for CNN and others.

Their fairly continuous mantra over the last few months has been to focus on U.S. misdeeds, and portray "those poor mistreated people" as victims; they also want very much to believe that they're Just Another News Item (Pat. App. For) to fill in between the fires and landslides on the nightly news.

Unfortunately, the people they want to cover are Not Nice, and don't agree that snoops with cameras should be welcome as "neutral observers". So I'm sorry as hell that this one won't be coming home, but possibly it will be a wakeup call.

Of course, the actual result will be that U. S. mideeds (which do, and will, occur) will be the only thing covered; a lesson learned well by the North Vietnamese some time ago. The result will be ever-growing resentment of the Heavy Handed Americans, because if our guys do something bad by mistake it will get headlines, whereas their guys can raze villages to their hearts' content, secure in the knowledge that it won't be on the 9 o'clock news.

In a left-handed sort of way it gives a bit of hope. At least the RIFs are learning a little about handling the media, which means they're gaining some kind of insight into Western attitudes.