Archive for the 'Media' Category

The DoD policy on the new media has been released.  There are positive steps – computers are to be configured to access such sites within the constraints of operational security.  But the policy is subject to local application and enforcement.  Milblogging.com likes it, but I’ll wait to see the affects of the policy before weighing in on it.

My experience with blogging is that even as a parent of a member of the military, my words got significant attention to both me and my son, some of it unwanted and unwarranted.  There were daily site visits from PAOs, and usually within minutes of making posts.  If I mentioned water survival training while donning body armor, it got my son a visit to the First Sergeant’s office and a call from the Colonel, or better yet, a comment about how “we don’t do that sort of thing.”

Absurd.  Nothing false, nothing OPSEC about it, just a desire to control the narrative.  Concern over what mothers might think if they read the blog, or something of that nature.  I would have thought it wise and laudable that the Marines taught their guys to deal with HMMWV rollover incidents where the Marine ended up in a river with his body armor on.  After all, it had happened before.

The secrecy surrounding the 26th MEU was extraordinary.  We got more information from his deployment to Fallujah than we did from the Persian Gulf.  But any bystander at the Suez Canal who has a cell phone can inform his contacts when he sees a U.S. Amphibious Assault Dock floating by.  The concern that a Marine on board a ship  informing his family members about his proximity being more valuable information than someone in Egypt actually seeing a ship floating by is the fantasy of control freaks.  Enlisted men rarely are in possession of something that can seriously compromise OPSEC, and if they are, they are usually mature enough to handle the responsibility.

Stepping into the twenty first century is proving to be difficult for the military in more ways than accepting social networking.  In Systemic Defense Intelligence Failures, I lamented the fact that I had pointed out the Taliban strategy of targeting lines of logistics two years ago, while Army intelligence was busy denying that there would be any resurgence of the Taliban or even a spring offensive in 2008.  Military intelligence should have been reading my analysis rather than arguing their own merits.  Intelligence failures also played a part in the losses at COP Keating and Wanat.

The DoD may be adjusting.

On their first day of class in Afghanistan, the new U.S. intelligence analysts were given a homework assignment.

First read a six-page classified military intelligence report about the situation in Spin Boldak, a key border town and smuggling route in southern Afghanistan. Then read a 7,500-word article in Harper’s magazine, also about Spin Boldak and the exploits of its powerful Afghan border police commander.

The conclusion they were expected to draw: The important information would be found in the magazine story. The scores of spies and analysts producing reams of secret documents were not cutting it.

“They need help,” Capt. Matt Pottinger, a military intelligence officer, told the class. “And that’s what you’re going to be doing.”

The class that began Friday in plywood hut B-8 on a military base in Kabul marked a first step in what U.S. commanders envision as a major transformation in how intelligence is gathered and used in the war against the Taliban.

Not too many months ago Maj. Gen. Michael T. Flynn published a scathing critique of intelligence analysis in Afghanistan (I thought it was more than a little weird and a bit too political to publish this report with CNAS).  But I have read the entire report by Matthieu Aikins in Harpers.  It’s well worth the read by people interested in hard core data, names, information and analysis of the situation in Afghanistan.

Whether studying Aikins’ report, or Nicholas Schmidle on the Next-Gen Taliban, or David Rohde’s account of his captivity under the Taliban, some of the best information and analysis is right in front of our eyes if we can think outside the box.  This is why the media must be culled for good reports, and – to a lesser extent – it’s why I get military visits every day.  The new media merits its own attention, but it needs to be the right kind of attention.  We need for the military to pursue good analysis, not fulfill their own [sometimes] megalomaniacal ambitions to control every little detail of everyone’s life.

From Google Analytics:

See network domain number 139 that particular day from Washington, D.C.  Analytics shows this to be a previous (repeat) visitor who didn’t come to TCJ via other links.  Here at The Captain’s Journal we’re glad to have each and every one of our readers, from the executive office of the President U.S.A. to DoD, CENTCOM, Dyncorp, Cornell University, FEMA, the U.S. Senate, and John Deere.

In our coverage of the pictures posted by the Associated Press of Lance Corporal Joshua Bernard I called the AP editors who chose to publish the photo liars.  To me the rule they broke was fairly clear.

” … as long as the service member’s identity and unit identification is protected from disclosure until OASD-PA [Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Public Affairs] has officially released the name. Photography from a respectful distance or from angles at which a casualty cannot be identified is permissible.”

The last clause stands on its own.  Embedded reporters may not publish photos prior to notification of the family, and also may not publish them even after notification if the terms of the agreement are violated, i.e., if the casualty or the unit can be identified.

They chose to break the pre-embed agreement they signed, and thus did they lie.  Now the Washington Post is carrying a clarification of the position of the U.S. military and ISAF.

The U.S. military command in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday imposed a new ban on publication of photographs taken by embedded journalists that identify American war casualties.

The restriction is outlined in ground rules for reporters embedded with U.S. forces battling Taliban insurgents in eastern Afghanistan along the Pakistani border. The new rules say that “media will not be prohibited from viewing or filming casualties; however, casualty photographs showing recognizable face, nametag or other identifying feature or item will not be published.”

The new rules mark a change from a broader rule issued Sept. 30 that said, “Media will not be allowed to photograph or record video of U.S. personnel killed in action.”

The restriction on publishing was prompted by controversy over an Associated Press photograph of a mortally wounded Marine. An embedded AP photographer took a picture of Marine Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard during a firefight with Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan’s Helmand province in August, and the AP published the photograph last month over the objections of Bernard’s family and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.

“After that incident, we felt that for the sake of the soldier and the family members that was what we needed to do,” said Lt. Col. Clarence Counts, a spokesman for the U.S. military command in eastern Afghanistan. He said the earlier rules “left it too wide open with regard to protecting the soldier and his family members if we had a KIA,” he said, referring to a service member killed in action.

Before the incident, the command’s rules had stated that the news media would not be prohibited from covering casualties provided several conditions were met, including gaining written permission from the wounded before publishing any images that could identify them and waiting until after the notification of next of kin to publish photographs of those killed in action …

The revised ground rules ease the Sept. 30 restriction by allowing casualties to be photographed, but the publication prohibition remains. The new set of rules appears contradictory, though. Another provision permits release of images of wounded troops if they give permission, stating that “in respect to our family members, names, video, identifiable written/oral descriptions or identifiable photographs of wounded service members will not be released without the service member’s prior written consent.”

I had gone on record saying that if I was proven wrong concerning the rules at the time of publication of Joshua’s photo, I would retract my charge that the AP editors are liars.  It appears to me that the “clarification” issued by the military is just that, or in other words, additional wording that makes it unappealing for the media to lawyer their way out an agreement.

I’m still waiting for proof that the rules at the time of the embed didn’t spell it out in enough detail to be damning by itself.  If the AP wants to send me the agreement I will study it and issue a retraction if it can be proven that I was wrong.

Brian Palmer writing at the Huffington Post takes issue with my assessment of the situation surrounding the publication of the photos.  More correctly, he lets the reader make his own mind up concerning whether Joshua’s face is identifiable.  Brian correctly says I “hammered” the AP.  And so I did.  I will hammer anyone who steps on the parents of military men who are fighting our wars in contravention of their signed agreements.

As a final note, Brian says that contributors to The Captain’s Journal have been critical of his own reporting from Iraq.  Well, perhaps, but this isn’t the full story.  Brian’s reporting from Anbar was admirable and informative, but I took issue with his characterization of the rules of engagement (Recon by Fire, otherwise called the Drake Shoot) as potentially killing noncombatants without also acknowledging that the tactic of hiding in a field wouldn’t be used again by the insurgents after this incident.  There are both intended and unintended consequences to every event.

Prior:

Concerning Lance Corporal Joshua Bernard

Publishing the Marine Photo: Remember the Words of Christ

Jules Crittenden has a roundup of reactions to the British Special Boat Service troops’ rescue of the NYT reporter (also see The Washington Post).  Its’ impressive to me that the British took on this responsibility.  But it is the solemn duty of a country to mourn its lost, grieve its wounded, and bear the national burden of moral judgments during a time of war.  To be sure, there are limits as we have discussed in the release of the photo of young Joshua Bernard.  The concern there is not national exposure but protection of the family.

But as a country laments and engages in outrage, sometimes it’s simply appropriate to listen rather than critique.  My own feeling about this is that I support embedded reporting.  Ernie Pyle did it, and still maintained his independence from the story lines coming from the public relations efforts.  Ernie Pyle died too, but embedding is still the way to go.  But when embedding is done the reporter is obligated – morally and legally – to follow the rules set in place by those who are protecting him or her.

If a reporter wants to get the scoop or turn the story without the aid of or reference to our troops (Nir Rosen comes to mind), then my feeling is that when you play the dice you take your chances.  In a world that increasingly looks for cradle to grave security from the state, taking chances is seen as a way to strike it rich but a way to do so while relying on the government as a safety net.  It shouldn’t be that way.

But on a more personal level (as a Marine father), it needs to be remembered that every casualty is a son of America.  It’s easy to depersonalize casualties for those who are not close to someone who has lost a child to the war(s).  The country blocks out the information, but when it’s in front of you every day it’s a difficult task to accomplish.  As casualties mount, the country increasingly needs to see the moral imperative for the losses.

It’s just the way it is.  War is a costly and awful thing, and a country must be dedicated to the cause for what it sees as good and morally justified reasons in order to maintain commitment.  I cannot possibly see how the UK can justify the loss of one of its sons for a New York Times reporter.  Some discussions on this issue will foray into policy.  I’m not talking about policy.  I’m talking about value judgments.  In order to understand this from the perspective of a British parent who has lost his son to save a reporter, one needs to think viscerally and personally.  Policy just won’t do.  Sometimes it’s appropriate to ponder over the dark things that other people experience.  It helps to form values.

In response to Publishing the Marine Photo: Remember the Words of Christ, John Bernard, 1stsgt USMC ret., speaks.

I am Lcpl Joshua Bernard’s Father. I deeply appreciate your intense concern over this immoral act and believe these folks are working without a functional conscience as described in Romans chapter 1. Having said that; I will make the same point here that I have now made repeatedly in interviews. We cannot let this ‘distraction’ change the important elements of the greater story and that is the implimentation of the new ROE. There aren’t 1000 Afghan lives that are worth a single Marine’s life. I say this because I am first an American and Marine – not a world citizen. We have a right and responsibility to export violence to defend these shores and our citizenry. Anything less and we will be judged ‘found wanting’ as the Bible describes those who fail to do what they know to be right. It is time for us to hold our elected officials accountable and renind them that they are Americans and for the attrocities against our Warriors that they are complicit in. Keep fighting the fight guys, here in your blog as I am with this small window of opportunity I have been given through the shed blood of my only son.

John Bernard
1stsgt USMC ret.

For more, see Proud to be a Marine.