Journalists as Terrorist Targets in Iraq

by Charles

Michael Yon has been doing yeoman's work with the on-the-ground entries of his experiences in Iraq.  He is highly perceptive and adept at writing what he sees.  In his Embed post, this paragraph leapt out:

So there were two tired Danish TV2 journalists, the American TV man, and me, all sleeping on cots in the CPIC office. It's easy to take shots at "the media" in Iraq—literally, as well as for the quality of their coverage. Forget for a moment the lopsided expense versus returns ratio. The bullet holes in the hotel rooms and the picnic tables in the desert tell a back story about why so few journalists make the journey. All this, while knowing that insurgents have specifically targeted members of the media.

Apparently the terrorists like it better when fewer reporters are around to peel back the layers of their insurgent press machine and reveal its rotten core. The Americans may think they get bad press, but apparently the terrorists think they get worse. Everybody, it seems, is a victim of bad press, including (ironically) the professionals who print it, because they get shot by everybody, with words and bullets.

Emphasis mine.  This was a bit of a surprise because I didn't think that journalists were primary targets for terrorists and Sunni paramilitary shock troops.  However, Yon's words were confirmed a couple of days ago when terrorists tried to hit the Palestine Hotel, a deplorable act for which al Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility.  Why such a direct attack against media members?  Donald Sensing:

Al Qaeda sees the media, especially the Western media, as their enemy. It may be (and we may never know) that they believed that by striking the Palestine Hotel and injuring or killing reporters they would accomplish a couple of things positive for their side.

One would have been to greatly reduce the number of Western media representatives in Iraq. Once reporters had deliberately been murdered by al Qaeda, there would may have been a strong exodus of reporters from the country. There may yet be a number of reporters who choose to leave because of the bombings. In al Qaeda's view, the news from Iraq is bad - bad for them. As I have explained a number of times before, al Qaeda, from bin Laden on down, see the Muslim ummah as their natural allies. If the corrupting influences of Western media are reduced or better yet, eliminated, then the ummah will no longer waver in support of the Islamist cause. Zawahiri admitted they are in a battle for hearts and minds, but he believes that the ummah's hearts and minds are his to lose. So while the intended target of violence may have been reporters, the intended audience was the Muslim masses, especially those of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Syria, three strongholds of al Qaeda support.

At the same time, Zarqawi may have thought (not unreasonably) that once they managed to kill reporters inside the reporters' own safe haven, reportage would have turned immediately and strongly against the US and Iraqi governments. Claims of "Iraq the quagmire" would have been promulgated even harder and media commentary would have lambasted the inability of the authorities to maintain security.

Zawahiri himself wrote that much of the War Against Militant Islamists is to be fought in the media.  Time will tell whether or how this attack will seep into the psyches of the journalists who laid their heads in the Palestine Hotel.

Going back to Yon, his Embed entry showed hard it was to get embedded into U.S. military operations, and it also explains why the accounts of on-the-ground troops differ so dramatically from reporters who stick around the hotel and sit in on press briefings.  Embedding is time-consuming, expensive and deadline-killing, leaving most editors to conclude that the costs outweigh the benefits.  This is a travesty because, while Russert may indeed be right when he says that the mainstream media is reporting the truth in Iraq, they're reporting just what they see, and what they see is a small slice of the whole truth since so few actually go outside the compound. 

This is another area where the American government is doing a piss-poor job.  The military should be streamlining the embed process, and if they can't do that, they should be paying journalists a stipend to help defray the costs of this important function.  How much better off we'd be if Bill Roggio didn't have to shill for sheckels to cover his upcoming embed assignment with a group of Marines.  Because terrorists are fully engaged in this media war, the way to win is not to have journalists go home, but to make it easier to bring thousands more in.

Comments

[Frank]

Nell- Kudos. I thought I understood things well enough, but now I understand better, thanks.

[ral]

So my question is, when did the administration actually have the (forged) documents in its possession? Did they know the documents were forged at the time of the State of the Union address?

Remember, these documents were obvious forgeries (wrong names and dates). It's not credible that given the actual documents (not transcriptions) the administration believed them to be genuine.

[Slartibartfast]

Jesurgislac"

Maybe you could try something different? Like writing plainly and clearly what you mean, and not deliberately misunderstanding other people's plain and clear statements?

Maybe, novelty of novelties, you could simply read what I write instead of reading what you're sure I must mean. You would've saved a lot of steps if you had.

CC:

You may well have shrunk from the final words, Slart, but they were certainly implicit. Otherwise your point is entirely meaningless.

I have no idea what you mean by this; care to elaborate? What final words?

rilkefan:

it's still clearly entirely wrong

Show me.

Nell:

So something had to be done to discredit and punish the dissenting 'community', before the idea took hold that all the weapons claims were tissue paper, and that the President and Vice President had known that as they pushed the country to war.

You know, I think if Wilson HAD gone after the IC, he probably would have pissed off a whole lot of people in ways that at least partially cancel each other. When you come out and claim that the President and VP are liars, though, expect to lock horns with a unified executive branch. Not excusing what was done to his wife, mind you, just noting that if he'd had issue with the IC, he would have done well to take on the IC. Given, of course, that his issue was actually with the IC.

[Slartibartfast]

So my question is, when did the administration actually have the (forged) documents in its possession? Did they know the documents were forged at the time of the State of the Union address?

For a timeline, go here (searchable version of the Senate Intelligence Committee report) and search for "forge". Short answer: we had them since at least October 2002, but they weren't revealed as forgeries until March 2003, if I'm reading that correctly.

Note that there's quite a bit of understated CIA-whacking over the obviousness of the forgeries, and over the CIA's failure to give the documents much of a vetting.

[Jesurgislac]

Slarti: Maybe, novelty of novelties, you could simply read what I write instead of reading what you're sure I must mean.

Maybe you could read and respond to what I write? And try to write clearly and without obfustication?

Or, you know, when it's such a deeply uncomfortable subject for you - such as that false statement in SOTU 2003 - just drop it rather than talking round it in twisty, twisty circles?

But in any case: When you insist on writing in twisty obscure prose, you have no grounds to complain that other people don't understand you.

When you come out and claim that the President and VP are liars, though, expect to lock horns with a unified executive branch.

Please point to and quote the part of Wilson's op-ed where he claimed that the President and the Vice-President are liars.

[Frank]

Slarti- I'm going to add my voice to Jes's and point out that Wilson did not call the Prez or Vice Pres liars prior to the smear against him starting. Not in the famous Times op ed, not in the less famous earlier op ed, not according to the 2 prior articles in which Wilson was an anonymous source. Interestingly Wilson showed the Palo Alto opp ed before publication to Scowcroft who showed it to both the senior and junior Bush.

Your understanding about when the government knew the Niger memo was a forgery is both convenient and wrong. The State Dept knew it was a forgery in 2002, though the CIA claimed not to until 2003, they had conveniently mislaid the forgery in a vault somewhere until 2003.

[Slartibartfast]

Um, ok, he didn't say "lied" as such, but he did say "twisted", which means the same thing. Or it would mean the same thing to you if you'd just learned that the administration had twisted the intel on Iraq.

[Slartibartfast]

Cite please, Frank. If State knew it was a forgery in 2002, on what basis did they claim (in December 2002) that Iraq has an ongoing effort to procure raw materials for nuclear enrichment?

[Jesurgislac]

What Joseph Wilson actually said: "Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat."

How does this mean the same thing as "claiming that the President and VP are liars"?

Or it would mean the same thing to you if you'd just learned that the administration had twisted the intel on Iraq.

Is the "you" in that sentence actually you, Slarti? And when you say "just learned" exactly when you mean?

[Jesurgislac]

Slarti: If State knew it was a forgery in 2002, on what basis did they claim (in December 2002) that Iraq has an ongoing effort to procure raw materials for nuclear enrichment?

Either they hadn't been allowed to examine the documents and they were repeating info they had been given from another source; or else they were lying. All credible reports suggest that the forgeries were sufficiently crude that anyone with access to the CIA World Factbook could detect them.