Too much for ABC, NBC, CBS

[sonshine]

Got any links?

Here's a couple...

www.blogsofwar.com
(you have to scroll down aways to get to the military ones)

www.sgtstyrker.com

 

[FlyingDoc]

It'd be nice if the media just reported the news... now they are digesting it for us and telling us what it means....

next they are going to chew our food for us, and tells if it tastes good or not.

 

[Slammer2]

I came across this power point presentation of violations of the Law of Armed Conflict in Fallujah. It was on the soldiers for the truth (sfft.org) website. Never been there before but came across it while searching for something. Not sure how "official" it is but it was a good read. Maybe this is more appropriate for one of the other threads we had earlier, but no use in restarting an inactive thread when we're talking about it here. Its about 2.5M so i will only post a link.

http://www.sftt.org/PPT/article11222004a.ppt

 

[HueyCobra8151]

Here is the best link to the Anti-Terror Rally that occured in Baghdad in December of 2003.

He has linked several other sites with further information. The reason I didn't post any actual news reports is because none came up when I googled this...go figure...

Iraqi blogs:

http://www.healingiraq.com/
http://messopotamian.blogspot.com/
http://iraqataglance.blogspot.com/
http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/
http://hammorabi.blogspot.com/
http://iraq-iraqis.blogspot.com/
http://nabilsblog.blogspot.com/
http://roadofanation.blogspot.com/
http://www.sunofiraq.blogspot.com/
http://www.thetruthaboutiraq.org/
http://freedomstruth.blogspot.com/
http://www.pbase.com/kburch/the_picture_from_iraq_you_wont_see_in_the_news
http://www.iraqaction.blogspot.com/
http://iraqiholocaust.blogspot.com/

And here is a link to the Iraqi Pro-Democracy Party
http://english.iraqdemparty.org/

 

[Flash]

Thanks for the links. I still don't quite buy the that the 'liberal media' is ignoring the 'good stories'. I have seen several stories that go in depth about American efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan inhte Washington Post (the paper I read every day) and the New York Times. Several of these highlighted the success of the 101st Airborne last summer in Northern Iraq and Civil Affairs efforts in both countries.

I will grant you that sometimes some in the media like to take shots at the military but look at it from the outside, would you keep trusting people who tell you that we are treating prisoners well but it turns out we are beating them, some to death. And we tell the media that we 'crossed the line' in Fallujah when we had not.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw...o1dec01,0,321180.story?coll=la-home-headlines

We ain't exactly going to build a lot of trust with the media if we keep doing stuff like that.

 

[Fly Navy]

We ain't exactly going to build a lot of trust with the media if we keep doing stuff like that.

There is still resentment in the media, from the older dogs, from the first Gulf War too. We deliberately conducted mis-information on them because we knew they were complete liabilities with leaking, etc. When they found out, after the cease-fire, that we deliberaly lied to them, they were furious. Of course, I say fvck them. They know they're a liability in most situations.

 

[HueyCobra8151]

The article you posted about the military giving incorrect information purposefully, doesn't seem bad to me.

Are we obligated to tell the truth about our military plans, knowing that the news is going to report it immediately, and give the enemy up to the minute intelligence information?

IMO the media shouldn't even be there. It is fairly obvious how they feel about things, when the Abu Ghraib prison scandal receives front page coverage for 30+ some days, and the uncoverings of 300,000 dead people in Saddam's mass graves barely makes a ripple.

Dead bodies are boring. But Abu Ghraib had cool pictures and an ongoing trial to feed the frenzy with.

 

[Fly Navy]

The article you posted about the military giving incorrect information purposefully, doesn't seem bad to me.

It's not bad at all. It was very useful in screwing with the enemy.

 

[helmet91]

anyone remember CNN greeting the USMC on the beaches of Somalia in 1992?

 

[Fly Navy]

anyone remember CNN greeting the USMC on the beaches of Somalia in 1992?

Sure do. SEALs were involved too.

They endangered the lives of those men, for what, a good story? If they got lit up, the Marines and SEALs could defend themselves. The media would have been toast, and rightfully so. I would not have wept a bit if they go themselves killed.

 

[airpirate25]

Well, I never made it into Iraq (yada yada...see the world through a porthole), but I did spend some time in Saudi and Yemen during the first few months after September 11th. There were an awful lot of people who were glad to see us, mostly becasue it was something exciting and new to see American troops and equipment. After we had a chance to do our jobs, the mood definitely shifted all over the Mid-East. It's important to remember that when your enemy is imbedded within a larger, friendlier culture, you will get mixed emotions. I agree the news media plays to the tune of sensationalism, on many issues...the real problem is not new however. Any time an armed conflict affects the citizens, their will be a public outcry. Imagine if the National Guard showed up in your backyard to hunt down drug dealers; yeah we'd be stoked until our 15 year old kids were being rounded up because they fit the profile of the "enemy". We'd love to see the machine gun toting gangs face organized military firepower, until a mortar round went astray and took out your garage. Civilized people never approve of having any military force camped in their backyard, especially a foreign one.

 

[Flash]

Sure do. SEALs were involved too.

They endangered the lives of those men, for what, a good story? If they got lit up, the Marines and SEALs could defend themselves. The media would have been toast, and rightfully so. I would not have wept a bit if they go themselves killed.

It was not just CNN that showed up, it was everyone and their brother. More importantly, how do you think they got the info, the military.

The article you posted about the military giving incorrect information purposefully, doesn't seem bad to me.

Are we obligated to tell the truth about our military plans, knowing that the news is going to report it immediately, and give the enemy up to the minute intelligence information?

I am not saying that we should tell the press and public when where we will attack, anyone servicemember who tells a reporter that is just plain stupid, but to blatantly lie to the media is stretching it a bit. How are we suppose to gain their trust and help us report our side of the story? We keep lying and we are libel to lose whatever trust we have with the press, and by extension erode our trust with the public. It is a little give and take, like everything in life.

BTW, misinformation is done by Psyops people and should continue to be left to them. PAO's should do PAO stuff like reporting facts.

IMO the media shouldn't even be there.

Who are we to depend on for information about the war, the government? Their track record has not been good lately, just look at the accounts coming out about Tillman's death.

the uncoverings of 300,000 dead people in Saddam's mass graves barely makes a ripple.

That is an estimation of how many died under his regime, they have not found that many graves yet. A small but important difference. Here is a story from Fox News:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,102568,00.html

 

[ZoomByU]

i got a similar e-mail today i'll post the pics when i get home from work

 

[Fly Navy]

It was not just CNN that showed up, it was everyone and their brother. More importantly, how do you think they got the info, the military.

Quote me as saying it was just CNN that showed up. I didn't.

On lying to the media... General Schwarzkopf got a lot of flack for deliberately deceiving the media back then. I personally believe he was in the right. The last major war we were in, Vietnam, the media proved they could not be trusted with accurately portraying information on the war. What comes around goes around. Should it continue? No, like you said, it fosters a bad relationship. The trust needs to come from both sides, of whom don't trust each other.

The media has made poor decisions in the past, regarding warfare, just like the military/government has. Can anyone say Mogadishu?

I think the embedded reporters were effective this war. They had good and bad side effects, but we wouldn't have let them tag along if there wasn't something for us in it.

 

[HueyCobra8151]

the uncoverings of 300,000 dead people in Saddam's mass graves barely makes a ripple.

That is an estimation of how many died under his regime, they have not found that many graves yet. A small but important difference. Here is a story from Fox News:

I don't understand what you are trying to say. You said what I said and gave a news article proving my point.

And actually, according to this news source and The government USAid website, I was wrong...It is more like 400,000.

BTW, here is a link relevant to what I was talking about earlier:

To illustrate a fraction of the bias problem, we counted the number of prisoner-abuse stories on NBC’s evening and morning news programs (NBC Nightly News and Today) from April 29, when the story emerged, through May 11. There were 58 morning and evening stories. Using the Nexis news-data retrieval system, we counted the number of stories on mass graves found in Iraq from the reign of Saddam Hussein in 2003 and 2004. The number of evening and morning news stories on those grim discoveries? Five.

I am not saying that we should tell the press and public when where we will attack, anyone servicemember who tells a reporter that is just plain stupid, but to blatantly lie to the media is stretching it a bit. How are we suppose to gain their trust and help us report our side of the story? We keep lying and we are libel to lose whatever trust we have with the press, and by extension erode our trust with the public. It is a little give and take, like everything in life.

IMO, if blatantly lying to the news will allow us to see how the enemy is preparing, and would theoretically save even one life, then it is worth it. The media is so biased and partisan that it is not going to matter what we tell them anyway, they will spew whatever rhetoric will provide the best ratings.

If, as I demonstrated, they are going to lend more weight to a few junior enlisted soldiers "embarrasing" prisoners than they will on the mass murder of such an epic proportion, that it is only surpassed in the 20th century by Soviet Russia, the Nazi Holocaust, and Pol Pot's Rwandan Genocide, then I think the "trust" is already a little bit broken.

Who are we to depend on for information about the war, the government? Their track record has not been good lately, just look at the accounts coming out about Tillman's death

Why do we need to depend on "up-to-the-minute" "pin-point accurate" information on the war? Anything that the American public sees, those who oppose us see. That includes battle plans and troop locations. Further, when the media only shows the downside of everything, those who oppose us see that America will lose hope and withdrawl soon; as was aptly demonstrated to success in Vietnam (as per General Giap's book).