A policy, or even a culture, for contempt for the lives of independent reporters would more than suffice. Evidence for such a culture exists in the form of what was done to the above mentioned reporters that did survive. If you're taught that there will be no repercussions if you swing that rifle off to the left and pick off any witnessing reporters after you blow away a vehicle (which is demonstrably true, since there *were* no repercussions to these incidents, and news gets around about such things), and you get fed rhetoric about how any journalists reporting a US-hostile view were effectively providing comfort to the enemy (which is admittedly speculation on what might have been said in a barracks, but has certainly been expressed by a number of bloggers, so I think it's not an unfair assertion), I can imagine it would be really tempting to take out a few nonmilitary targets to ease your frustration with life in Iraq, particularly since soldiers didn't have the option of asking reporters to leave the war zone; the political outcry would have been absolutely immense, and it would have spawned spectacularly ugly accusations on the part of the international community about what was going on in there that the US was trying to hide. Occam's Razor teaches that the fewer variables, the more likely the solution, but we're dealing with the same variables of human nature here on each side.

But let's move on to the topic of standards of journalism and motive. If you're a journalist, particularly one working for a US news source, you're likely to be a bit ticked if you keep getting reports of journalists being killed by US troops in very questionable circumstances, or beaten and sexually assaulted in completely unjustifiable circumstances. That's motive enough for raising the topic. He did screw up twice, in that he forgot to take the standard journalistic technique of hiding the accusation behind distancing phrases, such as "there is evidence of", or "a number of non-embedded journalists in the field believe", and he didn't have his ducks lined up before he started shooting.

I am seriously pissed that he touched off this firestorm without at least doing as much work as I did, because when you do something like this wrong, it makes people that much less inclined to listen if someone does it right later. That doesn't mean, however, that it was an intentional smear campaign based on something he didn't believe (never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence, and so on), nor does his lack of ability to present evidence mean that it doesn't exist. I've shown above that it does exist, enough to cast a dark shadow if not anywhere near enough to warrant a conviction. He isn't smearing the US troops; the people (most particularly the officers who set policy, but also the grunts who carried it out) involved in torturing prisoners, in being reckless with fire, in bombing Red Cross facilities and news centers, in shooting civilians, those people inside the US military have smeared the US troops, most of whom are fine individuals stuck in a really ugly situation and doing the best they can.

But I think most of the people ranting about his comments right now wouldn't have been any happier if he had not said "they deliberately targeted twelve journalists", and said instead "there is evidence that they deliberately targeted as many as twelve journalists", and then named the names above when asked, followed by a pointer to the ACLU reports on how investigations into other military misdoings were cut short again and again. It would have been entirely truthful, journalistically correct, and still would have brought shame upon the military — and would still have pissed of about as many people for that reason. The implications would have hung in the air, even buffered by the qualifiers.

Might as well cut him some slack for speaking bluntly, then, if it's going to go the same way.

I have a lot of sympathy for wanting to clobber him for being unprepared, or incompetent, or heck, even for being wrong, since even I don't believe that all twelve examples above were due to soldier hostility (my guess is about half that number, not including the ones picked up and beaten). I have no respect whatsoever for the flying accusations of dishonesty, treachery, or treason, however — especially by people who assumed that the US military must be lily white by sheer virtue of the fact that they're Americans, without bothering to look up any facts.

One other thing, since you mentioned it: user logins (and new user registration) were on the lower left, under the comments.

This wasn't really that visible, so I've moved it to the upper right.

My guesses?

1) It doesn't sell well. Fox News made a killing by blowing the patriot horn, even when some of the news they reported turned out to be complete works of fiction. Nobody wants to hear that our friends and loved ones overseas, for whom we're absolutely terrified, are involved in unpleasantness, or are in greater danger than is being announced, or are more poorly supplied than is believed.

Heck, even I don't want to hear it. The son of a friend of mine is over there, two of my gaming buddies just made it back, and something knots up inside me every time I hear about another incident. It's enough to make me stop reading the news for a while... which could be ugly for a news channel if I had an influence on the Nielsen ratings.

2) They didn't want to screw up their contacts during the war. Without having your journalists embedded, you have much less coverage to show on TV, and much greater risk to get it (especially if you think you're likely to get shot at by the US as well as the Iraqis). There can be other political repercussions as well, including losing access to the White House for other coverage, or being saddled with other restrictions. See So Now We Have Minders over on Pacific Views for another interesting bit on how the White House is managing the press.

3) By now, a lot of this is old news. By the time there was enough of a trail to convert individual points into a trend, half of the events are a year old, and nobody wants to hear about it. This is sort of an extension of #1, and in a general sense, is one of the things that irritates me about mainstream news in general: the push to always have the latest story means that very little looking back is done to spot trends in motion.

It's not just CNN. There's a lot of things that don't get reported about the war in the US mainstream news, that show up immediately overseas. Even Abu Ghraib got delayed here, and showed up only after the photos were all over the rest of the world already.

The argument of "they could have done worse, if they wished to be extremely blatant, therefore they could not have done anything less than their worst" is a bit specious, at best. A "shoot them if you can get away with it" mentality doesn't mean that they'll shoot every journalist they can on sight.

As for the 2003.04.08, there was only one fatality when the missiles hit the building, but there were also injuries, not listed.

And when the bloggers make outlandish claims about his motives and the complete impossibility of his claims, they'll also get backlash — and rightly so, especially when they never bothered to look for themselves.

Considering that it's not physically possible to fully investigate any military misconduct, since the military doesn't allow outside investigation, and the ACLU documents and Abu Ghraib trials have confirmed that investigations are stopped internally before they can come close to a responsible party, demanding absolute proof in advance of being able to voice suspicions, even when evidence exists, amounts to a demand that the military be considered completely unaccountable — and an undue restraint on free speech.

I'm really, really annoyed that he didn't have the information I gathered above readily available when he made his statements, as I've noted in other comments. There's a lot of blame to be thrown at him for laziness, sloppiness, and political naïvety. You're not a traitor for voicing suspicions where evidence exists, however, nor does doing so amount to a deliberate smear campaign.

If the right-wing blogs had contented themselves with blasting him for his sloppiness, without turning around and starting a smear campaign of their own, I likely would never have bothered collecting the above — and I might even have posted in agreement. His error isn't a license to be even worse, however.

I wish the other responses were as thoughtful.

A few notes: where do you find reference to the ITN vehicles being between tanks? It's a bit late at night for me to go back through the sources, but I had been given the impression that they were near, but not directly between the US tanks and Iraqi soldiers (I didn't see any reference to Iraqi tanks on this even, either, nor did I see reference to the ITV vehicle taking hits from both sides). Also, note that the "military vehicle" line refers to someone having taken the journalists out of their car after it was hit in the first place, and then subsequently placed in the vehicle. Certainly, you can't blame the military for shooting at an Iraqi military vehicle subsequently (even if it was just evacuating wounded), but the concern is for shooting at marked ITV vehicle in the first place. Also, Terry Lloyd was in a civilian van taking him to the hospital when that, too, was fired upon by a US helicopter. If, in fact, the ITV vehicle was taking tank fire from both sides, I'm surprised anything was found at all, much less several people actually getting into rescue vehicles. If you find the reference to the tanks, I'll mark it.

Also, trying to get away from an area where bullets are flying isn't "suspicious", it's expected. You've also fudged the timing here; a vehicle ran the barricade, and was shot at, then the reporters ran back to their clearly marked vehicle, got into it, and were then shot down. Note that these are people who had gone so far as to contact the US military about their presence and gotten permission before filming. It's a bit of a jump to say that the military would then turn around and say, "Those journalists are suspicious for avoiding gunfire! Shoot them!"

As for the hotel balcony, you haven't added anything not already noted by my given links; the question is why the troops were never notified about where the independent journalists were staying, and whether that decision was deliberate.

Keep in mind that the US military took very good care of the journalists that were embedded with them because they were carefully set up to only report positive things, with all reports passing through the military for alteration before being printed. They weren't reporters anymore; they were US propaganda tools. Some of the reporters involved came out afterwards and apologized for taking part in the sham after they realized exactly what it was (this should be googleable, but it's too late for me to hunt for them tonight). The journalists killed by the US weren't in the category of "anyone with a notepad"; they were trained journalists with their professional equipment representing the only free press in the region.

If you give the military the benefit of the doubt in each case, these are plausible explanations, sure. Lacking a public investigation, however, it's hard to fault someone for not giving them the benefit of the doubt, given the other things that keep leaking out.

I'm quite curious about something, however:

Do you have a reference for this? That it's a freshy arrived convoy is certainly significant, if true.

Also, as I mentioned in a previous comment, I was envisioning fire from an angle, not front to rear, when I originally wrote the comment about bad aim, but certainly front to rear straight through the windshields is plausible. (As an aside, I'm a tolerable marksman with both a pistol and a rifle, though I'll never win any contests of speed. With only simple training and casual practice I can reliably hit man-sized target with a Ruger 22/45 at about 30', and I expect that trained soldiers with better gear would do much better. Of course, I have the advantage of not being shot at while I'm practicing.)

Also:

Judging from the results of the ACLU FOIA request, the answer is yes. If you're wondering why people like myself are deeply, deeply suspicious when things go consistently wrong, that's why.

But if you're focusing on trying to engender doubt that the military was responsible for one death or another, you're missing the point of this. I'm not trying to convict soldiers here; I'm demonstrating that it's entirely possible for someone (Eason Jordan, specifically) who has been given this information to honestly believe that the military was deliberately targeting journalists, and say so.

Beating up the Enemy

Yes, that has happened, it happened in my war, several times to my personal knowledge. I even used the butt of my weapon to knock the crap out a VC that had just wounded two of my men.

In the heat of the battle, moment or in the rage of finally getting ahold of the enemy, it is difficult NOT to take that rage out on him.

Our unit never killed prisoners, but I am sure it happened (Sir, they were trying to escape)!

Right, wrong, thats just the way it is in combat.

Papa Ray
West Texas
USA

It's certainly nothing to be happy about, one way or the other. What distinguishes slander from sloppiness, however, is that slander derives from something the speaker doesn't believe is true (and in fact, when it is a matter of public concern, the plaintiff in a slander case must actively prove that the allegations are false). I think Eason Jordan believed what he was saying, from having heard the same reports that I had heard. As you can see from the other comments, there's a lot of room to wrangle over whether he's actually right (and even I don't believe that all twelve fatalities listed above are likely to be deliberate), but the preservation of free speech requires that one allow for statements made in good faith — even if the speaker turns out to be too inept to defend the statements without outside help.

If you think this is about whether or not America is the bad guy, you've missed the point. See my other comments.

The 100,000 figure is from a study published in The Lancet, and is actually likely to be low.

That quote seems to contradict Demoustier's description, but it's certainly interesting to add to the collection. Thanks.