Re: the Sylvestre Reyes Comments about banning the press

[stubertmcfly]

So this was in another thread but it was locked for some reason. I am not sure why... but there you go.

This snippet appeared today on the IMDb (of all places):
Democratic Congressman Sylvestre Reyes of Texas, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, proposed Thursday that the practice of allowing reporters to be embedded with soldiers in combat zones in Iraq be ended. His remarks follow the release of television footage taken last Saturday of a U.S. soldier shooting an unarmed and wounded man in a Fallujah mosque. "We should not be providing the al-Jazeera the kind of propaganda they've had the last couple of three days ," he said. Meanwhile, at a meeting of news executives at the News Xchange conference in Portugal, Eason Jordan, vice president and chief news executive at CNN, accused the U.S. military of failing to live up to its promises to protect journalists from attack by its own men. "The reality is that at least 10 journalists have been killed by the U.S. military, and according to reports I believe to be true journalists have been arrested and tortured by US forces," Jordan said. Although the military has promised to investigate the incidents, he said, "the fact that no one has been reprimanded would indicate that no one is taking responsibility."

Personally, I don't give a rat's ass from what party this rubbish originates, it needs to be addressed and NOT TOLERATED.

Here is my letter to my rep if anyone is interested:

Congressman Udall,

Today, Congressman Sylvestre Reyes proposed that reporters no longer be allowed to join our troops into battle situations. This comment was a response to the recent television footage of one of our servicemen executing an injured Iraqi fighter. Frankly, I am appalled by the Congressman's comments and that his assertation that the way to fix these problems is to keep them out of the public eye. He stated, "We should not be providing the al-Jazeera the kind of propaganda they've had the last couple of three days ." I would counter that the way to keep this "propoganda" from reaching the networks is not to censor the footage but to ensure that our troops behave responsibly and in accordance to the Articles of the Geneva Convention.

I request that you please fight for transparency in this war, in fact in all of Government lest we continue our decline down the path of nations before us.

The Soviet Union had similiar beliefs and they were our enemy during the cold war. We sought to bring freedom of the press to that nation (as well as countless others) and I see no reason why we should not provide the same protections for our press and the citizens they serve.

I do feel that there are great problems with today's media, please don't get me wrong... but the last thing we need is to limit their ability to access events and bring the truth to the public's eye. The problem here is not the media but those that willingly commit crime.

Thank you so much for your attention to this issue.

Stuart Swineford
Golden, CO