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I wonder how the misadventures of the US in Iraq and Afghanistan would have played out had we had this sort of media coverage - CNN and others was just an exten

I wonder how the misadventures of the US in Iraq and Afghanistan would have played out had we had this sort of media coverage - CNN and others was just an extension of the Pentagon.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
not2b 5y ago
CNN was founded in 1980. The US withdrew from Vietnam in 1973 and Saigon fell in 1975. US media coverage of Vietnam near the end of the war was much fairer than cable news coverage of the Iraq wars, though it was still US-centric it did start to show the atrocities. During the Vietnam war US media were much freer to go out on their own (at great personal risk); the Gulf War model was for the Pentagon to manage coverage by having the press "embed" with military units so they would think like the US soldiers they were with.
redis_mlc 5y ago
Iraq wasn't a misadventure. The ultimate goal of removing Saddam and destroying the Iraqi army (4th largest) were important strategic goals because oil, although the reasons given to the American people were at best superficial. Saudi Arabia and other countries paid for part of the US military effort, around $40 billion. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-arabia-pays-us-500m-offset-costs-us-troops-region-pentagon https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-arabia-pays-us-500m... Afghanistan is a strange story and isn't well-understood by Americans. Its location is important, as well as its natural resources. Ideally Russia, Pakistan and the US would have come up with a plan to occupy it since the Taliban is certainly a threat to Pakistan, as well as the Russian border. (Pakistan is reluctant to fight the Taliban because of Islamic ideology swaying lower ranks in the Pakistani army. But Russia and the US worked at cross-purposes. In some ways Afghanistan and Palestine are similar - nobody wants them or to be responsible for them.)

I wonder how the misadventures of the US in Iraq and Afghanistan would have played out had we had this sort of media coverage - CNN and others was just an extension of the Pentagon.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

not2b 5y ago

CNN was founded in 1980. The US withdrew from Vietnam in 1973 and Saigon fell in 1975. US media coverage of Vietnam near the end of the war was much fairer than cable news coverage of the Iraq wars, though it was still US-centric it did start to show the atrocities. During the Vietnam war US media were much freer to go out on their own (at great personal risk); the Gulf War model was for the Pentagon to manage coverage by having the press "embed" with military units so they would think like the US soldiers they were with.

redis_mlc 5y ago

Iraq wasn't a misadventure. The ultimate goal of removing Saddam and destroying the Iraqi army (4th largest) were important strategic goals because oil, although the reasons given to the American people were at best superficial. Saudi Arabia and other countries paid for part of the US military effort, around $40 billion. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-arabia-pays-us-500m-offset-costs-us-troops-region-pentagon https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-arabia-pays-us-500m... Afghanistan is a strange story and isn't well-understood by Americans. Its location is important, as well as its natural resources. Ideally Russia, Pakistan and the US would have come up with a plan to occupy it since the Taliban is certainly a threat to Pakistan, as well as the Russian border. (Pakistan is reluctant to fight the Taliban because of Islamic ideology swaying lower ranks in the Pakistani army. But Russia and the US worked at cross-purposes. In some ways Afghanistan and Palestine are similar - nobody wants them or to be responsible for them.)