Condi Rice on "Meet the Press" this past weekend: RICE: I understand that Americans see on their screens violence. They continue to see Americans killed, and we mourn every death. These are very hard things to do. But I would ask that people remember why we are there. We are there because we are trying to--having overthrown a brutal dictator who was a destabilizing force in the Middle East, we're trying to help the Iraqis create a stable foundation for democracy and a stable foundation for peace." --- "Citing Bush administration officials, The New York Times reported Sunday that Iraq tried to buy thousands of high-strength aluminum tubes. The tubes, Rice said, "are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs." [CNN, 9/8/2002] ------ I wonder if Colin Powell would've told that lie if he were still Secretary of State. Why not just put Baghdad Bob in charge.
Without our great media, we wouldnât be able to embarrass a nation and make it feel guilty in front of its enemies after taking a picture of a hooded guy standing on a box with wires clipped on his fingers and asking him to spread out his arms. âClickâ goes the camera, and our useful idiots make it out to be the standard of American policy. Without our great media, we couldn't circulate photos of a few people doing something and make it out to be what everyone is doing and everything going on. A Sunni and a Shiite are in a fistfight. âClickâ goes the camera and we have another Iraqi Civil War. LOL.
Good question. We are somewhat unique in the fact that we are a democratic nation with a free press. Our ability as a country to sustain any type of national effort depends in large part upon convincing people it is the right thing to do. Would we have been able to prevail in WW I or II if the press had constantly harped on every mistake, compared the President to historic villains and asserted that the whole rationale for war was based on lies? The problem I see is one of balance. We want the opposition party to be able to offer responsible criticism. We don't want the press muzzled. At the same time, we have a reasonable expectation that the press will not reveal highly confidential matters of national security, just because some disgruntled, unbalanced or politicially obssessed government employee leaks them to the press. Would it have been acceptable for the NY Times during WW II to reveal that we had broken the Japanese secret code? Adn that we had the ability to intercept their communications? Or would it have been responsible for the Washington Post to reveal the details of the Manhattan Project? Would the reporters have received prestigious prizes? Or would they have been put where they would have belonged, in front of a firing squad? The Democrats have managed to politicize every aspect of public life, from the conduct of wars to the CIA to private lives of judicial nominees. Clearly they want the Iraq war to result in a defeat for the US, just as they rejoiced over our defeat in vietnam. Like vietnam, they are doing everything possible to bring about that result. They are prepared to accept any cost for the country if it means a defeat for Bush and more power for them.
I know, I know, that's your spin, and you are sticking with it. Once again, if our government cannot withstand the scrutiny of both the press and the opposition political party, how strong are they? We don't have a presidential recall system, Bush knows that, so what the polls say, what the press writes, what the dems say....really doesn't matter.... Or does it? Bush has always said he ignores the polls and the media....
I find it ironic that you would focus only on one side (bad) of the possibilities for the press, while focus on the opposite side of the possibilities for the government. What if the press were able to expose Hitler's concentration camps for the Jews? Do you think that would be a good thing? How about the treatment of Japanese Americans in the US? Do you think that the press in that case should have stood up against the government, despite the risk of facing a firing squad? And you would be too naive to believe that the government does not manipulate leaks to the press to its own political advantage. Of course they blame the press for the leak if things go wrong. Unfortunately this trick works every time because people are too innocent to question what the government says.
The Abu Ghraib images killed us in Iraq. The war was lost from many angles right then. Just what were the picture takers doing there in that prison anyway? Sending them home on the internet to mongoloid friends in the US for some joke? The pics steel the enemy while stealing whatever support citizens like me can muster. Now I'm so conditioned to expect the worst out of Iraq, there's no way in hell I'd bet against Murtha and the reporters on this massacre thing.
War has never been pretty. Nor has it ever been just in the sparing of civilian casualties. The bombs that fell on Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, Vietnam and Iraq did not discriminate between civilian and combatant. Unfortunately, this is what happens in war. Soldiers, too, die from friendly fire. This is what happens in war. What also happens in war is that those who sit in the safety of their homes, thousands of miles removed from the battleground, dictate to the soldier the what, why, how, when and where of his every act ... and pass judgement on his every act without regard to the mitigating circumstances of the moment. Our courts place more weight on mitigating circumstances when passing sentence on a violent criminal than we, the public, afford the soldier. But when that soldier happens upon the sight of one of his brothers hanging naked and disemboweled from a tree, there's a chance his judgement might be affected when next he meets an enemy combatant. A soldier, enduring what seems like and eternity of concussionary impacts from rpg's and watching round after round rip thru the flesh of his comrades, all coming from enemy combatants dressed in civilian garb ... just might reach that point where his judgement falters and directs his fire where he shouldn't - hitting civilians or even his fellow soldiers. A soldier, hearing a burst from an ak up ahead, sees a brother fall ... raises his m-60 and fires a burst into the enemy combatant. His unit approaches their fallen enemy with caution, disarms him and only then discovers that their fallen foe was a young teenager. A photo taken after any of these events depicts no mitigating circumstances because a lens sees only what is in front of it. And if published back home, so many of us - just like the lens - see only what's in front of our eyes without regard to those moments/days preceeding that picture. Cold-blooded murder in a battle theatre should not be condoned any more that at home. But our rush to judge the suspected soldier should be tempered as much as our rush to judge any suspected civilian back home.
Therein is the problem, would the press do so without an underlying political/personal agenda? I can think of several similar instances to the past that say that there is not much change. Will the press give us more of the details of the modern day concentration camp in Africa? Not without some celebrity making press. Treatment of Japanese Americans? I can equate it to some of the conditions that we can evidence of overcrowded homes filled with illegal immigrants that just want a job (so claimed). They are prisoners in many respects. But the press can't be too obtrusive. I watched a report the other night where a reporter and camera person followed illegal immigrants across the border. They coincidentally blocked out the license plates of the vehicles that the people jumped into. Is that illegal? Not to the press way of thinking. Where is the firing squad for this behavior? ALL SIDES are not being completely truthful and that is the problem. To do so would destroy the underlying agenda. No one really is interested in espousing the truth. Or maybe they don't care enough because it might disenfranchise some who want to come to America. You see the real trouble for most is there is a good/bad side to just about every argument. And the other side sometimes is quite substantial and could/would derail the cause. Or even worse, defeat and end the argument. There are many who have postured their lives on "having the argument" who can't afford to have it settled/solved.