NPR names Duncan Hunter as man responsible for deaths of 2 US service members in Iraq

We're reposting this from THE COMMON ILLS as an update on who was responsible for the two deaths:

Iraq snapshot

April 7, 2023.  A major truth about an Iraq incident emerges and NPR can now report that Duncan Hunter is responsible for the deaths of two US soldiers, Clarence Thomas is corrupt and exposed but look at our 'straight talkers' (grifters who've moved from the left to the right) who just can't find that story, not even for a Tweet -- all this and Tara Reade puts the food down long enough to fan girl over Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Well I guess if you scream and call them out loud enough, if you shame them just enough, even idiots like Tom Bowman can belatedly due their damn job.  Online, I'm referring to "Tom Bowman acts our War Porn while NPR pushes for the money shot" from March 26.  Offline, I'm referring to endless conversations with friends at NPR.  

Tom Bowman is supposed to be a reporter but he filed a 'report' March 16th that was nothing but porn.  His fellow reporter was too busy impersonating a US soldier -- that should be as big a crime as civilians who try to scam people for money.  Graham "G" Smith acting like he's a soldier with his use of  "Man, . . ."  and "bitch" thinking he's sounding like  a solider.  WTF was that?  how insulting to the enlisted.  

I can remember the first time I went to an AIDS hospice.  A friend put it together -- this was back when many were encouraged to fear people with AIDS and told to be wary of even casual contact.  So I applaud the others who went with me but one, a fortyish TV actor, immediately sat down on the floor in a main area, removed his shoes and socks and thought this was a 60s rap session.  And I looked at the people there and noticed them staring at his bare feet with dismay.  This was their home and he thought he was cozying up to them but he actually was insulting some of them with his actions -- which were overly familiar.

That's "G" Smith.  Or should he have been billed on air as "G" Dawg?

If you missed it, here's the opening of the critique we gave:

NPR's cancelled four podcasts.  (See Ruth's "NPR created their own problems.")  They should make it five.  TAKING COVER needs to be cancelled as well.

Tom Bowman's always been more of an idiot than a journalist -- but he really let his stupidity shine last week with a 'report.'  Bowman and company wasted 49 minutes and over 7,500 words to tell you nothing.  NPR should be ashamed of themselves.  They gave your war porn while claiming it was reporting.  

Here's how it started: A tip to Tom about the US military (when? This year? we're never told).    The tip was  about events on April 12, 2004 in Falluja.  The US military lied.  They concealed details of a death.  They didn't just conceal it in real time.  When Bowman and NPR made an open records request, they were told that there were no records.  

This should have been big.  It should have been huge.

A report like this should have ended with the family of the dead Marine -- or his friends -- speaking about how disgusting it was that the US military concealed his death for 'optics.'   It should have had a comment from Senator Jack Reed who is the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee. 

It didn't.  Instead we got a lot of nonsense.  Including the fact that no one ever needs to hear NPR reporters tossing around the term "man" as though they're buddies with the veterans.  Graham Smith and Tom Bowman aren't part of the Marines.  They are journalists -- someone should have reminded them of that.

 

They use the 49 minutes  to serve up war porn.  

And to make themselves the stars.

You can listen to the report and find out about how what books and documents the two 'reporters' went through.  As though that's the story?  Because that is what they made the story.  

Not the death, not the cover up.  In fact most people listening to this garbage may not grasp at the end, after 49 minutes, that Bowman and Smith never revealed what the story needed revealed.

Here's Tom Bowman yammering away early in the porn:

 I might run into a colonel I knew in Afghanistan or a general visiting from his overseas command who can tell me what's really going on. But there are some things, well, people just don't want to talk about in the building. So I might call them at home at night, or...

(SOUNDBITE OF DRINK POURING)

BOWMAN: ...We might meet up at a bar, which is what happened one night at a whiskey bar in D.C. Actually, this very bar, a guy who spent a lot of time in Iraq told me a story very few people knew. He told me that early in the Iraq War, there'd been this tragedy. U.S. Marines had dropped a mortar or a rocket on their own people. That's what they call friendly fire. Now, in this case, he said, one Marine was killed and another seriously wounded. Friendly fire deaths - they happen. They happen in every war throughout history. That's not what made his story shocking. Here's the thing - he said that the Marine brass had actually covered it up, burying the truth about this terrible incident because, he said, the son of a powerful politician was involved in the screw-up.

"SOUNDBITE OF DRINK POURING"?  That was needed to drive home that the two are trying for entertainment not not news.

A death was covered up.  And it was covered up because "the son of a powerful politician was involved in the screw-up."

We need to know why the cover up and we need to know son of a politician.  

They can add sound effects and they can brag on themselves but Bowman and Harris can't deliver the basic facts.

This is shameful.

49 minutes on this and they never told you a damn thing.  It opened with the tip.  49 minutes later, they had not asked anyone with DoD for a public response, they had no response of outrage from no members of Congress -- and we're never told who the son of the politician was.  

But we got sound effects!  We got "G" Dawg talking in a manner he assumed is how soldiers speak.  We got "bitch" on NPR, didn't we?  We got so much -- so very much of nothing.

And as I've noted here, my conversations with NPR friends were not just me complaining.  A large number of people at NPR were bothered by that nonsense as well.

So Tommy Bowman and "G" Dawg were put back on the story but this time with a chaperone -- Chris Haxel.  With a designated adult on the team, 22 days after their 'report,' it can finally be told: Duncan Hunter.

22 days later.  Despite the fact that Tom Bowman was told it was Duncan Hunter on day one, NPR can finally release the name.  I knew the name back in March.  A friend at NPR and I were on the phone and he told me a listener or two had written in asking if it were Beau Biden.  I said, "No, it's not Beau, he wasn't even in Iraq that year.  If someone wants to figure it out, it's not going to be that hard, there weren't a lot of children of Congress members in Iraq.  There's Duncan Hunter --" and he cut me off with, "I didn't say that."  And his nervousness made it clear that it was Duncan.  They were working on getting a report on the air and I said I wouldn't put it up here until they did.  I wasn't trying to 'scoop' them, my point was that it needed to be public knowledge.

From this morning's NPR report:

On the night of April 12, 2004, a deadly explosion rocked a schoolhouse in Fallujah, Iraq, where U.S. troops had set up a temporary base. Two Marines died and a dozen were wounded, some severely.

But as seared as the fatal explosion is in the men's memory, to the Pentagon it's as if it never happened.

An NPR investigation found that the explosion at the schoolhouse in Fallujah was a tragic accident — the worst Marine-on-Marine "friendly fire" of recent decades. Officers determined almost immediately that the explosion was caused by an errant 81 mm mortar fired by the victims' own comrades, yet the families of the dead men weren't told for years, despite Marine Corps regulations. Some of the wounded have never been told.

Three officers involved in the deadly mortar fire were recommended for punishment, but that was rejected by the Marines' ground commander in Iraq — Maj. Gen. James Mattis. Consequently, no one was ever disciplined.

And NPR found another secret: An officer who was part of the confusion, but was not cited for discipline, was the son of an important and powerful member of Congress. Then-1st Lt. Duncan D. Hunter was working in the command center that mistakenly approved the mortar launch. His father — U.S. Rep. Duncan L. Hunter — was then-chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, responsible for oversight of the war.

For those who don't know of nepo-baby Duncan Hunter, from WIKIPEDIA:

Duncan Duane Hunter (born December 7, 1976) is an American former politician and United States Marine who served as a U.S. representative for California's 50th congressional district from 2013 to 2020. He is a member of the Republican Party, who was first elected to the House in 2008. His district, numbered as the 52nd from 2009 to 2013, encompassed much of northern and inland San Diego County and a sliver of Riverside County, including the cities of El Cajon, Escondido, San Marcos, Santee and Temecula. He served in the U.S. Marines from 2001 through 2005 and succeeded his father, Republican Duncan Lee Hunter, a member of Congress from 1981 to 2009.

In 2017, the Department of Justice began a criminal investigation into Hunter and his campaign manager and wife Margaret Jankowski, for alleged campaign finance violations.^[1][2] In August 2018, both were indicted on charges including conspiracy, wire fraud, and violating campaign finance laws.^[3] In June 2019, Jankowski pleaded guilty to corruption and named him as a co-conspirator in using campaign funds for personal expenses.^[4]

Also in June 2019, federal prosecutors showed that from 2009 to 2016, Hunter had spent campaign funds on extramarital affairs with five women, including lobbyists and congressional staff.^[5][6] In December 2019, Hunter changed his plea to guilty on one count of misusing campaign funds.^[7] On January 7, 2020, he submitted letters of resignation to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and California Governor Gavin Newsom, that took effect on January 13, 2020.^[8] On March 17, 2020, Hunter was sentenced to 11 months in prison, scheduled to begin in January 2021.^[9][10] He was pardoned by President Donald Trump in December 2020.^[11][12][13] The next day Trump pardoned Hunter's wife.^[14]

Maybe if old "Mad Dog" had done his job, we wouldn't have had to endure Congress member Little DD Hunter.  But Mad Dog never did what he was required to which is why it was embarrassing to watch some rush to praise him just because he was an enemy of Donald Trump.

NPR's in the news and not for the right reasons.  Twitter has labeled them government funded or something like that.  They do need to be labeled that way, they do get government money.  And the whining over it -- not every friend at NPR agrees with me on this (obviously) -- has been a distraction all week long.  We didn't comment, there was no reason to do so, we had serious issues to cover.   But since we're noting NPR right now -- first time this week, we'll note that.  

And thank you to everyone at NPR who worked so hard to get the truth out -- the truth that Tommy Bowman and "G" Dawg never thought was all that important.

49 minutes about a cover up and they couldn't tell you Duncan Hunter.