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To: ArneFufkin
I appreciate your many thoughtful posts on this thread.

Regarding embeds, I remain of two minds. In the final analysis I'd come down on the side of press access, but I know that journalists will face competitive challenges by taking yet greater risks; all for the sake of circulation.

It's a conundrum; somewhat like war itself, I suppose.
66 posted on 04/08/2003 11:53:41 AM PDT by headsonpikes
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To: headsonpikes
There are horrors and outrages involved in a War with this kind of enemy - Thank God not yet realized on any massive scale in Iraq - that are forced upon even the most humane and measured combatants. I want our guys to get as ugly as it takes to survive a fight against the ruthless cutthroats we're going to eradicate over the next 25 years. I don't want our guys getting blown to hell because our enemy will send a seemingly pregnant woman to kill our soldiers with a car bomb or poison an air base with an exploding container of VX gas. Successfully completed because of the slightest hesitation to act decisivey in an outsiders presence. Soldiers kill people who threaten our lives and their lives ... and they cannot operate in a fishbowl of second guessers. That's 90% of the worldwide media, poised to create and propagandize an inhumane America of war crimnals.

The embeds report the ambush and copter crashes, but they don't have to process the scene as a pro and learn to distance themselves from the carnage of human death. Soldiers do, it's part of the job. The free lancers of Reuters, Al Jazeera, BBC and the Brit tabloids who interject themselves into any American military conflict are enemy combatants in a warlike operation against the lives of U.S. soldiers. They have no place around a theatre of War without authorization. Their proximity doesn't happen, just like the guy with a girdle of dynamite doesn't, a thug weilding an AK-47 doesn't, and a bad guy hauling around a mortor wagon whose payload is intended for the good guys doesn't. They go bye bye.

The rules of engagement need to be as primitive as it takes to beat the bad guys who plot to kill us in our cities. Most Americans would sheet-can the journalists if their access is deemed to be a threat to our boys. Our countrymates are over the shame and distrust of VietNam, we trust the humanity of our leadership and soldiers and understand the threats facing us.

Our good-guy role is accepted here at home, where it counts. Americans want to get the job done.

Colonel North and the FOX crew are the responsible minority in reporting the War fairly and conscientiously. That's about it. The worldwide media are agent provocateurs seeking the destruction of America.

68 posted on 04/08/2003 1:11:57 PM PDT by ArneFufkin
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