Media Spotlight II

Winter Soldier

Iraq Veterans Against War (IVAW) held a conference and took the testimony of many Veterans about their personal experiences in Iraq mainly due to our medias terrible display of mediocre journalism and lack of moral ethics in what little news they did report.

When the media fails to be the “police of the government” like they have done so well on the past it is not only a threat to our democracy, but it is the primary reason that gross violations of government entities occur.

It is a gruesome fact that Iraq has become the hell on earth we have all imagined and it is playing out in the minds and souls of out soldiers there on a daily basis.

Listen to these men and learn about stop-loss. As Bush called for the redeployment of 30,000 troops for a surge to contain Iraq security, most of the men asked to stay and fight had already received their papers home. They were packing their bags to go home in the morning when they were told they had been stop-lossed. This is a term all Americans should become familiar with so they can fight it from occurring in the future.

One thing you will find abundantly clear in the first few minutes of this conference is that there is not one news channel there rolling tape and recording for broadcast news around the world. That is very sad that one of the most important conferences taking place is not considered a newsworthy event to any of our American stations. Bravo to Democracy Now for airing each and every one of the testimonies given at this conference and for trying to do what every journalist in America should feel is their own patriotic duty to do, report the real news about the Iraq war from the first hand witnessed accounts of our American Veterans.

Every other media outlet should feel ashamed of working for organizations that would blatantly ignore something as important as this meeting and should be aware that eventually the ignorance and willful service to one particular party and one particular opinion will be shown for what it is, a disgraceful misplacement of loyalty.

Our American soldiers and people in this war are being forced to make decisions that no human should be asked to make and until this country recognizes the need to bring our troops home the war will continue on this thing called democracy.