YEAH! enough with the facts already.

more pretend stuff, please.

Yeah - and we can get Bruce Willis to do a story about it!

The news is always like that. At best you get a fluff piece every once in a great while about some kids or a dog or some athlete beating cancer. Everything else is politicians fighting, shootings, bad car accidents, natural disasters, missing white women, and weird stuff. That's the news.

If soldiers want cheerier stories in the news, they should stop getting blown up, come home and open a puppy ranch or something.

Too bad if you don't like the tone of the news stories. I thought your job was to be a grunt and not ask questions!

No news is good news.
Conversely, good news is not news.

"Like many soldiers and marines returning from Iraq, Mayer looks at the bleak portrayal of the war at home with perplexity - if not annoyance. It is a perception gap that has put the military and media at odds, as troops complain that the media care only about death tolls, while the media counter that their job is to look at the broader picture, not through the soda straw of troops' individual experiences.

..

In Hit, where marines stayed in force to keep the peace, the progress was obvious, say members of the 3/25. The residents started burning trash and fixing roads - a sign that the city was returning to a sense of normalcy. Several times, "people came up to us [and said]: 'There's a bomb on the side of the road. Don't go there,' " says Pfc. Andrew Howland.

..

Part of the reason that such stories usually aren't told is simply the nature of the war. Kidnappings and unclear battle lines have made war correspondents' jobs almost impossible. Travel around the country is dangerous, and some reporters never venture far from their hotels. "It has to have some effect on what we see: You end up with reporting that waits for the biggest explosion of the day," says Mr. Hart."


... but it's different when we see from the straw of the Journalist in their hotel room, not the soldier who is warned about the IED from an Iraqi.


This is the point of the article, In my opinion.

Its war, not band camp. Keep up questioning the media and Pat Robertson will redirect a hurricane at you.

Uh, where's the good news coming out of Iraq, submitter?

We can train an American and send him to war in three months. We haven't been able to get Iraqi soldiers trained in three years. The civilians have less water, food, shelter, electricity, and other essentials than they had before we invaded. They have more of some things, such as IEDs, islamic terrorists, potholes from explosions, and god-only-knows how many dead people, but for some reason, they're less than thankful to us for bringing those things to them.

For every soldier coming home calling it a "place of hope," there are ten calling Iraq a deathtrap.

I thought the reason we paid soldiers was to STFU and kill brown people?

Really don't care what they 'think.'

the_gospel_of_thomas, if you highlight other parts of your C&P, such as "Kidnappings and unclear battle lines have made war correspondents' jobs almost impossible," it gives it a totally different tone.

/just sayin'

Yeah.

The media SHOULD show the kids flying their kites in downtown Baghdad. That way we'll know it's just as nice a place now as when Michael Moore visited and recorded films of kids flying kites in Baghdad.

Dictatorship by Saddam?
Post Saddam power vacuum?
Civil War?
Unpopular occupation?

None of those exist if you'll only just focus for a moment on the children and their kites. Look! Look at the pretty kites!

What do soldiers know about war anyway?

/probably not as much as me and my BLOG.

I used to get depressed when the market analysts downgraded my old company's stock. But it didn't change the reality that we were tanking it, big time. The truth hurts, but not nearly as much as living in ignorance.

Really don't care what they 'think.'

That's freaking pathetic.

BearToy: and some guy marvelling at an electric razor

I guess if he's reluctant to get rid of his beard and actually has electricity he can still use it as a makeshift stud finder... assuming his walls are still standing.

2005-11-28 05:40:40 PM Dancin_In_Anson [TotalFark]
Heh. It's really quite funny to watch people biatch about this article.

Actually, the article's not bad. It makes a perfectly valid point: The experiences of the soldiers differ from the experiences of the journalists. I have no problem with that.

However, I'm inclined to give more credit to the ongoing reports of violence as indicative of the situation there than to lend the same credence to individual reports of things like Iraqi cooperation. The truth is, the violence hasn't even come close to abating.

"Kidnappings and unclear battle lines have also made Soldiers & Marines' jobs almost impossible," ... but they do it.

And their views from the ground by the soldiers is no less valid than the views of the journalists as they compose their stories on a laptop in the hotel lobby.

I don't blame the press for the bad news out of Iraq any more than I blame the troops for the failure to implement a policy that could never be successfully implemented.

elchip: No news is good news.
Conversely, good news is not news.


You just blew my mind, man...

I'd trust an LT before I trusted a reporter after ad revenue.

2005-11-28 05:40:40 PM Dancin_In_Anson [TotalFark]

Heh. It's really quite funny to watch people biatch about this article.

You must have not RTFM. Libertarians don't like the war in Iraq and don't care for el Presidente too much.

So, are you a Republican or a Constitution Party member in Libertarian's clothing?

2005-11-28 05:51:43 PM Chester Fields [TotalFark]

I'd trust an LT before I trusted a reporter after ad revenue.

I'd trust the Christian Science Monitor before I trusted, oh, pretty much any other news source.

CSM for the win!

2005-11-28 05:51:43 PM Chester Fields [TotalFark]
I'd trust an LT before I trusted a reporter after ad revenue.

The problem is the soldier on the ground has, by necessity, a very myopic view of what's going on in-theater.

What's got their panties in a bunch?

2005-11-28 05:46:44 PM the_gospel_of_thomas [TotalFark]
And their views from the ground by the soldiers is no less valid than the views of the journalists as they compose their stories on a laptop in the hotel lobby.

Look at the example from your own comment, tgot. Several times, an Iraqi told a soldier that an IED was hidden on the road. To the soldier, this is helpful - possibly life-saving - and feels that this is a sign of returning normalcy and hope.

Take a look at the bigger picture that soldier doesn't comment on, though; the roads are riddled with IEDs. He wouldn't need to be warned about them unless they were there in the first place.

Thats true they are doing good things over there and I would be bummed out if I was in the sandbox. However if an IED went off in *your town here* and blew up a bus that would be news too so yes it's going to get reported. If you want to see a war with good press look at WWII when the Govt. had the reins of what got put out. So do we want to hear just the bad news or just the Govt's good news?

The problem is the soldier on the ground has, by necessity, a very myopic view of what's going on in-theater.

So, in sports (my analogy), you have a better perspective of the team's moral and attitude than they do? You can also sense a shift in momentum before they can?

My unit went to Iraq last year. Iraq isnt as bad as it was when we got there and we made many strides towards their freedom. If you want a good portrayal of life Iraq when my unit was there get the movie Gunner Palace.

If you were there, you would see that it's not as bad as the media makes it out to be.

2005-11-28 05:59:10 PM Civil_War2_Time [TotalFark]

So, in sports (my analogy), you have a better perspective of the team's moral and attitude than they do? You can also sense a shift in momentum before they can?

Your analogy does not scale well from a handful of people on a 100-yard playing field to tens of thousands of people on a California-sized playing field.

Civil_War2_Time

So, in sports (my analogy), you have a better perspective of the team's moral and attitude than they do? You can also sense a shift in momentum before they can?

Bad-bad-bad-bad analogy, IMHO. Anyways, no, I'd think it's more like "When your face to face with the opposing linemen, you aren't, and shouldn't be, paying attention to what's going on with every single other team member, the opposing team, your coaches, their coaches, the fans in the stands and the media coverage of the game."

2005-11-28 06:01:48 PM Dancin_In_Anson [TotalFark]

Well, I guess that means that I don't march in lockstep with any one party eh? How about you?

You must have not RTFM. You are required to march in lockstep with a political party.

Okay, in all seriousness, you're right. It's just that a libertarian supporting the war in Iraq is like an anti-death penalty, pro-choice Republican -- a bit of an oddity, but still valid.

Broadcastdave,

what do you do in the army?

Conspiracy Theory #1 - The Pentagon is deliberately relocating troops to areas known to be safer and less hostile to generate "soldiers stories" like these. Discuss.

Why does Broadcastdave hate America?

OBVIOUSLY, Iraq is a quagmire, and no good can come from this.



"Not as bad as the media says," eh, Get him!!! His point of view must not be tolerated here!

2005-11-28 06:10:23 PM the_gospel_of_thomas [TotalFark]

Why does Broadcastdave hate America?

OBVIOUSLY, Iraq is a quagmire, and no good can come from this.

"Not as bad as the media says," eh, Get him!!! His point of view must not be tolerated here!

Stop being funny. You're a conservative, so you're supposed to be constantly ignorant, inflammatory, and evil.

* shuffles out of the thread, head hung low ... mumbling incoherently *

I'll be back ... maybe ...

Chester Fields-

I am a 74D (Chemical Operations) that belonged to a medical unit (E Co, 27th MSB) during the time we were in Iraq. Now I am in a new unit (A Co, 15th BSTB)which consists of mostly 88M (truck drivers).

You_mean_Im_gonna_stay_this_color: It's funny when I hear that then hear some soldier in Iraq on TV telling the media It's a hellhole over there and he they wouldnt care if it burned to the ground.

Where and when did you hear a soldier say this? I haven't heard any soldiers saying anything like this.