In wartime the media become part of the story. Sometimes they’re accused to disloyalty. Sometimes they’re accused of parroting government propaganda. Rarely are they patted on the back for doing a good job. This war will be no exception.
One stark contrast that is emerging now is the difference between TV coverage in the U.S. and TV coverage elsewhere. As your faithful web logger, I watch U.S. TV out of the corner of my eye to to catch any important breaking news. So far I’ve had a hard time keeping that eye open. The TV coverage we’re getting is numbingly somnolent. Standup after standup by “embedded” reporters with, usually, little to report.
How many more hours of bomb blasts in Baghdad and green night-scope shots do we need?
TV abroad – especially in the Arab world, but not only there – is startlingly different.
While our talking heads were babbling about the rapid advance on Baghdad (undeniably a piece of military history, since it seems to be the quickest armored advance in ever), Arabs were seeing footage of the war in all its ugliness.
Arab stations – particularly Al Jazeera of Osama bin Laden notoriety – showed civilian dead, including a 12-year-old girl with half her head blown off. Since part of the emerging Iraqi strategy is placing civilians within the ranks of its Republican Guard troops, 300 million Arabs are likely to be seeing a lot more of this.
I'm not advocating a wave of gore on U.S. TV. However, I do think it's important that Americans understand a) what our attack is doing, even unintentionally, to Iraqi civilians, and b) what the world of Islam is seeing about this war. Americans certainly aren't finding out from our networks.
Stations elsewhere also showed the tape of five U.S. POWs, which U.S. TV (with the exception of CBS) declined to air – and which seems to me to be news. I don’t like seeing Americans who have been scared out of their wits by thugs any more than the next guy, but I do believe that such footage tells us quite a bit about what we’re up against in Iraq. And that’s something we ought to know.
You didn’t have to go to Arab stations to see the POW tape, either. Canadian stations ran it.
I agree with the decision by U.S. networks not to air the disgusting display in an Iraqi morgue of dead Americans, some of whom appeared to have been executed. But in a larger sense, U.S. TV needs to start making decisions based on news value, not squeamishness. We’re all in this together and Americans need to know what this is.
When is it OK to show photos of the dead?
Here's a closely related problem, not only for TV but for newspapers and magazines: When is it appropriate to show pictures of the dead. War is, after all, about lethal force.
From the Poynter Institute’s Aly Colon (a former Seattle Times reporter and editor), comes this timely and thoughtful exploration of that question.
The Geneva Conventions, 2
While journalists wrestle with what to air or print, nations have to deal with the much larger question of how to treat prisoners of war. Real human beings, not pictures of them.
This has been such a thorny issue for so long that it makes the term “war crime” seem almost redundant. Torture, starvation and execution of prisoners have been common in most conflicts. This no doubt helps explain why the 3rd Geneva Convention on prisoners of war consists of no fewer than 143 articles and numerous annexes.
Still, decent treatment is something we always hope will be extended to our POWs. Iraq, unfortunately, has a particularly awful record in this area, and the U.S. decision to declare all captives from the Afghanistan invasion “illegal combatants” not subject to the Geneva protocols has done nothing to strengthen our case.
Russian – and French – weapons are in Iraq, but so far no WMDs
The Bush administration says our supposed friends in Moscow have tolerated the sale Komet anti-tank missiles to Iraq and that a team of Russians is in Baghdad right now trying to help the Iraqis install and operate a system designed to incapacitate the global positioning system signals that guide our bombs to their targets. If they're successful, it won't be the Russians who are blamed when one of our bombs plasters a residential neighborhood.
The State Department lodged a formal protest with Russia over these illegal sales last week, to no avail.
Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov denied that his country had done anything wrong. "We did not send any goods, including military ones, that violated the sanctions," he told reporters. "No fact supporting the Americans' anxiety has been found."
Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the issue Monday and Russia has vowed to look into the U.S. allegations, which it continues to deny. Putin also called for a halt to military action in Iraq to avert a humanitarian disaster.
As noted here earlier, William Safire of the New York Times has detailed illegal French weapon sales to Baghdad.
Meanwhile, U.S. officials are downplaying the significance of that suspected chemical weapons factory discovered in southern Iraq. Apparently there was no evidence it had been used to produce weapons, at least recently.
What’ll it cost?
After much prodding, the Bush administration estimated the war will cost $75 billion for a 30-day war.
Poll check
Three-quarters of the American people support the war, now that it has started, new polls show. A majority of Britons now also support the conflict, a significant shift in Prime Minister Tony Blair’s direction. Some numbers:
CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, conducted Thursday night: 76 percent of U.S. adults, ages 18 and over, approve of the decision to go to war against Iraq, up from 66 percent before the war started.
ABC News/Washington Post, also conducted Thursday night: 72 percent of those surveyed support the war.
"We're basically experiencing the rallying effect that we always see — at least for the short term — when America goes to war," Frank Newport, editor in chief of the Gallup Poll, said.
Ditto in Britain. An ICM poll for Tuesday’s edition of the Guardian newspaper says 54 percent of Britons said they support a military campaign to remove Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, compared with 38 percent in a previous March 16 poll.
And ditto in Australia, which also has sent troops to the conflict. A poll there found that for the first time supporters of the conflict outnumber those who oppose it (50 percent to 42 percent).
Just ducky
“Cowardly French sailors are enjoying a holiday on the Thames — while our brave boys and girls risk their lives to topple Saddam,” ranted the rabidly pro-war London tabloid the Sun.
Most papers would have stopped there and moved on to another topic. Not these guys. They hired a 38-foot yacht and attacked the French coastal patrol vessel FS Flamant with a blizzard of white feathers, a symbol of cowardice.
“First, we hoisted up the Red Ensign flag as we left St Katharine’s dock,” the Sun valiantly reported.
“Then we circled the ship and shouted to the crew: ‘We have le feather blanc for you grands poulets.’ (That would be “big chickens” in English.)
“We sounded our horn and then moved into position.
“As the rattled French seamen looked on in amazement, we bombarded them with the feathers — which showered their deck.
“Sailors ran for a hose and sounded the ship’s booming horn to warn us off.
“A senior officer wagged his finger and shouted ‘No, no’. “
Then, according to the Sun, the French called the cops, who issued a “friendly warning” to cut it out.
Too bad these guys weren't around for the Spanish Armada.
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