Webloggin » The Sun Times Aplogizes for the Jack Higgins Smear of Marines

Olive Branch Kudos to the Sun Times for apologizing for publishing the despicable cartoon that smeared the Marines over the Haditha incident. The cartoon depicted bound and gagged Iraqis who had been shot in a firing line against a wall. (Hat Tip – BackYard Conservative on the Apology)

We originally reported this story here.

The apology from the Sun Times appears as follows:

A cartoon by Jack Higgins in Tuesday’s Chicago Sun-Times incorporated inaccurate imagery to make a statement about the allegations that U.S. Marines killed Iraqi civilians in Haditha.

Jack Higgins and the Sun-Times deeply regret the mistake and apologize to the U.S. servicemen, especially those in the Marine Corps, and to our readers who were understandably offended by the cartoon. Higgins, in doing Web research on the Haditha story, searched the Internet for images. A Yahoo search engine displayed a number of photos, one of which was labeled “IraqBodi…rd.jpg.” Clicking on that image took Higgins to the MSNBC/Newsweek site. On his screen then was the original Yahoo search preview image and under it a Newsweek page with a small image of the magazine’s current cover with the headline “The Haditha Question.”

Higgins made the erroneous assumption that the image in the photo preview was a photograph of victims of the killings that unproven allegations say were committed by U.S. Marines. Further scrolling down the page would have produced another image of this photo with a caption that clearly identities the dead as victims of Iraqi insurgents. The caption reads, “Insurgents in Haditha executed 19 Shiite fishermen and National Guardsmen in a sports stadium.”

Again, Higgins and the editors of the Sun-Times apologize for this egregious error.

As Backyard Conservative noted, the cartoon was created with a broad brush.

The depiction went beyond the original image because of the political statement behind such a cartoon.

Mistakes happen so the apology is a good sign. I do note that there is no apology on Mr. Higgins syndicated site but the cartoon appears to have been removed.

Unfortunately the MSM has been quick to use the very same broad brush to convict and smear the military over this and other incidents. We will continue to ride them until the MSM reports the news accurately (which will likely never happen).