The Captain has a post up which details even more bias against the Military, any Military, by CNN. Apparently Chris Cramer, managing editor of CNN’s International news division and a chief lieutenant of Eason Jordan, has a history of hating all things Military or Law Enforcement.
He was in England in 1980 applying for a visa at the Iranian Embassy along with his crewman Sim Harris when six armed Iranians opposed to the rule of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini invaded and took everyone hostage.
The British activated the Special Air Service (SAS), their commando unit that had been under the budget knife to that point, in an attempt to free the hostages. For the first five days, the SAS planned but remained on standby while British negotiators tried to get the terrorists to surrender. Unfortunately, on the sixth day, the terrorists lost patience and killed an Iranian hostage, an embassy staffer and supporter of Khomeini. After the terrorists pushed the body out a window, the Brits sent in the SAS, which took the embassy back in 15 minutes, killing all but one of the terrorists and saving all but two of the 21 hostages.
Operation Nimrod, as it was designated, became widely hailed as one of the SAS’ most successful operations. The SAS earned a reputation as one of the world’s best counter-terrorist units and the British still point to Nimrod with pride to this day.
They even made a movie about it that I loved when I was young called “Who Dares Win.”
Well our beloved Cramer faked a heart attack and left his partner behind to fend for himself. Typical coward. He has been qouted as saying the following:
Here’s what Cramer told a seminar of media editors for the Crimes of War Project in 2002:
I won’t roll out the victim syndrome for you at all — well, maybe I will for two or three minutes. My own humbling experience was 20 years ago last week. Not, of course, as I remember it. It was actually last Wednesday at about 4 o’clock in the afternoon. Not, of course, that I remember it because it has no affect on me. Tomorrow I fly to London for a reunion, the first in 20 years. And I’ll come back to you and let you know how that feels next year, if you like.
My experience was very brief. I was stupid enough to apply for a visa inside the Iranian Embassy in London in April 1980. I was stupid enough to be there when Iraqi terrorists stormed it. I was there for a very, very short time. I was there for precisely 28 hours. Not that I remember it, because I’m a member of your profession. We don’t do PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder].
I was fortunate enough to have a slightly troubling stomach condition, having been in Zimbabwe, which manifested itself in a very short space of time. It’s a most incredible heart attack. And I do fantastic heart attacks. I do great heart attacks. So convincing with my heart attack that the people there were embarrassed and threw me out.
And I was released after 27 hours into the hands of the Metropolitan Police in London and two days later into a dreadful bunch of terrorists called the SAS, who were probably worse than the terrorists inside the Iranian embassy.
And four and a half days later, Maggie Thatcher, in one of her rare moments of triumph, deployed the SAS in broad daylight to storm the embassy and they rescued all but maybe one or two of the hostages. Two were murdered. The SAS conveniently took out five members of the terrorist group and forgot to take out the sixth. So that was my brief, humbling experience.
So he equates the men who saved his partner’s life (since he was too cowardly to stick around) with terrorists. Remember, this is the right hand partner of Eason Jordan……
Now the man who considers these British commandos to be worse than terrorists says much the same thing about the American military — and CNN put him in charge of its international news coverage, including everything we and the world see coming from such places as Iraq and Afghanistan. No wonder Eason Jordan hired him to run CNNi. With his twisted sense of judgment and his sympathetic ear for conspiracy theories, he seems a perfect fit for the CNN chief who likes to make up wild accusations overseas about the American and Israeli military.
When will we start calling CNN “Al Jazeera”?
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