I read this piece but the part that really caught my attention wasn’t the main topic of the article. It was the part about journalists not being able to cover Afghanistan properly. I remember distinctly that one of the arguements the conservatives made back in Parliment with regards to banning media from the return dead soldiers was that media still had access to Afghanistan thus proving the government wasn’t trying to hide the reality of war. This part in the article however proves that the government statement to that effect was false. They are infact making the truth of the war harder to report.
http://www.thestar.com
Journalists are no longer allowed to accompany troops on missions that are suddenly deemed too risky, despite signing waivers that remove all legal responsibility for death or injury from the military establishment. This, I hasten to add, runs contrary to the wishes of most senior commanders on the ground, especially Lt.-Col. Ian Hope, who heads Task Force Orion, the battle group component of Canada's contribution to Task Force Afghanistan.
Reporters who set forth with Charlie Company last month, headed for FOB Robinson, were yanked back within hours of arrival on the orders of Brig.-Gen. David Fraser. Similarly, reporters have been prevented from attaching themselves to other ostensibly aggressive operations, while being ushered toward banal assignments that do little but reinforce passive, Boy-Scout images of soldiering.
Further, soldiers who had participated in the FOB Robinson fight were forbidden from talking to reporters upon their return to Kandahar Airfield, even after they'd been thoroughly debriefed by investigators looking into the possibility that "friendly fire" might have been involved in the killing of Costall and an American medic, and after they'd been trauma-counselled. This is not embedding. It's selective news dispersal and anti-information management — a subject to be explored at greater length on another day.
There are stories the military brass doesn't want told. There are stories, and images, the government doesn't want in the public domain.
.......
The link doesn’t seem to want to work. It is an article in the Toronto Star called “As if a nation should look away “ — 2006-04-26 01:53:34 [National]. It can also be read via the Politics Canada website.
If anyone can get a working link up, that would be great. I don’t like posting whole articles due to copyrights.
http://www.thestar.com/
http://www.thestar.com
Journalists are no longer allowed to accompany troops on missions that are suddenly deemed too risky, despite signing waivers that remove all legal responsibility for death or injury from the military establishment. This, I hasten to add, runs contrary to the wishes of most senior commanders on the ground, especially Lt.-Col. Ian Hope, who heads Task Force Orion, the battle group component of Canada's contribution to Task Force Afghanistan.
Reporters who set forth with Charlie Company last month, headed for FOB Robinson, were yanked back within hours of arrival on the orders of Brig.-Gen. David Fraser. Similarly, reporters have been prevented from attaching themselves to other ostensibly aggressive operations, while being ushered toward banal assignments that do little but reinforce passive, Boy-Scout images of soldiering.
Further, soldiers who had participated in the FOB Robinson fight were forbidden from talking to reporters upon their return to Kandahar Airfield, even after they'd been thoroughly debriefed by investigators looking into the possibility that "friendly fire" might have been involved in the killing of Costall and an American medic, and after they'd been trauma-counselled. This is not embedding. It's selective news dispersal and anti-information management — a subject to be explored at greater length on another day.
There are stories the military brass doesn't want told. There are stories, and images, the government doesn't want in the public domain.
.......
The link doesn’t seem to want to work. It is an article in the Toronto Star called “As if a nation should look away “ — 2006-04-26 01:53:34 [National]. It can also be read via the Politics Canada website.
If anyone can get a working link up, that would be great. I don’t like posting whole articles due to copyrights.
http://www.thestar.com/
