A comment from WSJ.com on the embedding policy.
>>>>On the early returns in fact, we'd say the "embedding" policy looks like one of those gambles that may work for all parties--the Pentagon, the media and the public. An important debate in recent years has been about the emerging gulf between the all-volunteer military culture and broader civilian culture; one rarely met the other. The risk was that a warrior caste would emerge that grew resentful of a society that didn't appreciate the dangers they face or the sacrifices they make.
This ringside, real-time witness to war may do more to span that gulf than anything since the draft. One of the things that has come out so far in Iraq is the "we" that slips out so often from the lips of the reporters now risking their own lives in the field. That's only natural when you are sharing the same foxhole, being shot at with the same bullets and, as we have sadly seen, being killed along with the soldiers.
What we are all getting is a crash course in the ways and means of the modern volunteer force. Yes, journalists embedded in combat units are under some constraints not to disclose troop movements and the like. But no one is asking them to shade the truth. And their interviews with soldiers, both officers and enlisted, reveal in nearly every case a professional military that is remarkably well trained, well disciplined and able to explain what they do. And also risking their lives for us.
The 24/7 exposure is not without risks. At the top of the list has to be the recognition that the camera does lie, even unintentionally. The depressing weekend news--a firefight that caught our troops here, the American POWs there, the fragging of U.S. troops apparently by one of their own--are all real things that happened. But while the camera can record them accurately, the one thing it cannot do is provide the larger perspective. So a single ugly battle can mislead about the pace of the broader war.<<<<< |
