Quote:
Originally posted by Cowperson+Oct 15 2004, 11:44 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Cowperson @ Oct 15 2004, 11:44 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-Lanny_MacDonald@Oct 15 2004, 04:03 AM
Naaaw, things have been going swimmingly. I just find it interesting that it took this long for the whole concept of media control to come out this late in the game. This isn't rocket science and it doesn't take much to see that we have not been getting the whole story on the war. Where are the stories in the casualties? Where's the indepth reports on those being kidnapped and killed? Is anyone aware that the majority of those "contractors" kidnapped have been picked from the 14 military bases being constructed around Iraq? Where is that story? We have been feed a very sanitized view that has not given us the whole story as to what has been going on. Its just refreshing for someone in the mainstream media finally find their balls and remember that part of the fifth estate's responsibility is to provide oversight of the government. Or are you going to try and argue that the media has done that over the past four years?
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Did it occur to you that we have not got the full story on Iraq since the engagement happened? Naaaw, things have been going swimmingly.
Nope.
It's pretty obvious from television screens and newspapers that the main justification for the war, WMD, produced nothing and that's been apparent for over a year, that post-war planning was screwed, that American soldiers have died as a result of that poor planning, that the American military and reserve system is stretched to the point where it might break the concept of the all-volunteer army as a consequence, that civilians have been killed in unreasonable numbers as a result of too few troops on the ground, that Kellogg, Root & Brown, a subsidiary of Halliburton, is screwing the American taxpayer, that the long haul appears inevitable and that the current Administration is accountable for all of the above.
The average American is seeing the above on a daily basis just as Vietnam was brought to their living rooms. You simply can't deny that message or that those images are there. If you do, you're simply not paying attention.
You've posted mainstream media links here yourself in the last few days of soldiers complaining about the mission and their lack of morale, words presented here by your own hands but apparently the import of the SOURCE of the news failing to register on your own brain given what you just wrote in this thread about a "filtered story."
The problem here is that you think the media should be used to filter your particular interpretation of events and nothing else. You're seeking the same control you feel others have and that is a classic, classic argument from the fringe elements of both the left and the right. You're just as guilty as the other guys and you simply don't get it.
If you had presented those two links above and said: "See, here's how the American government is trying to control spin," then I wouldn't have said a thing since governments trying to control spin isn't exactly a bulletin.
Instead, you took two news stories, one with examples of media shredding the government and both exposing the effort to spin, and tried to present them as somehow the media being under government control, your usual conspiracy theory. In fact, your links are two CLEAR examples of the media doing its job by exposing the attempt at spin.
You hooped yourself.
Where are the stories in the casualties? Where's the indepth reports on those being kidnapped and killed?
You see them profiled every day in their home town newspapers and television news. The Kenneth Bigley affair in Britain brought that country to a halt with wall to wall coverage of a dead man walking in a wire cage.
Is anyone aware that the majority of those "contractors" kidnapped have been picked from the 14 military bases being constructed around Iraq? Where is that story?
It would be a common sense tactic for insurgents to attempt to delay military installations that would be used to defeat the insurrection. The locations are isolated with only a few ways in and out which makes the access routes relatively easy pickings for bad guys. There are obvious strategic attractions to go after those particular contractors if you're a nutbar.
The Chicago Tribune seven months ago on the issue of constructing military bases in Iraq, which was first brought to public view by the New York Times in April:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/200...uring-bases.htm
It would be obvious the goal is to withdraw American soldiers to encampments, similar to the strategy in Afghanistan, and gradually turn over the dangerous work of peace enforcement to Iraqi's, with the Americans in the background providing the occasional muscle. The two strategies look similar. By the way, that interpretation isn't in any of those stories. Its simply my own.
Both these links provide quotes and details from the original New York Times article:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0930/p17s02-cogn.html
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/fac.../iraq-intro.htm
The Associated Press reported that April had all Iraqi civilians employed for reconstruction working on four military facilities for the new Iraqi army, about 2,000 people. In May, one month later, there were 25,000 Iraqi's employed working on 73 projects, mostly civilian infrastructure according to the Associated Press. There were supposed to be about 2000 infrastructure projects underway by that time. Obviously the violence has slowed the pace immeasurably. You'll remember about 40 Iraqi children being blown to bits a few weeks ago at the opening ceremony of a sewer plant.
Cowperson [/b][/quote]
The problem here is that you think the media should be used to filter your particular interpretation of events and nothing else. You're seeking the same control you feel others have and that is a classic, classic argument from the fringe elements of both the left and the right. You're just as guilty as the other guys and you simply don't get it.
Actually, reporting on what is going on in the ground is much different than reporting what the administration talking points want to happen. What is it that's so hard to understand?
- the white house doesn't want an ugly incident killing Bush's chance at reelection
- they asked media to "look at the positives" and stop report what is really going on
As an example, if there was a civil war outside your door and people were dying on your front lawn but you just finished up a really dandy backyard BBQ, guess what the notes would urge you to report? The mean steaks and good times out back.
Any lens as a filter is not objective, but if objectivity is lost because one is told that a particular story is too harrowing and not good for the pres, are you happy to hear it's not reported?