Fallujah: The Gift That Keeps on Giving
Reported by Marie Therese - December 7, 2004
Judge Andrew Napolitano began his stint as a substitute host on the Big Story with John Gibson yesterday, December 6, 2004 by intoning in his best lawyerly fashion that there are "Barbarians at the Gates!" Later in the show he aired a clip of Senator John McCain on FOX News Sunday, saying: "The good news is we went into Fallujah and we dug em outta there. And I'm proud of the work. These men and women are magnificent. Their leadership is magnificent. The bad news is we allowed Fallujah to become a sanctuary to start with."
Napolitano then noted that Fallujah is "the gift that just keeps on giving. The terrorists killed or captured in Fallujah left behind lots of valuable intelligence including the names and phone numbers of their colleagues." Pert and pretty Big Story sidekick Heather Nauert then went on to interview Wayne Simmons, a former CIA operative for 30 years and a frequent "expert" commentator on FOX News Channel.
Simmons was predictable, praising our side, damning theirs, no compromise, no quarter. On the topic of the capture of the computers and other data he had this to say: "Well, there's a lot that we will never know, the public will never know what we're learning, but I can tell you that two of the most important things that you can accomplish in any battle, of course, other than the victory, is the capture of the enemy for counterintelligence interrogation later and to grab real hard intelligence, such as hard drives, books, documents, maps, those kinds of things. If in fact that's what we've grabbed - and it appears that we have - this goes miles and miles - it does truly keep on giving."
COMMENT
Don't you just love the way Simmons echoed Napolitano's original "gift giving" motif? This happens a lot on FOX - guests molding their metaphors to align with the host's theme of the day.
On a more somber note, the assault on Fallujah also netted a bumper crop of disfigurement, death, displacement and disease. This is a different kind of "gift that keeps on giving." This gift will be felt in the homes of Americans whose sons and daughters arrive home in wheelchairs or pine boxes. This gift will be felt in the homes of Iraqis mourning the loss of loved ones then scurrying to secret meetings in the dead of night to plot the downfall of the enemy.
Like all wars, there is nothing "magnificent" about this one, except possibly the intense bravery of ordinary men and women on both sides who risk their lives to save their fellow fighters or, maybe, far more rarely, a truly enlightened human being who risks his or her own safety to save an enemy or a stranger in distress.
For eyewitness reports on the aftermath of the battle of Fallujah, you can check out Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches or the NewStandard's report on the expulsion of the Red Crescent from Fallujah.
