“During the invasion it got a lot of, ‘Whoopee, we’re kicking their butts’-type of TV coverage,” he said. Now, he said the situation is nuanced, and unpredictable. Generally, he said, the access reporters get “very much depends on the local commander.” More specifically, he said, “They’ve always been freaky about bodies.”
Graphic images depicting the pain and suffering in Vietnam were brought in to the living rooms.
This ensured the collapse of the feelings of fighting a righteous war in defence of the people in vietnam oppressed by communists. It dawned on the all but the most incorrigible that Vietnam war a terrible mistake. As public pressures mounted the Government had to back down and admit that the decision to Vietnam was a major error.
All McNamara apologies cannot bring back the millions of lives lost, innocents devastated and a country ruined or wipe away the tears.
The lesson has been learnt well, but wrong conclusions drawn.
Do not allow bad news to come home. People may come to know the truth.
The current administration has ensured that ‘embedding’ of reporters means filtering of news.
Are the people entitled to know the truth or not?
How long will the masking of gory pictures of death and destruction keep people ignorant?
There is the other side to the story.
Would these pictures and stories not lower the morale of the troops? Will it not shake their resolve?
Will it not shake the faith of mothers, fathers, wives and children in the ‘war against terrorism’ as being played out in Afghanistan and Iraq?
After all every one knows sacrifices have to made (your sons not mine), to preserve the world for the good people and root out the evil doers.
ED
Extracts from an article
Handful of images for thousands of deaths
If the conflict in Vietnam was notable for open access given to journalists, the Iraq war may mark an opposite extreme
By Michael Kamber and Tim Arango | New York Times
BAGHDAD — The case of a freelance photographer in Iraq who was barred from covering the Marines after he posted photos on the Internet of several of them dead has underscored what some journalists say is a growing effort by the U.S. military to control graphic images from the war.
Zoriah Miller, the photographer who took images of Marines killed in a June 26 suicide attack in Anbar province and posted them on his Web site, was subsequently forbidden to work in Marine Corps-controlled areas of the country. Maj. Gen. John Kelly, the Marine commander in Iraq, is now seeking to have Miller barred from all U.S. military facilities throughout the world. Miller has since left Iraq.
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 U.S. soldiers.
It is a complex issue, with competing claims often difficult to weigh in an age of instant communication around the globe via the Internet, in which such images can add to the immediate grief of families and the anger of comrades still in the field.
While the Bush administration faced criticism for overt political manipulation in not permitting photos of flag-draped coffins, the issue is more emotional on the battlefield: Local military commanders worry about security in publishing images of the American dead as well as an affront to the dignity of fallen comrades. Most newspapers refuse to publish such pictures as a matter of policy.
But opponents of the war, civil liberties advocates and journalists argue that the public portrayal of the war is being sanitized and that Americans who choose to do so have the right to see — in whatever medium — the human cost of a war that polls consistently show is unpopular with Americans. Journalists say it is now harder, or harder than in the earlier years, to accompany troops in Iraq on combat missions.
Even memorial services for killed soldiers, once routinely open, are increasingly off limits. Detainees were widely photographed in the early years of the war, but the Defense Department, citing prisoners’ rights, has recently stopped that practice as well.
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, results in expulsion from covering the war.
“It is absolutely censorship,” Miller said. “I took pictures of something they didn’t like, and they removed me. Deciding what I can and cannot document, I don’t see a clearer definition of censorship.”
The Marine Corps denied it was trying to place limits on the news media and said Miller broke embed regulations. Security is the issue, officials said.
“Specifically, Mr. Miller provided our enemy with an after-action report on the effectiveness of their attack and on the response procedures of U.S. and Iraqi forces,” said Lt. Col. Chris Hughes, a Marine spokesman.
News organizations say that such restrictions are one factor in declining coverage of the war, along with the danger, the high cost to financially ailing media outlets and diminished interest among Americans in following the war. By a recent count, only half a dozen Western photographers were covering a war in which 150,000 U.S. troops are engaged.
In Miller’s case, a senior military official in Baghdad said that while his photographs were still under review, a preliminary assessment showed he had not violated ground rules established by the multinational force command. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing, emphasized that Miller was still credentialed to work in Iraq, though several military officials acknowledged that no military unit would accept him.
Robert H. Reid, the Baghdad bureau chief for The Associated Press, said one major problem was a disconnection between the officials in Washington who created the embed program before the war and the soldiers who must accommodate journalists — and be responsible for their reports afterward. “I don’t think the uniformed military has really bought into the whole embed program,” Reid said.
“During the invasion it got a lot of, ‘Whoopee, we’re kicking their butts’-type of TV coverage,” he said. Now, he said the situation is nuanced, and unpredictable. Generally, he said, the access reporters get “very much depends on the local commander.” More specifically, he said, “They’ve always been freaky about bodies.”
The facts of the Miller case are not in dispute, only their interpretation.
On the morning of June 26, Miller, 32, was embedded with Company E of the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment in Garma, in Anbar province. The photographer declined a Marine request to attend a city council meeting, and instead accompanied a unit on foot patrol nearby.
When a suicide bomber detonated his vest inside the council meeting, killing 20 people, including three Marines, Miller was one of the first to arrive. His photos show a scene of horror, with body parts littering the ground and heaps of eviscerated corpses. Miller was able to photograph for less than 10 minutes, he said, before being escorted from the scene.
Miller said he spent three days on a remote Marine base editing his photos, which he then showed to the Company E Marines. When they said they could not identify the dead Marines, he believed he was within embed rules, which forbid showing identifiable soldiers killed in action before their families have been notified. According to records Miller provided, he posted his photos on his Web site the night of June 30, three days after the families had been notified.
The next morning, high-ranking Marine public affairs officers demanded that Miller remove the photos. When he refused, his embed was terminated. Worry that Marines might hurt him was high enough that guards were posted to protect him.
On July 3, Miller was given a letter signed by Kelly barring him from Marine installations. The letter said that the journalist violated sections 14 (h) and (o) of the embed rules, which state that no information can be published without approval, including “any tactics, techniques and procedures witnessed during operations,” or that “provides information on the effectiveness of enemy techniques.”
[...] hope2012 wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptThis ensured the collapse of the feelings of fighting a righteous war in defence of the people in vietnam oppressed by communists. It dawned on the all but the most incorrigible that Vietnam war a terrible mistake. … [...]
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