Replying to a message of Richard Webb to Dan Ceppa:


 DC>> your problem is in the fact that the news has been sanaitized for US
 DC>> consumption.  the destruction of mosques, bombing of civilians, etc
 DC>> have been excised to protect your sensibilities over the dinner
 DC>> table.   

 RW> YOu have to agree that the military and political leaders in this
 RW> country took one very valuable lesson away from VIetnam, even if
 RW> others didn't quite take hold.  tHis lesson was that the reporters
 RW> bringing back the story to the folks at home in the age of satellite
 RW> television must be controlled carefully.  Hence the "embedded"
 RW> reporter who cannot go anywhere and act independently of his/her
 RW> military handlers.

Note that two independent (non-embedded) reporters in the country were killed
when the hotel they were staying in was deliberately shelled - from close range -
by a US tank.  The fact that that particular hotel was full of un-embedded
journalists
was public knowledge, and AFAIK that was the only hotel that was attacked.  Note
also that al-Jazeera *gave* the US command the coordinates of the building serving
as its news bureau in Baghdad so it wouldn't be bombed by mistake; a cruise missile
levelled the building shortly thereafter, and it obviously wasn't a mistake.

 RW> LIke most things which diminish freedom of thought and
 RW> freedom of information this was done for their "safety" and
 RW> this was the way it was presented to them.

One thing the military learned from Vietnam was that they had to control the
flow of information.  What they don't know is that in today's world it is very
difficult to exercise any such control.  The government in this country has been
trying for years - ever since networked BBSes appeared - to do it; the government
doesn't like to have people exchanging news, general information and opinion in a
manner it cannot control.  Most folks aren't aware of it, but traffic on the Internet
can *easily* be controlled, because the US government owns all but one of the root
servers in the system - and Cisco is building such control mechanisms into its
routers.  The technology is being tested in implemented in mainland China, look for
it everywhere in a few years..


--- FleetStreet 1.19+