the call to remove embedded reporters in Iraq
If you haven’t heard, a sniper video obtained from insurgents in Iraq which has been aired by CNN has created a huge controversy. I just watched Rep. Duncan Hunter, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, sit on CNN and tell Wolf Blitzer that this coverage undermines American morale and basically questions who they want to win the war. He’s also been attributed as referring to them as “the publicist for an enemy propaganda film”.
It gets even better. The LA Times reports that:
Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-Carlsbad), who with Hunter and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) sent a letter to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, called the film “nothing short of a terrorist snuff film.”
I wonder what they thought of the nearly nonstop coverage of the Twin Towers falling, over and over and over for what seemed like months. Last I heard, a few thousand people died there. Is it just that our own cameras happened to catch it that makes all the difference? What about the coverage of all those bunker buster bombs that were dropped on Baghdad in the opening days of the war, that video which we viewed over and over where I must assume that at least some people died? That’s a snuff film too, right?
Removing embedded reporters just limits even further what the American public knows about the truth of the situation in Iraq. We’ve already been shielded from seeing images of the flag-covered caskets of fallen US soldiers returning home. We don’t even know exactly how many people have been killed in this war (though Lou Dobbs just said 2800 American have been killed).
Removing embedded reporters because of CNN’s choice to air this video is about as logical a link as invading Iraq was to 9/11.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.