Monday, July 28, 2008
Iraq Reporting - Military vs. Media
The behavior of our media leaves a lot to be desired...
At CNSnews.com, Kevin Mooney discusses the issue:
"'The reality is they [the insurgents] could never stage a massive attack against any of our bases, even the smaller ones,” he said. But anytime there was more than one rocket launched, you would read about how Baghdad is under attack, and I would just have to say to myself, ‘What are they talking about?’ '
The insurgents were adept at using video to distort battlefield realties and to score public relations points, he acknowledged. Capt. Sean Michael Flynn, who served as company commander with the 69th in Iraq, concurs on this point.
'Along with creating fictional propaganda, they seized on every failure of the Americans and the interim Iraqi government and exploited the missteps at every opportunity,' Flynn wrote in his book The Fighting 69th.
'Orators railed against U.S. forces at the mosques. They printed up anti-occupation flyers and posters. They filled the newspapers and radio stations with eyewitness accounts from people who had lost their children during an American raid. The insurgent marketing machine rivaled any used in modern warfare,' Flynn added."
