganda to show the US military bravely rescuing civilians. Thats all well and good, but those civilians have to want to be rescued. If thats the way the CBC is reporting this its only because, unlike Wente, they can see what the CPT stands for, and isn't trying to score their own political points. The CBC reports the facts of what happened ... its people like Wente who want to score political points by now complaining that they are getting the respect they deserve. CPT didn't want to be rescued, and certainly not by the very military they are protesting. To expect them to be grateful for it is naive, but worse, its a complete misunderstanding of why they were there in the first place. CPT is only making the same political points they made before. I wonder why anyone is at all surprised by any of this ... I know from my perspective, the rhetoric from CPT is as preductable as the whining from the hawks ... its ALL about trying t score propoganda points. I know Ms. Wente hopes people won't point this out, but she is as guilty of cheap propoganda points as any of the CPT statements.