Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Does The Military Share the Blame For This Newsweek Story?

Click on the title for a link to a post at Dr. Steven Taylor's Poliblog.

I agree with Dr. Taylor's assessments most of the time, but on this one I do not. In past wars, the treatment of POWs (even by our forces) was much worse than this one. With the media of today, our treatment of POWs is much improved. Interrogation techniques are nowhere near what they were in past wars, by our forces and certainly not by the others we opposed. In wars past, prisoners were often tortured and killed, as a means to get valuable information and save lives in the long run.

The media in those days were not nearly as aggressive and technologically advanced, as they are today. Today we have 10 second sound bites, very often in real time. We also have young upstart journalists eager to make names for themselves using much of that same technology, to expose wrong doing by their own government instead of the enemy.

Just ask veterans of those wars.

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