It's A War. There Are Sides

I don't have any final harumphing opinion on efforts by the military to plant favorable stories in the Iraqi media (Senator Seeks Answers on Iraq Stories). As a journalist, and considering the fact that I run Iraq's Untold Story five days a week, it's uncomfortable to think I may have excerpted something cooked up by an American PAO rather than a genuine Iraqi source.

But propaganda has been part of every modern war. So while I understand those who object to the practice, I want them to ask another question: Does it work? Part of the answer is that it doesn't work if it's revealed as propaganda.

The story in today's Post (and another yesterday) was broken by the Los Angeles Times. Join that with some of Dana Priest's work at the Post, and you have a series of compromised operations that includes the U.S. propaganda program, secret detention and interrogation of terrorist suspects, the creation of Counterterrorist Intelligence Centers, and support for an Iraqi paramilitary group called The Scorpions.

I don't think most American reporters really want America to lose the war, but I wonder if they understand there is one. Obviously people like Jonathan Finer and Ellen Knickmeyer do, as they file with exploding bombs in the background. But I don't have a satisfying answer to the sense of detachment that allows reporters to repeatedly expose classified operations intended to defeat a bloodthirsty enemy. And though I've never set foot in the Washington Post's newsroom, I'm skeptical there are any sophisticated procedures in place to establish how much damage these stories inflict on, well, me. Black ops and information warfare aren't waged for the hell of it; the goal is to prevent the enemy from slaughtering us.

Us. Them.

"When I'm reporting, I am a citizen of the world" -- Bob Franken, CNN

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