Baghdad 5 Years On

thank you (0.00 / 0)

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by: Doug Hoffer @ Tue Aug 05, 2008 at 20:53:20 PM UTC

Censorship embedded ..... (0.00 / 0)

The angry man in the first video says "You must tell the truth ".How different might it be if we saw the truth every night on TV and read it in the papers as in the Vietnam War.

This NY Times story illustrates the pressure not to report the daily horrors taking place so many years after the little man's hollow boast .. Mission Accomplished.

If the conflict in Vietnam was notable for open access given to journalists - too much, many critics said, as the war played out nightly in bloody newscasts - the Iraq war may mark an opposite extreme: after five years and more than 4,000 American combat deaths, searches and interviews turned up fewer than a half-dozen graphic photographs of dead American soldiers.....................
And while publishing photos of American dead is not barred under the "embed" rules in which journalists travel with military units, the Miller case underscores what is apparently one reality of the Iraq war: that doing so, even under the rules, can result in expulsion from covering the war with the military.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07...

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by: BP @ Tue Aug 05, 2008 at 23:13:02 PM UTC

And of course, failing to allow yourself to be censored (4.00 / 1)

Can be deadly.

http://www.ratical.org/ratvill...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/medi...

http://www.rsf.org/article.php...

http://www.nysun.com/national/... :

The head of CNN's news division, Eason Jordan, ignited an Internet firestorm last week when he told a panel at a World Economic Forum gathering in Davos, Switzerland, that the American military had targeted journalists during operations in Iraq.

Mr. Jordan, speaking in a panel discussion titled "Will Democracy Survive the Media?" said "he knew of about 12 journalists who had not only been killed by American troops, but had been targeted as a matter of policy," said Rep. Barney Frank, a Democrat of Massachusetts who was on the panel with Mr. Jordan.

...

Mr. Jordan's comments - prompted by a broader discussion of the dangers of covering the war in Iraq, in which some 63 journalists have been killed - left Mr. Frank, usually an outspoken war opponent, speechless.

"I was agog," he said. ...

Beware the Everyday Brutality of the Averted Gaze

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by: mataliandy @ Wed Aug 06, 2008 at 01:01:04 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Zoriah Miller (0.00 / 0)

Mr. Miller was a guest of men who fed, housed, transported, and protected him.  While those men were suffering and dying instead of providing aid or comfort Mr. Miller saw an opportunity to advance his career.  Because of his incredibly selfish parasitism Mr. Miller was no longer a welcome guest.  
There is no "right" to embed.  Mr. Miller was there at the sufferance of the men who risked their lives to ensure his safety, spent their time talking to him about their lives and beliefs, and tried to make him feel welcome in a dangerous environment. When they died, Mr. Miller saw opportunity, not tragedy.
Mr. Miller's claims that his actions are somehow defensible because those who died were not identifiable to himself or any other disinterested and uncaring stranger are ridiculous.  Consider your own spouse or child; you are able to identify them by profile, from the back, by the sound of their steps, and presumably lying dead on the ground.  You don't require visible nametags to know your loved ones.  The men who died had children, and one day their children will investigate what happened on the day their fathers died.  And because of Mr. Miller they will get to see their fathers in a way their fathers would never have wished for them to see.  
Mr. Miller was not serving any greater cause, he was serving only his own interests.

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by: patrickcashman @ Wed Aug 06, 2008 at 20:36:00 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Write more (0.00 / 0)

Who is this you're referring to?  With whom was he embedded? What were the circumstances of the deaths you mention?

All of this war's stories should be told. Please help us know this story better by providing more context, or at least links to places where we can find the context.

Beware the Everyday Brutality of the Averted Gaze

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by: mataliandy @ Thu Aug 07, 2008 at 05:19:40 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Clarification (0.00 / 0)

My apologies if it was unclear, I was posting in response to the second comment and the link it contains by BP to the NY Times article on Zoriah Miller.  I must have hung my comment in the wrong place.

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by: patrickcashman @ Thu Aug 07, 2008 at 05:46:28 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

unseen images (4.00 / 1)

Regardless of what we may want to hear and see of the war here in the States the violence and suffering continues .

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by: BP @ Thu Aug 07, 2008 at 14:25:22 PM UTC

[ Parent ]