How can our media manage to get video out of Myanmar but its too dangerous for them to show us Iraq?

[NNN0LHI]

When was the last time you seen any video from CNN or the rest of the propagandists of whats happening inside of Iraq that wasn't just canned bullshit set up by the military?

Something isn't right here.

Don

[Smarmie Doofus]

1. Good title for the definitive history of the last 8 years:

>>Something isn't right here.>>

[Chipper Chat]

2. Just like the good ol' USA was in Indonesia within 48 hours

with relief supplies following the tsumani .
And we've NEVER MADE IT to the 9th ward after two years.
Can you explain Mr. Pretzeldent?
Never mind. We know your tacit answer.

edited for spelling & sentence structure

[Lerkfish]

3. because the US military has a vested interest in not allowing the truth out.

therefore, by embedding or frankly harrassing or outright "accidentally" killing non-embedded journalists, they control the information.

even so, with all that, the fact that IRaq is NOT the cakewalk it should be is still gettting out.

[KharmaTrain]

4. A True Black War...

My son was watching Ken Burns "The War" with me and observed about how much footage of the battles and the aftermath were around. I recalled growing up during Vietnam and every evening there was a report or several from on the battlefields...long before satellites and instant 24/7 coverage. Even the Civil War had far better reporting than this one.

I see it as a three-fold problem. First is this regime...their obsession with controlling and manipulating the media. During the early days of the invasion, the networks couldn't air enough of "shock & awe"...with a reporter live from a transport racing toward Baghdad. Those were "the good old days"...but starting with Fallujah in '04 and ever since, as this war for profit has gotten worse, we now see little coverage at all...the plug was pulled.

The second problem is the corporate media. Many also have profited from this invasion. GE's made billions in defense contracts and others benefited from other contracts and high ratings. Also, many of their advertisers are part of this sham and if we can't give you "good news" then no news IS good news. It's also cheaper to go chasing after missing blondes and OJ...most of their international bureaus have been closed down and this has cheapened what we see and hear.

Lastly, this war has targeted the "messengers". Reporters can't go out into the field on their own...and if they embed, they're all but required to cite the party line or lose their "access". How ironic in an age when gathering and delivering this information has never been easier. But, not if the message isn't what this regime and their corporate enablers want.

Cheers

:hi:

[malaise]

5. I asked hubby that last night n/t

[pwb]

6. Because no Americans are being killed there, Yet.

[Shipwack]

7. Easy answer...

The people getting out the images have a vested interest in showing the world the truth, and are willing to get shot and killed doing it. They re doing it for the sake of their families and their country.

I don't think there are any reporters in Iraq with that level of dedication to "the truth", and if there ever were, they've already been killed.

[Arkansas Granny]

8. I believe part of it lies in the fact that the Iraq war has been

especially dangerous for reporters.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oew-efron21jun21,0,5169369.story

The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that 108 journalists and 39 media assistants have been killed in Iraq since the war began in March 2003. Reporters Without Borders puts the death toll at more than 180. Either way, it's more than double the number of journalists killed during the Vietnam War (71 between 1962 and 1975, according to the Associated Press Saigon bureau.)

In addition, 80 media workers have been abducted since 2003—for profit, revenge or ideological gain. Of those, 42 have been freed and 23 were murdered. Fourteen are still being held hostage. Ominously, no demand for ransom or claim of responsibility has been made for them. In Iraq, kidnappers often collect ransom from desperate families, then kill their victims anyway. But the lack of a ransom demand is usually equated with a death sentence.

<snip>

Four out of five journalists killed in Iraq have been Iraqi. This is to be expected, as major foreign media have pulled back from the front lines for financial and safety reasons. But it also means their deaths receive less attention, even as non-Iraqis, including the Western correspondents whose ability to move around the country is extremely limited, are more and more dependent on them for information about Iraq. (The Los Angeles Times at any given time has three correspondents based in Iraq and employs a staff of about 25 Iraqis, including translators in Baghdad and stringers around the country.)

[porphyrian]

9. Two reasons are to keep information from the enemy and to keep information from us.

Insurgents can watch CNN like anyone else, so they don't want to show troop movements, say, and the less they show us, the more they can just make up whatever they like to tell us, such as how well the surge is going.

[NNN0LHI]

10. The "enemy" if we can call them that are seeing everything with their own eyes

They live there. So I don't think our media is trying to keep anything from them.

I think it is us who someone is preventing from seeing what is going on over there.

Don

[porphyrian]

12. The people on the ground see what they can see, not everything.

I wasn't making that up, it's really one of the reasons. There are some secrets that can be kept if you don't televise every bit of it, and secrecy and misdirection have been military tactics from the beginning of recorded time. And, yes, we are very intentionally being prevented from seeing what's really going on over there.

[spanone]

11. d i v e r s i o n .....very selective outrage

[marmar]

13. It's more convenient to show another country's oppressive government.....

And ignore what's going on in your own backyard.