Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: OZkansas on March 25, 2003, 08:57:26 AM
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I have been exposed to “military experts” for about three weeks now. At first I was impressed that the news networks would reach out and look to experts for educated points of view. Now after this three week exposure I believe that this is a secret government program to supplement retired officers income. I think we can do without these experts. They have become very tiresome!
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OZ,
There is a fairly large cache of retiree's who have contacts in the news media. All senior officers know that as they go up in rank and achieve positions of significant authority them come under news scrutiny. This makes their position political almost as much as military in nature. Through thjis process the "newsies" become familiar with them and cultivate a "working relationship". In this case it continues past the retirement date as the active Pentagon members will not talk to the press about an ongoing action to avoid giving any accurate intel to the enemy. As was already pointed out in 1991 saddumb DOES watch cnn and other news broadcasts to kee abreast of what is going on around the world and in particular strategically in his own back yard.
I am somewhat dismayed at the depth of "analysis" of the tactical information that is being broadcast to include units, location, readiness status, casualties and intentions that are being spoon fed to saddumb by the news media. I think the news should be after the fact not before and during the action so as to deny saddumb knowledge or intel of what is going on behind OUR OWN fediddleing lines. :mad: Sorry but the public does NOT have the "right to know" until after the small term actions are over. This stuff does nothing to assist the local commanders in the prosecution of the conflict. It just aids the enemy in setting up their defenses to better delay the coalition and inflict casualties. This does not shorten the war, it makes it longer.
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Its the curse of 24hour media coverage. They have too much time to over analyze everything.
What gets me is when they start predicting the news. Its like they've become news forcasters.
MiniD
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Originally posted by Mini D
Its like they've become news forcasters.
MiniD
And much like weather forcasters, often wrong.
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too bad we can't get the media out of the war..
I think lately the military is realizing they need to be more strict on info that gets out.
They're changing their tactics a bit due to this.
note the more recent broadcasts with less info (and visiuals) on the surrounding areas.. bout time.
to the media ... go home
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I'm on the other side of this argument. I think it's a good idea to keep the public informed. They're not really giving anything away that the Iraqis couldn't figure out themselves. However, they are keeping the public abreast of what our troops are up to.
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Works both ways. There is no doubt that TV is providing the Iraqis with real time information that they themselves do not have the necessary recon assets to acquire.
They're getting good information absolutely free.
However, the capability to USE the media against them exists as well. Remember the Marine amphib operation in GW 1 that never happened? Merely a media disinformation exercise that worked.
So, cuts both ways. Overall... a bit less on the "where and when" for me.
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I have concluded that these guys are no more an expert then I am. All they do is throw up "what ifs" that have nothing to do with what is going on at the moment. Sure this is prolly misinformation, but geez, not so much of it! Regarding the embedded reporters, what a waste, all we ever see is dust or the rear end of the "tank" in front of the reporter with very poor image quality! What's going to happen when the first embedded reporter is killed?
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yea one ret 4 star identified the 30 mm gun on the downed chopper as a "gattling type gun".
why is it a large percentage of officers ar screaming idiots?
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seems like when they ask the embedded reporters what color the sky is, the reporter automatically answers that they cannot reveal their position or size of their unit or anything..
Yet in the news room they will get out the big map of Iraq and start placing where our units are, what type they are, what size they are and what their intended targets are and tentative time tables..
it's a damn good thing the breaking news is usually total horsePUCKY (<--censor that!!!!)