Today, if young Americans stateside know anything about the wages of war their perceptions are formed from Civil War epics, old WWII movies or Vietnam era classics, such as “Platoon” and “Apocalypse Now.”
There are no devil-may-care chroniclers like John Malkovich’s photographer in “The Killing Fields,” jumping around in a bomb’s aftermath, clicking away at the carnage.
There are no Joe Galloways, hopping off helicopters onto “hot” landing zones, having M-16s thrust into their hands, promising to record both bloodbath and sacrifice and doing so in books and movies.
There is a common complaint among those who thought this war was a great idea: the press doesn’t show the “good news out of Iraq.”
How in the hell can the press show the good news when reporters and photographers can’t even show the real news?
David Carr of The New York Times has written an excellent – and fair – analysis, rife with quotes, of what these recorders of war now face in Iraq.
Inherent dangers of guerilla warfare, ever-tightening government restrictions, soldiers’ privacy rights and the failure to show a true picture of war are remarkably condensed by Carr into an article both informative and thought-provoking.
Carr concludes:
“If the government chooses to overmanage the wages of war in Iraq, there is a real danger that this new generation of veterans, whose ranks grow every day, could come home to a place where their fellow Americans have little idea what they have gone through.”
If you care that young Americans are caught in a hell half a world away, let David Carr’s words speak to you: LINK
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