I would like to add my personal thanks to the World Tribune for printing Commander Ryan's story on how the situation in Iraq is actually progressing as opposed to regressing and faltering as our mainstream media would have many of us believe. Are the Coalition forces, the administration, and the military always right? Certainly not. Are they trying to do a seemingly impossible job that they may not necessarily like, but have been ordered to do? Absolutely. Let's give them REAL support. Not simply by buying a magnetic "Support Our Troops" ribbon to stick on your vehicle that does little except helping us feel good and profiting a savvy entrepreneur. How about doing something very basic? Walk up to a marine, soldier or sailor in uniform when you see one and simply say "thank you"? I'll bet Dan Rather's or Peter Jenning's salary, that simple gesture will make that person's life in the military that day just a little bit more gratifying.

David Dempster
Dearborn, Michigan

Thanks for publishing LTC Tim Ryan's explicit account of the inaccurate and slanted reporting coming out of the US and international press in Iraq. What I have noticed is the failure of anyone to analyze or comment on how the method of getting into this war effects the present coverage of this war and the reception of that coverage by the American people, if not also the world. My son is an officer and has served in Iraq, including the battle of Fallujah.  He is loyal and works hard at his mission.  He is deeply disappointed in his Commander and Chief.  Primarily his disappointment is in regards to the lies, and biases of this administration that were presented to the press, to the American people and the world about why we needed to go to war and why we remain in this war.  The President has a huge part in his trouble with the media.  He is a media disaster.

Rev. Wes McIntyre
Pasco, Washington

I congratulate your publication for printing the article by LTC Tim Ryan concerning the media's coverage of Iraq. He should take comfort in the fact that the majority of Americans not only read the papers but also listen to the other side such as talk radio and watch Fox News which give our soldiers the support they should have. I feel it is necessary to hear all sides of any issue - people are intelligent enough to decide what is correct if given both arguments. I guess if you have an agenda you only want to report the argument you favor but the public has figured this out - too bad the networks haven't yet!

Anonymous by special request

Recently, I've been reading about Abraham Lincoln, his generals, and the civil war. If we think we have failures in Iraq, we need to look back through our history books. Lincoln met with much more failure than success throughout his career and presidency. We are MUCH nicer to him than his peers or the press of his day were. He considered the Gettysburg Address an absolute failure. His generals made mistakes that cost tens of thousands of lives. Our campaign in Iraq is seen by most as a complete success; and I believe the history books will straighten out our "free" press!

Pam Gessler
Hendersonville, North Carolina

I read with interest the article written by LTC Tim Ryan on the media coverage of the goings on in Iraq. I applaud him for taking his time to write such a letter. I, and I'm sure millions of other Americans, have long been disgusted with the news media on many fronts. I am even thinking of printing out that letter and faxing it to the news stations here in Arizona with a scolding letter about their policies and news coverage. My question is why don't we have more people speaking out and UP to the media on this issue? I was recently sent a link to a site that shows scads of photos of our soldiers interacting with the Iraqi people - it was wonderful. And none of them have been seen on U.S. television. God Bless you Tim Ryan and all those risking your lives to keep our country safe!

Darlene Agle
Mesa, Arizona

Thank you for giving a voice to the truth. Until we turn off the offending media centers, and they lose precious advertisers and revenue, we will continue to fight this war of words, which is really a war of worlds. This is a grass roots war. In a land of freedoms, great responsibility persists. Each American has the responsibility to support and defend their country, not just those serving in uniform. Again, thank you to LTC Tim Ryan and those in uniform who believe that America is worth the greatest sacrifice.

Sharon Hampton
Indiana

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! LTC Tim Ryan's article "Media's coverage has distorted world's view of Iraqi reality" is the most refreshing thing I've read on the reality of the war in Iraq. I would like to commend both Mr. Ryan and the World Tribune for printing his article. I have forwarded to all in my address book and I hope that it spreads far and wide.

Jeff Benson
Council, Idaho.

I respond to LTC Tim Ryan to make a point. I too was once an officer in combat with the 1st Cavalry Division and I know where he's coming from. His letter, in fact, reads like the letters from many angry, frustrated troops in Vietnam, men who knew how hard and well we were fighting there, who saw daily how skillful, brave and self-sacrificing their fellow troopers were, and who were convinced that we were winning. And from our point of view we were winning -- we almost always beat the enemy badly whenever we made contact. We were going to win the war. We never doubted it. How come the press was so negative and only reported the bad news? Since I left Vietnam I have, for a variety of reasons, spent a great deal of time studying and teaching the Vietnam War. I am now convinced that we were losing the war when I arrived in country in 1966. We continued to lose it in spite of all our efforts while I was in Vietnam, and we finally withdrew, a beaten force, in 1972. True, we won every battle, and from the confined viewpoint of troops in combat, we always appeared to be winning. In Hanoi in 1975, COL Harry G.Summers, a friend of mine, told a colonel in the People's Army of Vietnam, "You know you never defeated us on the battlefield." The Vietnamese colonel thought a moment and replied, "That may be so, but it is also irrelevant." My point is that those at the sharp end of the spear, those who are sweating and fighting, bleeding and dying, are not -- cannot be -- the sole judges of the progress of any war. We at home must remember our troops, honor their efforts, and mourn their dead. But as citizens we must also judge the war as best we can from as many sources as we can find. LTC Ryan's voice is one of many to be heard, and we should listen carefully to him as to many other voices from as many different sources and viewpoints as we can. As of today, the war in Iraq is neither won nor lost, but it will be. And then we will have to understand what happened and how our country is to proceed.

Thomas W. Collier, LTC, US Army, Retired
Ann Arbor, Michigan

Thank you, thank you thank you .......... For having the courage to stand up against those corrupt news media ABC, CNN, NBC who claim to give honest informative, impartial news. They don't even know the meanings of those words; they have no integrity at all. I will no longer watch any of their news programs, they don't deserve even one minute of my valuable time. We have the greatest men and woman in the world fighting for our freedoms and keeping it away from our homeland; how dare they compromise them.

Myrtle Martin
Leesville/Fort Polk, Louisiana

Thank you for printing LTC Tim Ryan's article. I'm weary of hearing reports "Firefight in Bagdad Street kills Innocent Iraqi" when the reporter hasn't a clue of the nationality or the innocence of the person killed. The media is constantly pushing the idea that the insurgents are actually 'rebels' fighting against occupation of Iraq when the truth is the insurgency is made up of foreign fighters, not Iraqi's, fighting for the CONTROL of Iraq. If they were interested in helping Iraq ... why are they killing Iraqi citizens? Media "experts" rarely, if ever, delve into any of this...being too busy undermining the efforts in Iraq to sway public opinion toward their own politically motivated views.

S.K.Prine
Waverly, Illinois

I work for Ford Motor Company as an engineer, it takes us four to five years to build a car from clean sheet of paper to finished product rolling off the assembly line. During that time we make design errors have tests failures and have good days and bad With that in mind perhaps we can give the government and the military 4 or 5 years to make some progress before we start declaring things to be a "Lost Cause". President Bush told the American people that this would be a long war, so let's have a little patience and see what happens.

Jim Wills
Detroit, Michigan

Thank you for publishing LTC Tim Ryan's article. While I still feel that attacking Iraq was dead wrong, I strongly agree with his position that our media is making a difficult job almost impossible, now that we are there. The frustration our troops there must feel with the "ratings" sided reporting has got to be awful to deal with. LTC Ryan is one savvy guy, BTW, the political comic strip Doonesbury in the San Diego, CA., Union Telegraph, featured the reporters ("Roland Hedley in Baghdad..." ) hiding out in their hotel rooms at about the same time LTC Ryan's article first appeared.

John Silva
San Diego, CA

Print this Article

Email this article

Free Headline Alerts