I wanted to break away from blogging about Afghanistan for a while, but the reporting on recent events has me frustrated and I feel I cannot just let it slide. The news coverage of the recent massacre of innocent Afghans has re-affirmed some of my concerns with both the free press and the US military's public affairs. America's founding father's recognized the power and importance of free press in a free and democratic society, and it is one of the things that has made our nation great. Our three branches of government -- judicial, executive and legislative -- were created as a system of checks and balances to maintain the democracy and the free press is one more check on governance.
However, in today's world of 24 hour commercial news enterprise, the press has lost sight of it's mission to provide non-biased reporting. Instead, every story is stretched with commentary to fill time and appeal to a specific demographic audience. The closest they get to un-biased is being critical of everything. In addition, a culture of seeking fault in government, and by extension the military, has become pervasive and is further exacerbated by news outlets drive to draw viewers by creating controversy out of every event they cover. One of my favorite movie quotes -- from the most unlikely of sources, 'From Dusk 'til Dawn' -- is, 'It isn't a big deal, until you make it a big deal.' I think I am often on the side of failing to make things a big deal, but our news media have decided it is their job to make everything a big deal.
In the military's defense, it is often the 'strategic corporal' that defeats the efforts of the organization at large. In the past week the 'strategic corporal' was a staff sergeant, who I believe must have cracked, having spent the last eight years deployed or preparing for the next deployment. On his last deployment, he suffered a traumatic brain injury, was returned to duty but had trouble re-adjusting back home; and on this deployment he reportedly was having trouble with family, prior to walking off the base alone, in the middle of the night, dressed in local clothing. Whether, leadership saw and did not act on warning signs remains to be seen, and why he was allowed to leave the base is a significant point of contention, but I suspect no one could have predicted the actions he would take. Regardless, his actions are inexcusable, he should be punished, and he currently faces a possible death penalty.
That said, he is one in 100,000 Soldiers, but it is his actions that have caught the media's eye, while the rest are quietly and professionally carrying out the mission. The majority have a similar back story, with multiple deployments, and troubles on the home front, with family and/or a society that largely fails to recognize the toll 10 years constant deployments has on the individual soldiers. Robert H Scales, a retired General and Vietnam veteran, recently wrote an opinion piece on this incident, and he noted observing the deployment fatigue that has set in across the force. He noted, 'The infantrymen I spoke to at Fort Benning were different from those in my generation. They were more emotionally exhausted and drained, less spontaneous and humorless... These guys seemed to view their time in combat as endless and repetitive. My sense is that their collective, intimate exposure to the horrors of close combat was far more debilitating than what we experienced. ' These individual sacrifices, hardships and triumphs are lost in the media coverage that largely only brushes the surface of the conflicts in their struggle to hold the public's ever shortening attention span. Rather than meaningful insight, they end up quantifying the conflict in 90 seconds or less with the most recent losses and the total tally on the body count.
The media's over simplified 'body count analysis,' and focus on the tragedy of Sunday's events, is not the only thing that frustrates me. They also failed to note the fact that the injured went to the American bases, not to Afghan security forces or local hospitals or clinics. Despite the fact that the attacker was an American soldier, the locals still trusted, and sought help from Americans, who provided first aid and medevac'd the survivors. This part of the story has been neglected by the media, and not covered well by military public affairs either. However, I suppose this too can be construed as a failure, as it also highlights the lack of confidence the Afghans have in their own infrastructure and security forces.
Still, it is sad that these facts have remained overlooked even as the story has held the headline for three days, as the media lives by its creed, 'If it bleeds, it leads.' However, I was also shocked by the statistics they have chosen to tie to the event in order to bring 'new details' to the story every few hours. On Wednesday, in a news brief about the event, the reporter closed with a statistic on visa requests and the increasing numbers of Afghan's trying to leave the country. Though it is true that Afghans are beginning to flee the country, and requests for Visa's are up 20 percent, that long term trend has nothing to do with the soldiers actions on Sunday. I believe the trend has much more to do with the Afghan's fears about the reduction of US forces, not the actions or presence of US forces. The reporters use of the statistic was not only out of context, but also irresponsible and only serves to further complicate the situation and draw further doubt in the coalition actions in the country.
The Quran burning, appears to be an example of a much larger failure of leadership by the military supervisors at the detainment facility. In that case, it is reported that 1600 books were identified as having communications and other extremist messages inscribed as prisoners were using the reading material provided to the to pass messages among themselves as well as to outside sources as the material was cycled through the prison by a local supplier. Forty-eight of these books were Qurans and there were other religious material being used as well. In this case the military had an excellent opportunity to bring this defacement of the Quran and other religious texts to both the government and people of Afghanistan to demonstrate the disrespect the prisoners and insurgency has toward the Quran and religion, which they profess they defend.
Although burning the Quran, is a method of disposal, it is the least preferred and was not handled by proper religious authorities, and Allahs name was most likely not removed as religious custom dictates. The military leadership, no matter how junior, should have recognized the risks with burning the Quran, especially after the highly publicized concerns over the planned burning of a Quran by Pastor Terry Jones in Florida. Instead, the military leadership failed to recognize the opportunity to discredit the insurgency, or to handle the disposal properly, and the military further failed to get ahead of the story once the mistake was made. These failures led to mass protests, attacks and the deaths of six US servicemen, over 30 Afghans, and injured many more.
The military's relationship with the media has changed over time, and just as the military often trains for the last conflict, they have also remained slightly behind the ball as they try to keep up with the ever changing relationship with the media, and how that relationship differs in counter-insurgency verses conventional conflict. In a conventional conflict, you have two legitimate states fighting using uniformed forces. For both the military and the press, lines are easier to draw and the conflict easier to define. In a counter insurgency, identifying and defining the enemy is much more difficult for both the soldier and the journalist. However, in a counter-insurgency the media plays a much greater role, because the fight is no longer about attrition of forces or control of terrain. Instead, it is about 'the hearts and minds,' and more a war of perception than attrition. And in this war, the story the media covers or the angle it chooses on that story can sway the populace and win or lose the battle.
I don't know if our media recognizes their role and influence, but I do know that the insurgency understands the power of information warfare, and they have been beating us at this game. I may be too close to the story to be un-bias myself, but in the end, I think free press is critical in both a free society and in warfare. However, I also believe that the press needs to take greater consideration in the ramifications of the coverage they provide and effects it has in counter-insurgency.
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