There is an extraordinary omission from this BBC article on South Korean troops leaving Iraq. Plenty of figures are given, from the four years and three months spent there to the 18,000 troops who served in Iraq. One figure is missing though- only one Korean soldier died in Iraq according to icasualties, and he apparently has been forgotten. Don’t you think it would be appropriate to mention this loss, especially as it helps to contextualise the Iraq war for history?
Not remembering the dead
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Did he shoot himself rather than meet Hoon?
Let’s think this through. To the BBC, South Korea is an ally of the US. South Korea is the part of Korea that isn’t communist. South Korea’s neighbour is the mysterious North Korea, with the personality cult leader who is a bulwark against American imperialism. In other words, to the BBC, the soldier shouldn’t have been there and so deserved to die. However any Iraqi “civilian” who dies whilst at a “wedding” will get a full biography from the BBC.
When will the general population realise that the BBC hate the civilised West and love the Muslim world. Maybe they think that they have seen our future and they want to be on the winning side.
I didn’t know that a South Korean soldier had been killed in Iraq, so I had a look around. I found that a translator was killed in 2004 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3830843.stm), and that a South Korean military policeman who was also American was killed (http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=40540) and then some deeper searching on the icasualties website revealed that it was this man (http://iraq.pigstye.net/article.php/OhFirstLieut) that was killed, in non-hostile action.
So in conclusion, this guy could have been killed by anyone, including himself, since the military don’t put their findings online. Not exactly a major omission, in my opinion. What do you think David?
ipreferred, forgive me for ignoring your research, but I’m still laughing at Dick the Prick’s superb question.
ipreferred | 19.12.08 – 11:28 am
Not exactly a major omission, in my opinion. What do you think David?
Perhaps you have had an irony bypass.
Or maybe you are one of life’s kneejerk literalists.
Try reading David Vance’s post again, paying special attention to the words in bold at the end.
Now recall al-Beeb’s excuse for always laying on the casualty figures with a trowel in any story about Iraq.
Now imagine a little emoticon like this 🙂
Geddit now?
Well if you look at it that way then surely it makes sense not to include it, because it doesn’t illustrate a death that was the result of a battle/ied/hostile action?
If they wanted to ‘contextualise’ in that way (by which I think you and David understand propagandise), then they would have included it, without mention of the fact that it wasn’t a hostile-action death.
ipreferred | 19.12.08 – 12:23 pm
Blimey, you still haven’t understood, even after it’s been spelled out for you.
Let’s try one more time.
I don’t think David V is really exercised by the omission of the fatality. I think he’s making a little joke about the BBC’s habit of appending irrelevant and incongruous bodycount data to stories, and when challenged on this, claiming it ‘contextualizes’ the stories.
Brown does everything for party political advantage, that will include bringing the troops home from Iraq. Is he planning an early election?
We will get extensive coverage on the BBC of him welcoming the last of the troops back.
Still waiting to see coverage of him standing in the rain for the dead comming back.
There were Korean troops in Iraq?
BBC’s definition of UNILATERALISM:
39 countries.
Hey, what’s this?
A number of countries have withdrawn from Iraq recently as a UN mandate authorising their presence expires.
The BBC is always having people on telling us this is an illegal war, the world is against it, etc. If there’s a UN mandate….um….
That was my point back – IF the BBC was so prone to doing that, then why didn’t they in this article?
why didn’t they in this article?
Because only one death wouldn’t fit the ‘Vietnam/quagmire/Stalingrad’ narrative.
ipreferred | 19.12.08 – 4:17 pm |
They don’t actually realize what they’re doing. The BBC doesn’t openly state in their reports that the war is illegal, but rather allows various talking heads (guests or actual Beeboids) to say so, in the guise of “opinion and analysis”. The message still gets through, and is never, ever challenged.
As for the non-reporting of the one Korean soldier’s death, the BBC could have mentioned it, even pointing out that it was non-combat. I don’t see anything wrong with that. But if they point out that all those Korean soldiers went in and out without losing anyone, that would make Iraq look less of a catastrophic hell on earth, wouldn’t it? Can’t have that.
Can we have the name of this S Korean soldier, and I will remember him.