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[quote=TheManWithAUsername][quote=jsteele]A New York Times reporter discovered a stash of classified US documents in a dump in Iraq. The documents provided detailed information about a massacre in which US troops killed over 20 Iraqi civilians. This article reminds me of the role of the Times and other media in getting us into this war.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/15/world/middleeast/united-states-marines-haditha-interviews-found-in-iraq-junkyard.html

Despite this trove of information which includes first-hand accounts, pictures, and drawings of the scene, the article offers scant detail of what actually occurred. The article hides reality, saying things like: "Within a few hours 24 Iraqis — including a 76-year-old man and children between the ages of 3 and 15 — were killed, many inside their homes."  Noticed, these people "were killed", as if by a falling meteor. The journalist knows a lot more about these killings, but refuses to tell us.

Rather than provide details of what is likely a war crime, the journalist concentrates on what he things is truly important:

"But the accounts are just as striking for what they reveal about the extraordinary strains on the soldiers who were assigned here, their frustrations and their frequently painful encounters with a population they did not understand."

Yes, the real story is not that 24 Iraqis were killed in cold blood. The real story is that US troops ware frustrated. Therefore, the truth of their deeds does not need to be exposed.

As for the US military, it refuses to discuss the matter because even though the reporter has the documents in his hand, they are "classified". The Times, showing who calls the shots, has not published the documents. [/quote]
Interesting.

We'd all like the moral judgments - and reporters would like their stories - to be simple, but they're not. Some enlist out of patriotism and/or other ideals, and one might criticize that basis in this context while still acknowledging that it was a principled decision. Others have strong economic incentives, which complicate things further.

After enlistment, we put these young and inexperienced people into highly stressful situations, with the full knowledge that a certain percentage will lose their shit in all kinds of ways, including for some by becoming - hopefully temporarily - terrible people. We know this because of Vietnam and controlled social psychology experiments.

It's infantile to portray all soldiers as wholly heroic, or all as wholly victimized, or all as wholly immoral or foolish.[/quote]

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