Originally posted by: palehorse74
Originally posted by: DarkThinker
Originally posted by: jpeyton
Got it: total media blackout of war zones.
No need for the third-party observations when the military excels at outputting propaganda.
Bingo
IDF just want to let journalists know, when we are around, don't tape jack sht. Or else...
Israel's biggest problems is local and international journalists, these courageous people are ready to post anything they get their hands on back on a whim.... the US and Western media doesn't post content critical on Israel at all (for the most part) however, gradually more and more of the American public and the west is getting more exposed to free media outlets (i.e Youtube) were lobbyists can't do anything with their influence and money....these places can't be controlled without causing an absolute outrage. So therefore, control the source, TERRORIZE the media, the journalists, make it the scariest thing in the world to report IDF behavior and actions and your job is done.
Pathetic!
You honestly believe that they knew they were shooting at a reporter?
seriously!?
so much for common sense...
I've seen a number of incidents where there's a lot of evidence Israel attacked people or groups it knew it shouldn't for these basic reasons.
What do you think about the incident with the
USS Liberty, Palehorse? I haven't reached a firm conclusion, but I've seen the reports from Americans on the ship who say the jets were well aware of who they were shooting. The
Rachel Corrie incident had witnesses saying the Israeli bulldozer intentionally ran her over as she put her self as a human shield to be in the way of it bulldozing a Palestinian home.
Before the neanderthals try to say that makes it her fault, intentionally running her over would have been wrong, a crime, and Israel does not try to defend it that way.
As for the US, there are some incidents there too, such as the bombing of the Al-Jazeera journalists after the network had informed the US military of their location.
In other incidents, charges against Israel have been investigated and Israel was cleared; in one well-known incident when a US tank shot a hotel filled with journalists in Baghdad, killing two, the
investigation by the Committee to Protect Journalists cleared the US military of intentionally targetting the journalists, but does suggest the military was dishonest in its explanation of the incident, and raises the question why the commanders' wanting to avoid attacks on the hotel had not been communicated to the tank commander.
In another tragic
killing, a photographer who was with a crew who had permission from the US military to be filming was killed by a machine gunner as they filmed US soldiers coming up the road. It again raises some question whether the measures taken to reasonably protect journalists, against the need for US forces to protect themselves, are in place. Was the journalism group's activity communicated to forces so they wouldn't be mistaken for enemy? Should it have been?
Is it practical to be able to have any reasonable safety for journalists? If not, should they be prevented more from being in dangerous areas - and how do you keep that from being abused in order for not simply preventing coverage of the military activities, to deny journalists the information? What is to be done about the Pentagon's not working much with the journalism organizations to try to find answers to how to improve things?
What I see in a lot of responses here is disgusting - it's imbecilic cheering for the lack of accountability for the use of force.
Some here rush to try to invent any way they can think that the use of force might possibly be defensible, and then demand not to investigate because theory answers it.
These people are clearly hostile to the press, and in effect hostile to the truth being told about military activities - in other words, accomplices to preventing accountability.
They're thugs who want the force to be used without rules, and to deny the American people and the world the truth.
The journalists are often very brave and serving the public to cover these stories in dangerous areas, and it's despicable for these thugs to try to prevent their coverage.
Everyone wins when the military makes an effort to try to find a good balance that offers the best protection possible to both their forces and to journalists.
Right now, it's not clear there's much pressure on them to do that, as they can pretty easily dismiss each incident without cost other than the negative coverage, which gets very little mainstream/corporate media airtime, especially if the journalists killed and injured are foreign. I see clear evidence that the US military is not intentionally targeting journalists. Even with Israel, I suspect the issue has more to do with how much the government takes steps to prevent the killings, rather than intentionally ordering any killings.
If you can imagine your local police force suddenly getting permission to shoot when they feel in danger, and the brass would cover for them, you probably wouldn't like it much.
It wouldn't mean they were targeting anyone, but you would likely see shootings of innocents go up quite a bit.
Unfortunately, there's a political element to all of this. One of the few areas of accountability for the administration is the number of soldiers killed. We all see the anti-war arguments constantly cite '4,000 troops killed' or whatever the number is. They have some pressure to keep that number down for politics, and the political costs to allowing troops to be extra safe by shooting first and asking questions later are arguably very low, which encourages them to do just that. It doesn't mean they have done so, but it's an issue.
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