War Coverage: Gratuitous or Necessary?

[sidcrowe]

Both sides are showing prisoners. Earlier on, the US media showed shots of Iraqi soldiers being fed. It's still humiliating if you don't ask the other soldier's permission. The Geneva thing is about humiliating the opposing side's soldiers in the media. But Iraq is really out of line.

Still, how can you blame them? They will lose their country. How would you feel?

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[FellowWLover]

Showing the weather in Iraq on local news really does make sense though. People want to know what our soldiers are dealing with on a day to day basis (ie: heat, sand storms, etc.).

 

[MuppetsRule]

The showing of POWs that have been humiliated, beaten and in some cases executed cannot and should not be justified in ANY circumstance.

 

[Luke]

There is a difference, with the U.S/UK at least once they'd got themselves together, the embedded reporters are only showing shots of the POW's IN TRANSIT - ie:- being moved, processed, looked after etc and most shots are now done from a distance. With Iraq they were waving a camera in front of our POW's to cause deliberate shock and distress, as well as interviewing them. I don't think you can even make a comparison - they showed footage of dead bodies of ours with suspicious looking holes in their foreheads !

 

[sidcrowe]

Muppetsrule...Luke: I started off with, and was referencing to...."Both sides are showing prisoners."

I meant prisoners on both sides. Not the dead soldiers.

When I said "how can you blame them" I meant the INTERVIEWS with the prisoners are being way out of line.

There were photos (at least in Canadian newspapers) or Iraqi soldiers, on thier knees with their hands bound behind their backs, still in uniform, being fed something from a jug by an American soldier. That's humiliating to the other side. You're not supposed to use prisoners for propaganda.

The footage with the dead soldiers is wrong. That doesn't fall under my "how can you blame them" thing. I meant both sides using prisoners for propaganda. The dead soldiers' footage I don't agree with, either.

In other news, Syria has been accused of sending night vision goggles to Iraq. Rumsfeld has warned Syria to stop it. What if they don't stop?

It's gonna be messy the longer it takes...more complicated.

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[MuppetsRule]

There is no doubt that showing of POWs on both sides is a propaganda tool.

Two important distinctions however:


1) The filming of Iraqi POWs is being shown by independent news services and not by a state-run television.

2) Most importantly, the filming of POWs from both sides also brings up an interesting contrast though. We see POWs in Iraqs controll beaten, and sometimes executed. The Iraqi POWs in the coalitions control are shown being fed, cared for, and wounds tended to. Just a little more humanitarian.



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[Luke]

To add to what Muppetsrule said, which i completely agree with - also since the way Iraqi POW's was analysed after they started being taken on a wider scale the soldiers on the ground AFAIK are instructed to stop the Prisoners faces being filmed so they tell them to keep their heads down, obviously they can't stop it completely because the embedded reporters are independant but AFAIK they try to, and we are seeing no footage of the actual camps they are being kept in, just the transit/medical stage. Newspapers in the UK are also blurring out the faces of Iraqi POW pictures. It is a completely different ballgame - the propoganda side from the U.S is so that the Iraqi soldiers and people know that they care for the people who surrender to them, with the Iraqi regime they are doing for completely different reasons.

Though if you are against them executing the American and British POW's and showing them dead with bullets in their heads then i don't much see how you can be strongly against the reasons for war - this is completely the kind of barbaric acts and behaviour that we are going to war to rid the world and the Iraqi people off.

 

[sidcrowe]

Muppetsrule:

"1) The filming of Iraqi POWs is being shown by independent news services and not by a state-run television."

Yeah, so it is sort of an "official" move by the Iraqis, which does make them look bad...but the state-run channel is all they have. And the channel is being blown up. You've got tons of channels, and nobody is blowing them up.

"2) Most importantly, the filming of POWs from both sides also brings up an interesting contrast though. We see POWs in Iraqs controll beaten, and sometimes executed. The Iraqi POWs in the coalitions control are shown being fed, cared for, and wounds tended to. Just a little more humanitarian."

I haven't seen any coverage showing those American POWs being beaten up.

Yeah, probably a few of those soldiers may have been executed. It's wrong, but then again, where are the bombs falling on people who live on your street? If Iraqis were running around in your backyard, killing your friends, I'll bet a few of you would execute them...not all, but some.

If someone killed my mother, I'd execute him if I had the chance. Screw the Geneva convention. I'd bet you may do it, too.

This isn't like an army going in to fight off the Nazis who took over a country. This is going in to "liberate" a screwed up country that has already done a lot of screwing itself up. A lot of those civillians DO NOT want to be taken over by America. Would you like to be taken over...by ANYBODY?

Any person with a gun might fight your soldiers. Your guys are being forced to fight civillians who have no miltary training, and are using the only weapon they have besides a crummy gun---surprise. I don't blame your soldiers as individuals. Some Iraqis want to surrender, while others pretend to and do a surprise attack. They are outclassed, are guaranteed to lose, and are being invaded.

It ugly. I don't think it ever should have taken place.

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[FellowWLover]

Sidcrowe,

This thread is supposed to answer the question of "gratuitous news coverage". We all know your opinion on the war. Must you keep repeating yourself?

 

[sidcrowe]

Luke:
"Though if you are against them executing the American and British POW's and showing them dead with bullets in their heads then i don't much see how you can be strongly against the reasons for war - this is completely the kind of barbaric acts and behaviour that we are going to war to rid the world and the Iraqi people off."

I admit it's a country ruled by a maniac. But it's still their country to reshape or suffer with. Saddam has many doubles because a lot of people would like to kill him, and then themselves, before they got captured and tortured to death. Maybe it woulda happened eventually.

If America can't control its booze and drugs, and its rampant murder rate, should we all band together and invade, in order to make things better?

JUST as I told you all.......it's very complex. The US has just warned Iran and Syria not to get involved. Iran is sending some soldiers...Syria some arms.

THAT is why I said Bush is a madman. Maybe this will turn out as the US and Britian hopes it will......but what if things escalate?

IF...IF...IF.......Iran and Syria or just ONE of them decides not to take orders from Rumsfeld, the US will be obliged to fight them as well. Then what about Pakistan? And India? With their nukes? One button...then the US presses a button. Then RUSSIA says "STOP IT! America, it was a mistake, you gambled and lost...go home!" What if America says "no?" Then what? Now that the U.N. has been ignored by the world's greatest military, NOW WHAT?

It has only been SEVEN days, and already other countries are starting to dip their feet in the water, and the US is telling them to back off.

SEVEN days!

How CLOSE Bush takes the Earth to the brink of World War III. My God!

It is NOT going as smoothly as Bush or Blair told us it would

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