Appears the US is targeting journalists now, Al Jazeera was hit in two other incidents.
BillW wrote:Appears the US is targeting journalists now, Al Jazeera was hit in two other incidents.
I keep wanting to write, "You can't REALLY believe that," but I guess you do. And mostly, that fact makes me sad. I could take a lot of time to explain why, but why bother? I doubt you would want to know. You seem happy thinking the worst of the US and our men and women in uniform. Why would you care what I think about your disdain for our troops?
I have no disdain for the troops but plenty for you, but you don't have the capability to understand that.
I keep wanting to write, "You can't REALLY believe that," but I guess you do.
Kara, That is the same sentiment I hear from my Arab friends in Egypt and Tanzania. It's unfortunate that most Americans only see one side. c.i.
Obviously some troops know, how the war-propaganda-maschine works:
Tuesday, 8 April
1650: UK security sources tell the BBC that they do not believe Saddam Hussein is dead.
(I know, I know...I should get a life.)
If I had been told before the war that US forces would deliberately target and kill journalists, I would not have believed it.
But now I am not so sure.
I don't believe that tank commander didn't recognise the Palestine Hotel
I don't believe he came under RPG or sniper attack from the foyer
I don't believe he was unaware it was full of journalists and crew
I don't believe he would have fired at such a target without getting explict authorisation if not a direct order from way up the command structure.
As I said a few minutes after it happened, it was no accident. And no Americans were killed or injured.
I wouldn't be surprised if he had come under attack - iraqi untis using the hotel as a sheild. I am still highly suspiscious.
US military has surrounded the tv station in baghdad....
1632: A stray rocket, apparently fired in the war in neighbouring Iraq, killed one person in south-western Iran, the third such case since war began, reports said.
from the BBC - At a glance.
Grrrr....
frolic, remember this?
Gelisgesti wrote:
What will be said when the 'embeded' press corp get left at the gates of the city because is too 'dangerous' for them to proceed?
Some people here call me "The Al-Jazeera man". But you have to admit those journalists got a lot of nerve. They go to places and cities where no other journalists dare to go. They give us a different view on this conflict.
Gelisgesti, I can't wait until the books start coming out!
Chris Hedges, who has just written an increasingly famous and quoted book on being an "embedded" in the first Gulf War, writes the following:
Quote:War itself is venal, dirty, confusing and perhaps the most potent narcotic invented by humankind. Modern industrial warfare means that most of those who are killed never see their attackers. There is nothing glorious or gallant about it. If we saw what wounds did to bodies, how killing is far more like butchering an animal than the clean and neat Hollywood deaths on the screen, it would turn our stomachs. If we saw how war turns young people into intoxicated killers, how it gives soldiers a license to destroy not only things but other human beings, and if we saw the perverse thrill such destruction brings, we would be horrified and frightened. If we understood that combat is often a constant battle with a consuming fear we have perhaps never known, a battle that we often lose, we would find the abstract words of war--glory, honor and patriotism--not only hollow but obscene. If we saw the deep psychological scars of slaughter, the way it maims and stunts those who participate in war for the rest of their lives, we would keep our children away. Indeed, it would be hard to wage war...... The embedding of several hundred journalists in military units does not diminish the lie. These journalists do not have access to their own transportation. They depend on the military for everything, from food to a place to sleep. They look to the soldiers around them for protection. When they feel the fear of hostile fire, they identify and seek to protect those who protect them. They become part of the team. It is a natural reaction. I have felt it...... I doubt the journalists filing the hollow reports from Iraq, in which there are images but rarely any content, are aware of how they are being manipulated. They, like everyone else, believe. But when they look back they will find that war is always about betrayal. It is about betrayal of the young by the old, of soldiers by politicians and of idealists by the cynical men who wield power, the ones who rarely pay the cost of war. We pay that cost. And we will pay it again.
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030421&c=2&s=hedges
I can understand being opposed to this war, but I find this notion of being opposed to ever taking military action to be one rooted in an absence of rational thought.
Tartarin what an amazing piece of writing. Thanks for posting.
[quote]I can understand being opposed to this war, but I find this notion of being opposed to ever taking military action to be one rooted in an absence of rational thought.[/quote]
tres, can't you imagine military action becoming so terrifyingly awful and end-of-the-world like -- surely we are not far from that now -- that no rational person would consider it even as a last solution?
Kara, it requires a civilization change to be able to approach your scenario. As a matter of fact, for us to reach the next civilized level, war has to become barbaric and only spoken of in the past tense! Easy for some of us, but currently, we have regressed
<sigh>
