ataharry@three.com.au

Also I'm not a bitter ex-military, I am in the military and don't mind criticism when it is warranted such as with the Pat Tillman case which I welcomed:

http://rokdrop.com/2007/08/03/pat-tillman-murdere…

The AP on the other hand without even doing any research already had their narrative of a "Korean My Lai" and then sought to find evidence to support it. This is not criticism but yellow journalism.

The yellow journalism was made worse when Hanley knew Daily was a fraud but didn't want to expose him because he hadn't submitted the article for the Pulitzer Prize yet. He allowed Daily to then become the face of No Gun Ri and slime an entire generation of Korean War vets simply because he wanted to win an award. You call this criticism?

Charles Hanley and the AP has long tried to make the claim that the No Gun Ri story is something new. Killing of civilians during the Korean War have long been known and was even on the front pages of the New York Times as I have shown. The No Gun Ri story is not even new. The AP copied the work done by Oh Yeon-ho and did not even credit his work once.

Carroll's orders did not include the killing of civilians as the AP writers claim that refugees were killed under orders from US Army officers. The only "order" the AP claims to have found that the refugees were killed under orders from officers is a log book entry from an entirely separate unit that is not even a order to begin with. They have never found any evidence that the 7th Cavalry had orders to target and kill civilians.

Just like with pointing out spelling errors making claims that Bateman is biased is just another way critics try to discredit him because they cannot challenge the facts he presents which show what a weak argument the No Gun Ri mythology defenders like yourself have. The people who are biased are reporters who without doing any research of their own begin to write a story of a "Korean My Lai".

Also if you bother to read the citations I cited Bateman's book 8 times out of 42 citations and cited facts from the official No Gun Ri review more then I did Bateman's book, so I don't know what you are complaining about. Once again this appears to be another false argument to discredit my work without actually challenging the facts.

Also as far as the body count I mentioned in the article the one lone passage the AP mentioned that the body count could be lower as the CYA portion of the article. How can you possibly think the AP is not advocating for hundreds killed underneath the bridge when they are repeating "hundreds" and 400 killed over and over again in their articles?

The AP intentionally misquoted the veterans, it is obvious to anyone that reads the transcripts. How did Louis Allen who was on re-enlistment leave in Japan get quoted as being at No Gun Ri? If the AP would release all their witness transcripts then everyone could see what they were told, but they won't. Can you explain this? What are they trying to hide?

Here is a tip from me, your arguments would be more effective if you would stick to challenging facts which you are having a hard time doing.

Note how Carroll, in one of your rebuttal quotations, calls something an "order," which you said couldn't possibly be an order.

Furthermore, you don't think it's remotely possibly that the people cited by the AP might have a motive to change their story before a Pentagon review? "Gee, I was misquoted" sounds a lot better than "Yeah, I spilled a bunch of negative stuff to press." What's to say their (which is, by the way, how you spell the possessive form of that word) accurate statements weren't the ones to the AP?

I can also tell you that you rely on Bateman's account in your references far too (again, that's how you spell it in that usage) much to ever pass academic review. Furthermore, isn't it just possible that Bateman's association with the 7th cavalry might make him a little bit biased? Of course, he wasn't born until 1967, but still, he's not exactly an objective source.

It seems to me that you went in with some kind of prejudice against the AP.

Furthermore, you assign far too much implication to the "patch over holes" section. You mistake your inference for deliberate implication. There's a big difference between "imply" and "infer." Again, your prejudice against the AP (I mean how could "outsiders" or "the media" ever get anything right? Isn't that what you were thinking? That's my inference.) seems to be clouding your judgment of the article.

The AP writes that the only people claiming 400 dead are the Koreans and that the actual number of dead is under dispute. Yet, your rebuttal takes them to task for suggesting 400 as the actual number and not making it clear that the number might be significantly lower, which they do, to anyone who reads it with an open mind and not innate suspicion.

Just a few observations by a rhetorician.

Here's a tip: your argument would be more convincing if you weren't so blatantly against every single aspect of the article. That suggests bias. A stronger rebuttal would admit that AP actually got a few things right.

If you wonder how its possible for the USA to get blamed for everything in Korea, look no further then Jae Soon Chang.

They believe the mass-killings wouldn't have been possible without tacit support from Americans, who were advisers to South Korean military units, supplied weapons and ammunition used in the executions and took photographs at some sites.

South Korea was a weak country, Jun said.

"It was just after we regained our nation after Japanese colonial rule. I believe the U.S. strongly influenced" the executions, she said

All Americas fault.

http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?content=w07060…

As usual, the USA is really at fault when a Korean kills another Korean.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti…