 |
|
 |
| [-] |
| [−] |
| [−] |
| [−] |
| [−] |
Prev | List | Random | Next |
As the awareness of blogs continues to rise military members are increasingly taking advantage of the ease of long-distance mass communication to family and friends offered by the web-based medium. Outside of a few mainstream media dinosaurs it should surprise no one that intentionally or incidentally, unfiltered coverage of the war in Iraq is becoming readily available "back home" in near real time.
Consider this: a few short days before Christmas 2004 a suicide bomber entered the dining facility (DFAC) at an American military installation in Mosul and detonated his explosives, killing several Americans and Iraqis and wounding many more. I'll spare you my own thoughts on the event itself; several miles and a lot of concertina wire separate me from that spot on the map. And after all, why listen to me when no less than four blogs from GIs who were there (and a fifth with a letter from a GI there) are available to you now?
What follows may be a first of it's kind; a round up of observations of a specific event in an ongoing war, posted within hours of its occurrence by troops on the ground in the combat zone. Some of these have been heavily linked throughout the blogosphere, others overlooked by all. I'll excerpt from them, but these brief cuts won't do justice to the authors' efforts. Click through and read them, along with the other posts at their sites. It's literally history in the making.
The day began early as I didn't sleep very well last night. Once I was awake I decided not to just lay there and stare at the darkness so I got up, got dressed, shaved and headed into the TOC, the heart of what goes on. In the TOC (Tactical Operations Center) they monitor several different radio nets to keep abreast of what is happening in the area. It's the place to be if you want up to the minute information. When I arrived it was fairly calm. I made small talk with the guys there and sipped that first cup of morning coffee. The day was clear and there was very little going on, or so it seemed. A very short while later we received the initial reports.
He goes on to describe the events of the day, in detail, from a very close perspective.
A GI tells the tale of two Iraqi Soldiers who were in the DFAC at the time:
Both of them were blown from their seats by the blast, which they described as, "very powerful, lots of noise and heat." The two Iraqi soldiers were both dazed. One of them could only hear a loud ringing sound in his ears. The other couldn't believe his eyes: Every where he looked people were gasping for air or bleeding profusely. Before the two Iraqis lay a helpless American soldier, who staggered across the smoke-filled mess hall at first only to fall on the ground. They couldn't understand a word coming out of the American's mouth. They only saw the blood spewing from his leg.These two men, both in their 20s, saw carnage caused by the very people they took an oath to defend Iraq against. These two men were proud Iraqis who were trained by U.S. Army Special Forces. These two men had seen enough people die at the hands of terrorists, and on December 21, 2004, they would do everything in their power to save every person they could.
Such should be noted along with every statement of the obvious: some Iraqis are against us, and they can don uniforms too. It's also worth remembering that among the first American casualties of the war in Iraq were those caused by an American soldier rolling live grenades into the tents of his fellow GI's.
The Docs at Mosul pick up where the Chaplain leaves off:
I completely lost track of time, so I am not sure when we finally got most of the return to duty patients out, but I am guessing it was around 1800. Then it was time to start taking care of the patients on the wards. More washouts, more CT's, and more chest tubes. It was not until around 2330 that we could actually sit back, catch our breath, and relax. There was not one person in our CSH that did not work their butts of today. The team work and overall job performance were second to none. As the docs sat around and tried to analyze what had just occurred we were all shocked. We could not believe what we had just been through. But even more important, we could not believe the way the CSH handled this situation which completely overwhelmed our system. By definition a mass casualty situation is when the number of patients and their injuries exceed the available resources . This was the mass casualty of all mass casualties.
The story they tell is incredible; along with the courage and fortitude of the American and Iraqi troops at the scene, the skilled medical teams and technology at their disposal saved more than a few lives this grim day.
Afterward they were interviewed by a military public affairs rep, who tried her best to get their story told:
Coincidentally, she reports that she sent this out to almost 1200 newspapers. She only heard back from a few... To me, THIS is news. Based on the overwhelming number of emails I have received, there are a lot of people out there who are interested in reading about this stuff much more often than reading about the daily reports of the numbers killed or wounded.
Ultimately a very few outlets would bother.
The aftermath of the attack, from yet another GI on the scene:
Sitting in our chow hall this morning, I couldn't help but look at it in another light. I saw the broken bottles of steak sauce mixed with puddles of blood on the floor, the food still steaming on the steam table, littered with rubble from the blast and the absolute chaos that the scene was, even when I got there after everyone had left.
One wonders where the heroes of Mosul had their Christmas dinner this year.
And how's morale in the aftermath? Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld visits the wounded; within hours a stateside blog has an email from a doctor there describing the scene as he approached the bedside of a wounded GI (hat tip Instapundit):
That is when I, without any thought, piped in with "Sir, you can talk to him, he's awake." He told the soldier, named Rob, how proud he was of his service. The soldier was in a bit of disbelief, because he couldn't see with one eye patched and the other swollen shut. He said he wanted to talk to Rumsfeld. That's when I said "He's standing right to your left, Rob, that's his voice you hear. You can talk to him." The kid was nervous at that point, but sputtered out how honored he was to talk to him. Mr. Rumsfeld replied, "No, it's an honor for me to talk to you."Then remarkably, the young soldier, who had just lost his left hand and right eye from an explosion, came to the defense of the Secretary of Defense, stating "Mr. Rumsfeld, I want you to know, that you are doing a fantastic job. I know that you are taking a lot of heat for the problems with getting armor for vehicles. I want you to know that things are vastly improved. Our vehicles are great, and I have never searched through junk piles for scrap metal."
At this point, Rumsfeld looked choked up, and I had a lump in my throat and and watery eyes. It was moving. What makes a man who has been so close to death, and maimed for life, come to the defense of the Army's highest ranking official? Loyalty, I dare say. Did Rob think Mr. Rumsfeld was having a self-esteem problem? In his greatest hour of need, his thoughts went to the emotional needs of another. I found it quite amazing, and moving. The Secretary took out a coin and gave it to a bystander for him, as if he didn't know he could touch him. Finally, the soldier said, "Man, Donald Rumsfeld, I wish I could shake his hand."
Later the secretary takes Q and A from the troops. CNN played it live on their Daybreak program, but could not have known what was coming. Much of the talk swirls around stop loss issues - often called a "back door draft" by those with little understanding of the seriousness of the military's business - when suddenly another topic arises. As you read it, bear in mind this question is asked by a soldier immediately following a horrific attack. Given the opportunity to address the SecDef, this is what was on his mind:
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sir, how do we win the war in the media? It seems like that is the place where we're getting beat up more than anybody else. I've been here -- this is my third tour over here, and we have done some amazing things. And it seems like the enemy's Web sites and everything else are all over the media, and they love it. But the thing is, is everything we do good, no matter if it's helping a little kid or building a new school, the public affairs sends out the message, but the media doesn't pick up on it. How do we win the propaganda war?RUMSFELD: That does not sound like a question that was planted by the press.
(LAUGHTER)
RUMSFELD: That happens sometimes. It's one of the hardest things we do in our country. We have freedom of the press. We believe in that. We believe that democracy can take that massive misinformation and differing of views, and that free people can synthesize all of that and find their way to right decisions.
Out here, it's particularly tough. Everything we do here is harder, because of television stations like Al Jazeera and al-Arabiya and the constant negative approach. You don't hear about the schools are open and the hospitals are open and the clinics are open, and the fact that the stock markets are open and the Iraqi currency is steady, and the fact that there have been something like 140,000 refugees coming from other countries back into this country. They're voting with their feet, because they believe this is a country of the future.
You don't read about that. You read about every single negative thing that anyone can find to report.
I was talking to a group of congressmen and senators the other day, and there were a couple of them who had negative things to say, and they were in the press in five minutes. There were 15 or 20 that had positive things to say about what's going on in Iraq, and they couldn't get on television. Television just said we're not interested. That's just sorry. So, it is, I guess, what's news has to be bad news to get on the press.
And the truth is, however, it gets through eventually. There are people in the United States who understand what's really going on over here. They do understand that thousands of acts of kindness and compassion and support that are taking place all across this country. They do understand that large portions of this country are relatively peaceful. And something like 14 out of 18 of the problems it's had, incidents of down around five a day as opposed to the ones in certain places like Baghdad that are considerably higher.
And the Internet is helping. More and more people are seeing things that are taking the conventional wisdom and critiquing it and arguing it and debating it. And that's a good thing.
So, we are a great country. And we can benefit from having a free press. And from time to time people will be concerned about it. But in the last analysis, look at where we've come as a country, because we have had a free press.
And we've -- I mean, I've got a great deal of confidence in the center of gravity of the American people. What hurts most is in the region, where the neighboring countries whose help we need are constantly being barraged with truly vicious inaccuracies about what's taking place in this country. And it's conscious. It's consistent. It's persistent. And it makes everything we try to do in neighboring countries, where we're looking for support, vastly more difficult.
And we, as a country, don't do that. We don't go out and hire journalists and propagandize and lie and put people on payroll so that they'll say what you want. We just don't do that. And they do. And that's happening. And Al Jazeera is right there at the top.
CNN reporters were not prepared for this, and responded accordingly (read carefully the statements I've put in bold highlight below, in light of the Mosul events):
COSTELLO: Karl, I wanted to ask you about a question a soldier posed to the defense secretary that blamed the media for not talking about the positive things that happen in the country. Tell us about that. And I guess I sort of want you to stand up for yourself, because it's so dangerous to travel in Iraq. It's tough to get to those good stories, isn't it?PENHAUL: It's almost impossible these days, Carol. The real safe option these days is actually to be embedded with U.S. forces. The very unsafe option is to be in a civilian sector like we are here at the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad.
Once we're out there on the streets of Baghdad, we really are at the mercy of what's going on. And it's very difficult to show what's going on in ordinary Iraqis' lives.
Yes, it is quite true that there are military reconstruction projects going on. It is true as well that quite often we will focus on the military operations. But it is also true that this insurgency has spiked in a way that U.S. military commanders at this time last year didn't believe was going to happen.
And it's also true that if we try and go out on the streets of Baghdad, for example, to show Iraqis having to wait in lines many kilometers long to get gasoline, to show them in their homes without electricity for many hours a day, it is very dangerous for us to do that because there are insurgents out there. And they have kidnapped journalists before, and they've made it very clear they will continue to kidnap Westerners as they can -- Carol.
Worth noting, the officer that next got the opportunity to speak returned to the stop loss issue, offering the perspective of a man who'd been in country for a long time already; who'd seen the horror first hand. This from a man apparently planning his exit from the military, thus not seeking personal gain:
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sir, I just have a comment as an officer who is likely going to come under that stop-loss during his time here. I just want to say that there are people who understand the importance of keeping the integrity of a unit, and the stabilization of units is also a very good thing. And I wanted to thank you for that (UNINTELLIGIBLE) we do understand that sacrifice comes with us all.RUMSFELD: Well, God bless you for saying that. It is -- as I say, it is no fun for anybody to have to make that decision that they want to extend somebody beyond when they had every reason to expect they wouldn't be extended, or to have to impose a stop-loss to maintain unit integrity for the benefit of everyone in the unit and the effectiveness of our force.
But we do have to do it from time to time, and I thank you for speaking up and for saying that a great deal. God bless you.
All right, thank you, folks.
(APPLAUSE)
Is any of this earth shattering? No; it's just an inevitable step further on the road we once called the "information superhighway". I can't speak to the attention the press in the US gave the Mosul bombing. From what I saw on CNN it seemed that once the hopes thay had for decrying the lack of "armored chow halls" were extinguished by the revelation that the event was the work of a suicide bomber they rather quickly lost interest. Certainly after the embarrassment of CNN the visit from the Secretary of Defense was overlooked by most news sources, as Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs was able to find only this brief mention from Reuters:
MOSUL (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Friday took a delighted dig at the media after troops he was visiting in Iraq complained their good works were ignored by the press while disasters grabbed the headlines.A soldier at his first stop in Mosul asked Rumsfeld how the "propaganda" worked?
Rumsfeld, under attack since he appeared to brush aside a question about poor equipment from a U.S. soldier in Kuwait that later turned out to have been composed with help from a reporter, jumped at the opportunity to turn the tables.
"That doesn't sound like a question placed by the press," he told his audience to loud applause.
A few hours later in Tikrit, the same frustration surfaced with another soldier complaining that she had a hard time explaining what they were doing in Iraq when she got back home and asking what could be done to get past the bad press.
Rumsfeld said the message was getting through anyway.
"I think the country does understand that we lost 3,000 people on September 11th and the fact that those people were operating in this part of the world ... You've seen the evil up close and personal, you know the danger that this poses.
"What you're doing is important. I think the American people get it."
But those in the media, previously the sole source for reporting on events and their impacts on the troops in a combat zone, should take note: there are other voices everywhere now. Your ignoring (or worse, twisting) of the scenes like this one will not make them vanish down the "memory hole".
Here; Rummy at a later appearance at Camp Victory, Baghdad, as 'reported' by Rich at Beef always Wins:
As part of his surprise (to the press at least) visit to Iraq, the Secretary of Defense stopped by Camp Victory, Baghdad this evening.I just happened to be in the dining facility, in line for dinner when he showed up. I was nearing the front of the line and watching him make his way through the crowd of Soldiers when I noticed an NCO handing him a hat and apron.
Sure enough, as I got to the serving line Secretary Rumsfeld took his place behind the counter and served me a plate of fried shrimp with a big smile. He continued serving Soldiers for about 20 minutes until all the Soldiers had their food.
A big deal? No. Should it be on the front page of the NY Times? Depends - what else happened that day?
But it should serve as a wake up call to those who do control the front pages of newspapers everywhere.
Last year the Mudville Christmas list included about a half dozen blogs by soldiers and/or spouses overseas (including yours truly). This year we listed 25 in combat zones alone - again I'm one of them. (and I know we missed at least that many too). For most of these MilBloggers a trip home is in the near future, but certainly others will come to pick up the torch. So as much as I'd prefer having zero blogs reporting from combat zones at Christmas or at any other time, I've no doubt that if needed they'll be here.
So back to the question, yes, how can we win the war on the media? :)
Keep shooting boys, keep shooting. And this is a battle that folks on the homefront can fight too. My thanks to so many of you who have over the past year. I think we're starting to see the tide turn, and that the Secretary is well aware of what forces are turning it. Look for increasing questions on the credibility of blogs (or false fears about the security of MilBlogs) from the mainstream media as evidence I'm right.
Won't matter though, will it?
Here's to victory.
