I'm not sure about any of you, but I am apalled at the coverage the media has given this war. Not so much in the quantity, but in how it's been done. At no point in time does the media begin to represent the American people or even make an attempt. You're sitting there going to yourself "what the hell does he mean?" Simple. The media has made every attempt to sensationalize everything. Everything. There has been no attempt to present the war as how it's been addressed by the military. Repeatedly, the military comes to the platform and states that the war is going as expected and will go on for as long as necessary. In turn, the media sensationalizes the notions that because we have blown past certain cities, they are 100% safe. So when the guarranteed resistance occurs (how a city over 1 million people would not have resistance of any kind escapes me), the media makes every attempt to display the military and the government as having lied to the American people. In fact, the American people are being said to be represented by the media (by the media, of course)!! I'm not sure about you, but if anyone represents the American people, I'd imagine it would be the U.S. military (and not the media or politicians). An example of what I speak of was a press conference of a British Air Marshall in England. He was going over what he could, to the best of his abilities, and made the comment that an accidental bombing that might have killed ~20 Iraqi civilians was not on his radar screen. In fact, he went on to say that he pays pretty much no attention to the small details of the war. The journalists attempted to jump on him for this statement, being asked how British civilians should back this war if their sons are not being looked after. And to this man's credit, he defended himself quite well and quite correctly. He's a planner that sees the overall scheme, something the media wants no part of. Everything he does and works for is to prevent the loss of life for Coalition forces and Iraqi civilians. He was quite insulted by this comment and stated that he was. Unfortunately, it is the media that paints the picture that everything is a success or a complete failure. And I, as a American citizen who has been under no illusion that this war would be quick or sweet, wonder why it is that the media continually lies and says that the American people have been believing it would be. To the best of my knoweldge, they are the only ones who have said it would be. They do so not only by bombarding military press conferences with ludicrous questions to help them sensationalize whatever concoction they can come up with to increase the marketability of their story. But also by parading around their own military advisers, who, while many are probably privy to knowledge that even the press doesn't get, are continually picking up the whole of the media's back and promoting the idea that there has been failure in the war. These military advisers know of Kosovo, they know what was done and not done in the first Gulf War, and they do know what is being attempted in this one that wasn't in the first. Yet, again and again, failures are mentioned. Instead of the notion that when they were in the military, planning of major events involved ideal plans, contingencies, and worst case scenarios. We only hear how the absolute ideal has not been achieved and how failure is therefore the only option. And yet, again and again we see the media calling themselves the voice of the American people. I'm sorry, I don't believe the American people are stupid enough to believe that bypassing cities of great size means that these cities will not offer up resistance when more troops enter the area. I don't believe that the American people believed this would be over in 5 days. I believe that the American people believed that this war would only have just begun on the 5th day. I believe that the American people see this war as a necessary war. Despite the fact that the war in the media has walked a fine line because of the media's representation of it's own views and the views of Europe. Instead of reminding everyone of Saddam gassing his own people, torturing and executing people to assure control, and ruling in a complete reign of fear. Ironically, I should mention that most of the embedded reporters seem to contradict the overall view of the media. Yet it's their words that are also twisted by the anchors and then placed on scrolling banners on every channel.
You don't spend much time around here (well, maybe you lurk and don't post), so you're probably not aware that you're plowing familiar ground. We've covered this. Rummy and co. thought that the Iraqi people would love us. They thought Shock and Awe and/or bribes would cause mass surrenders. It hasn't happened. Check out the "bad signs" or whatever thread for alot of discussion along these lines. Also, go to the Washington Post site, and look at their articles over the last few days. If you just do that, I promise you, you'll have a different attitude. The civilian, political appointees let their ideologies run roughshod over the careerists' insight and intel, and so we have this. Again, this is worn out soil over here. Look around this forum, and you'll see plenty of examples of Bushies saying the war would be short'n'sweet. needs explicated this exceedingly well in the "bad signs" thread. The military campaign is going very well. But the political aspect is a disaster, and those two aspects are at odds. Remember, the justificatoin the Bushies settled on was that we're there to free the Iraqi people. It's Iraqi Freedom, not Iraqi Destruction. But what if we have to destroy the village in order to save it? OK, fair enough. If you don't think the American people are that stupid, then what about the war planners who didn't account for safeguarding the supply line? That's basic crap that any 12 year old who enjoys history knows. You can't deny the fact that we're having to change our deployments in order to protect those supply lines, and the implication of that is obvious. That's crap. I've seen many embeds talking about how dicey things are.
1. I made no mention of the Bush people, merely the military. The Bush people are politicians and will use the same tricks as the media. They therefore are not representative of the people. The military isn't going anywhere, they will go about it as is it demands. Politicians can grovel for their re-election. 2. Calling things as being dicey on the field of battle is entirely correct. It is a field of battle, it should be dicey regardess of who is winning. It's war, and war is not pretty. However, that does not mean this is a failure in any way.
Is this a bad time to point out that almost half our nation believes that Saddam was behind the 9/11 attacks? The American people is not necessarily "stupid" per se but, on the average, we are horribly misinformed and too lazy to seek out alternate sources of news to balance out the propaganda we're being fed by the mainstream news sources.
jmeissen...those military guys are not going to undermine the C-in-C on the record. Again, I urge you to check out the WaPo from the last few days.
ah the Fourth Estate - frankly one of the best things so far has been that the embedded reporters are really getting a chance what war is truly like and get to transmit it daily. They will go a long way to tell the truth - I am sure their experience (to include specifically Koppel's) is going to really get felt once the war is over.
OK, I don't get any of the 24 hour news channels, so my media has come from the networks (very occasionally) but mainly PBS and NPR. I've been watching the news hour and charlie rose (which has been surprisingly tolerable) before I go to bed most nights. The thing that's surprised me is how negative the military experts they have on have been. Last night, they basically said the plan stunk, we started too early, we don't have enough combat troops in yet, and we can't protect our supply lines. These guys were all retired military, from Air force, Marines and Army. I think, in addition to thinking things are going badly, these guys have decided that this is the opportunity to delegitimize Rumsfeld and move the Pentagon from political to military control. There are suddenly a lot of internal Pentagon politics being subtely fought out in the media, IMO, especially the battle between Rumsfeld's air power and fast infantry theories and massive conventional force proponents.
Re: Re: The Media's Distachment with Society Dude, I agree with almost everything you write on these boards, but this line is getting old. (Now look what you did, you made me sound like Manny!)
I would rather doubt that Bush and his people, outside of maybe Powell, have had much, if anything, to do with the military planning of this war. The war is the military, the President just says do it.
Re: Re: Re: The Media's Distachment with Society The idea that the earth revolves around the sun is even older than that but it's still true. If people are going to try to appeal to the opinion of the American people on this war, they have to acknowledge how misinformed the people are and the idea that Iraq was behind 9/11 is one big muthaf-ing piece of misinformation right there.
There have been big fights in the Pentagon about how to fight this war. They've been pretty widely reported in the print media. To probably oversimplify, Powell and most of the army infantry folks have pushed for the overwhelming force, conquer everything as you go, strategy. They wanted 500,000 troops in theater. The other side was the people like Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Perle who are largely political appointees along with some Air Force and Special Ops folks. Rumsfeld came into office pushing a leaner, faster military that would rely on air power and fast strikes. When this war was originally contemplated, Perle argued that we could accomplish regime change with few American troops, and just air and mechanized support. This faction pushed for about 150,000 troops and the decapitation theory of racing to Bhagdad. Their strategy was based on a belief that political support for Saddam would collapse at the first signs of the US military. The current troop levels (250,000) was a compromise between the two, but if the military analysts are to be believed, the war started before all the troops were available to fight. (For example, the 4th mech division whose equipment is now steaming through the Red Sea.) In short, political appointees in the Pentagon had a lot to do with how this war is being fought.
The problem with the media is the people coming out of the journalism schools are all upper middle class kids who grew up in the Scarsdale New York's of the country. The cannot relate to the working class, those who live in inner cities, those who live in the heartland and those who recently immigrated to this country. In short, they grew up in their own little worlds and can have no clue about how the majority of this country lives. The old time reporters came from the working class and there were no journalism schools they could attend where you needed 1400 on your SAT's and $30,000 a year to get in. That's why the quality of the news media, for the most part, sucks nowadays. It can't relate to the average person because, for the most part, it's unfamiliar with the average person. And I'm not talking about just the anchors. It trickles down to the producers, the writers and the assignment editors, because most of these people are products of the journalism schools.
I think the above ignores fundamental changes in how the press operates over the past 50 years, ie the move toward the idea that 'objectivity' is the be all end all of jounalism, and the concentration of media so that fewer voices are heard. And I haven't watched much television coverage beyond PBS, which may skew my view of the situation. But I've been struck, as I said above, that it's the retired generals who are leading the 'things are going badly' bandwagon. I haven't really seen many reporters doing much outright criticism. The closest I've seen is reports on problems with aid distributions and surprise at the crowds who continue to support Saddam.
amazing the insight you have into the inner workings of the Pentagon and CENTCOM ..... can you predict the lottery for me? the truth is - only those in CENTCOM who put together the plan actually know ..... so let's leave it at that ....
Powell and Schwartzkopf have both said they do not know the details of the plan ..... McCaffrey has criticized aspects to date - but has also admitted that he does not know the plan - and Wes Clark simply has not been asked. I find it insightful that Gen. Franks (VII Corps commander during GWI), one of the architects of the term "shock and awe" - has said nada. They all agree that the center of mass is the Republican Guard and that that is what matters, not the piss ant Fedayeen.
I think you're right to some extent, but there are other factors in play: 1) The real war the television media is worried about in this country is their own ratings war. The industry is glutted with 24 hour news channels all after the same ad revenue. 2) See #1, that'a all they care about. At MSNBC you would think Daniel Snyder owned the place they switch their line-up so often due to low ratings. 3) Needs is right, there are fewer voices heard because four guys own half the tv stations in the country (I know I'm over simplifying).
This stuff has been pretty widely reported in the print media, go and read the NY Times and the Post the last few days. Of course, it could all be misinformation. But there has been a pretty good stream of stuff coming out that there were significant disconnects over how much of a threat Iraq was, what would happen when we invaded, and what opinions counted in the planning process. example: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34283-2003Mar26.html
btousley, your post here, and on the "bad signs" thread, begs the question So, how does the Kool-aid taste?