Embeds and the Right to Know

Okay - I'll bite. Is it just boring subject matter, or is it the way I framed it, or what? I thought this was a pretty timely and interesting topic.

Snood--

I'm interested--and I feel that the embedded journalists are an excellent way to dispell the glamour of war--but I was hoping to hear other sides of the question before I answered.

Snood
I have been avoiding most of the political threads. Somehow I overlooked this one, however. I believe the embeds are a necessity, for we need to base our decisions on full disclosure, not hear-say.

Echo everybody.

Definitely NOT boring subject matter! I was just ignorant of the term "embed" and had not clicked on your thread because in all honesty, I didn't want to feel like the idiot who didn't know anything.

I don't have television, so I never see the evening news. I don't like the way that war is sensationalized by the media. War is ugly and brutal and sometimes very necessary.

My daughter is getting married next month to a 23 year old Sergeant in the Army. He has served for 4 years, was inactive for one and is now going active again in January and being deployed to Egypt. He and my daughter decided together that he will stay active and this will be his career.

My son is joining the Army in March and also wants to go career....his girlfriend has been in Kuwait since June, her ex is in Iraq and their daughter is at home with an aunt...

Do I want to know absolutely everything that happens to each of them or around them while they are active? Hell no...it would or could, break this mothers heart. Do I support them in their decisions to do what they feel is right? Damn straight I do.

I just don't necessarily think the media gets the real or the true picture of the jobs these young volunteers are required to do.....

Am I correct in knowing what an embed is now?

Snood - I was just shutting up cos I am burned by politics, too. Yours is a great question.

When they were set up, I thought the emedded journos were just another clever way to spin news from Iraq II - you know, the media got wise to how royally they were played like violins in Iraq I (more shame to them) - so I figured this was spin II - a more subtle way of doing it.

I have been surprised that there HAS been some critical reporting from these embedded folk - I am more aware of what has come from Ausralian journos, than American ones - but the recent stir about the shooting of the prisoner encouraged me that the American journos have not been schmoozed into impotence.

I am intrigued that: "He opined that embeds are clearly a good idea which should continue to stay with the troops, in main because the great percentage of the news they uncover about the American troops is positive."

If that is a straight, rather than intended for media and the pollies, comment - then good on him - and good on the military for having faith that their people will, in the main, behave professionally.

The "propaganda" fodder thing is foolish, I think. So much of what appears on American networks is the most blatant propaganda for the administration. Shall we hope to hide bad stuff that the invaders in Iraq do, just because propaganda can be made of it? I would hope that people can make up their own minds - hiding things is bad, I think - and enough is not reported, for reasons of not being offensive or voyeuristic, that any glimpse of harsher realities is good, I believe. We need to have SOME idea of what we are voting to be done.

The propaganda from the other side will come anyway - wars are fed and nourished on it.

I think that also touches on an argument, which is also pushed by a number of right wing folk here, that we, the masses, ought not to be allowed to see any of the realities of war - because we get too squeamish and withdraw support.

I think that is a deeply dangerous and elitist view - that only the select, chosen few (who can "handle the truth" - unlike the pathetic masses) should be allowed to see the realities of what is done in the name of "pre-emptive defence" or freedom, or whatever - if we are gonna authorise slaughter, of our troops, and those of the other side, and the poor bastard civiliand caught in the middle, we ought to see what it really is.