perfidy

Schizophrenic helicopter pilot Murdoc and I share alot of things: our love for fresh-cut tulips; a respect for raw, naked force; appreciation for the smell of diesel fuel; and the friendly staff of a certain Bangkok "spa". All good stuff, and well worth sharing.

One bad thing we share though is the ignorance of journalists regarding military matters. And like Murdoc, it's usually enough to set my teeth on edge and maybe bitch for a minute, but that's about it. It doesn't help when reporters are actually in the field with operational units and they still get it wrong, mixing up unit designations or vehicle models, but it rarely detracts from the overall point.

That's where the Zarqawi tape comes in, and Jamie McIntyre's effort to make excuses for the guy's poor weapons handling.

Murdoc, Confederate Yankee, and Counter Column all take McIntyre to task for appearing not only an apologist, but stupid too. Their tripartite Fisking covers all the pioints well, and any leftovers are sopped up by their commenters.

I will only add this bit of advice for Mr. McIntyre: the military has an idea of what a "heavy" weapon is. It's probably different from your idea; best not to assume it's the same. Given the man already knew it was a SAW he was looking at, there's just no reason for him to be so wrong about it, let alone cut Iraqi terrorist #1 some slack over it.

A final exercise for other Google-impaired journalists:

You may be afraid of it, but Google is your friend. Try it. Do a search for "heavy machine gun". Go ahead. And what's the first hit?

Browning M2. If you read the accompanying article, you'll find that the thing weighs about 80 lbs, sans tripod. Yeah, that's heavy. It also fires a big round, .50, which is also heavy. Altogether, it's NOT a SAW.

Now try "medium machine gun". What do you get? Why, M240. It weighs in at around 24-odd lbs, depending on trim package and options. Not so very heavy, but it throws a beefy round. It's also not a SAW. Although it IS manufactured by fat bastard Belgians, as is the SAW, it is NOT, again, a SAW.

Just for the fun of it, let's try "light machine gun". Guess what you get about five hits down? Why it's an M249 SAW. Gosh all, and a "light" machine gun...how about that? It only weighs about 25lbs, even with 200 rounds hanging underneath it. Oh, and it fires a varmint cartridge, little different from what you plink moles out of your garden with. See, light.

That takes about 30 seconds. No deadline is that tight.