In a World of Conflict, the Truth Must Survive

"Kevin Sites’ Blog to Become “Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone” on Yahoo!

After the Falluja mosque shooting report last November-I got thousands of hate mails and death threats.

Some went something like this, “Dear Liberal Media Scumbag, I hope the next video clip out of Iraq I watch is an insurgent placing your severed-head onto your back.”

Those voices were a minority, extremists as small-minded and blinded by “righteousness” as the suicide bombers who have murdered thousands of innocent victims in Iraq (including my friend and humanitarian Marla Ruzicka, founder of the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC), killed outside Bagdhad on April 16th this year).

I never got an angry email from the unit I was with nor from Marine battlefield commanders who, though, saddened by the incident, knew I reported with fairness and context both on television and specifically, through the use of this blog, in which my November 21, 2004 “Open Letter to the Devil Dogs of the 3.1” was reprinted and linked to sites around the world.

As difficult as that chapter was for all involved, it provoked dialogue, introspection and maybe in some cases, even positive change. It also highlighted to enemies and allies alike, that America, despite perceived faults, practices what it preaches when it comes to its regard for the sanctity of a free press and its essential role in a democracy.

My belief now, as it was then, is that the cost and consequences of the truth can be enormous-but it can’t be buried or destroyed and must survive, because, as it was so eloquently stated in the pre-amble of the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics, “public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice.”

That may sound as earnest as the syllabus for a journalism 101 class, but it will be the guiding principle for my new project, Kevin Sites in the Hotzone, launching on Yahoo! News on September 26th ."
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