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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
quickstrategy
Published Letters: 397
I'll give you my $.02 worth, with the idea that it'll give you some ammo with your dad. RMP was a PAO for the Air Force, so his contribution is likely to be more valuable.
If your argument produces anything conclusive, you should share with the class, b/c I don't think there's ever a real clear-cut answer except at the limits.
As a technical matter (taking away the faces, names and specific politics of the current debacle), the govt has an obligation to maintain unity in a time of war, but that's not a broad license: Their specific approach has to stay inside the lines, or not cross them in an illegal way. Being frank about setbacks during a war is just as likely to generate a new sense of unity as it is the opposite, depending on how the details are presented.
The real time for argumentation is before there is a war. I don't think this is controversial. Military doctrine (including concepts for how the media will cover the hypothetical war) since the end of Vietnam has assumed that such a national debate would take place before there is a declaration of war or (crucially) mobilization of reserves. This is just a practical matter of having public support. The idea is that all sides have their say, there is a debate, and a vote in Congress. This process worked reasonably well during in 1990-1 in the runup to the first (American) Gulf War. No need to elaborate on what happens when support is based on lies, when dissenting voices are shouted down, or when support turns out to be thin and ephemeral b/c it's based on nothing.
The ambiguity comes after the shooting starts. What to report? Any government is within its rights/obligations to put its best foot forward in order to maintain support for the war, once started. Too one-sided (the sunshine pump) and it loses credibility, support is lost, and the loss of that 'unity' can be grave. Too stark or bald (leaving it to opponents to interpret the data) and public sentiment can turn even when there's no objective reason for it to do so (again, assuming that support was properly marshalled before the war).
So how to report bad news? In terms of tactics, I think of two unusual examples from the early days of the Iraq invasion. In one, the 11th Attack Helicopter Regiment had been unexpectedly mauled by the Fedayeen Saddam in a night time attack. The CNN embed told the story in an unusually frank way, and had frank (depressed, anxious) quotes from the pilots. It wasn't pretty, but nobody panicked and Tom Delay didn't blow his lid the next day about the Liberal Media (as far as I know).
Second example: You'll recall that the V Corps and the Marine Expeditionary Force 'paused' unexpectedly enroute to Baghdad to consolidate their supply lines and try to contain the Fedayeen. Several media reports used the word 'quagmire' to describe this, which I thought was a little silly. Reading about all this now ('Cobra II' is a decent source), you can see that there was disagreement within the chain of command about whether there should have been a 'pause' at all, how long it should be, what it meant in terms of the campaign. No single source could have given you a clear picture ... arguably, there *was* no clear picture at the time to be had.
That level of detail (that there had been a pause, that there had been unexpected problems, and even that these reflected weaknesses in Rumsfeld's plan ... which he insisted was Franks' plan, in response) was plenty to stoke opposition, and it was already probably more than the public (lacking context ... which 'embeds' were certainly not able to provide, but which could have been backfilled by the media if they weren't mostly attuned to other things) could digest. But I think it was a perfectly fine level of detail to give the public, and it certainly didn't fracture our unity or support for the war ... so that argument is wrong.
You'll notice that after Bush's codpiece moment, coverage changed and the details evaporated. There was never any effort to explain the new strategy for the insurgency (even after it was acknowledged), just denial, minimization, 'dead enders' and so forth. And you can see what happened to the 'unity' after that.
This is obviously a meaty subject worthy of much further discussion, but I'll stop there.
What happened to the Fifth Estate and the power of the press?
Fourth Estate. You've confused them with the Fifth Column, which is the effect the Right has been trying to produce all this time. :>
Reporters ... If I had the lot of them shot as spies, I have no doubt there would be news from Hell by morning --- William Tecumseh Sherman
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
