It occurs to me that Eason Jordan’s accusations that US forces targeted journalists in Iraq could become self-fulfilling prophecy (in fact, I wonder if that might not be what Jordan hoped for, given that it would substantially turn Americans against their troops’ actions in Iraq); that by pissing off the troops with a false accusation, Jordan might actually bring about journalists’ deaths at the hands of troops coming to see the press as the enemy. (Speculation kicked off by this at Expat Yank.)
Fortunately, our troops are too good to do that kind of thing without really extreme provocation. And I suspect our field commanders would ask the Iraqi government to order the press out of Iraq if journalists started to be that provocative. (I’m thinking things like actually taking part in enemy operations, or providing actionable intelligence to the enemy.)
Why does that occur to you?
Simple, really. The Expat Yank post I linked contained a soldier griping about the media. I’ve heard friends in the military gripe about the media as well. There have been more than a few stories of situations like the one near the end of the invasion where one of the British carriers stopped playing the BBC because the reporting was so biased. There have been stories of media (particularly AP and al Jazeera) going along on insurgent operations.
If our media continues to be resolutely on the side of the enemy, by and large, or at least resolutely against the US and her allies, the relationship between the media and the military will degrade. I don’t know how much the embedding programs change the dynamic – hopefully they make the relationship more positive, as appears to be the case from what I’ve heard. But if that relationship does deteriorate significantly, such that our soldiers see reporters as not much more than enemy propaganda tools, I could certainly see combat stress situations arising where journalists would be presumed to be on the enemy’s side and would be killed for it.
I think our troops are more disciplined than that, but certainly the media is not. (There are more than a few media guys who apparently think that their status will protect them from both sides, and gives them immunity from shot and shell. They are wrong about that.) I think we are a long way from testing the proposition – and I hope we don’t ever get to the point where the relationship is so strained that we get to test it.
Jordan’s accusations were, to say the least, not helpful in that regard.