NationStates Jolt Archive

Just imagining what other wars would have been like if we had the kind of instant reporting we have now - where within 24 hours of your pitched battle, pundits around the world will be second-guessing everything you're doing.

So, I'd like to pick a battle and speculate on how the press would spin it (today's press, not the press of WW II). We can move from one to the other as we need refreshing.

I'd like to start with Guadalcanal. In your mind, go over the facts of the battle, and ask yourself if the press would have covered it as a victory, a pyrrhic victory, a big mistake, a complete fiasco, an unimportant battle, etc.

Just imagining what other wars would have been like if we had the kind of instant reporting we have now - where within 24 hours of your pitched battle, pundits around the world will be second-guessing everything you're doing.

So, I'd like to pick a battle and speculate on how the press would spin it (today's press, not the press of WW II). We can move from one to the other as we need refreshing.

I'd like to start with Guadalcanal. In your mind, go over the facts of the battle, and ask yourself if the press would have covered it as a victory, a pyrrhic victory, a big mistake, a complete fiasco, an unimportant battle, etc.

Oh Guadalcanal: Day 1, victory, Day 2 Fiasco, Day 3 Victory, Day 4 a big Mistake, Day 5 Victory, Day 6 Fiasco... Repeat till the end of the war.

What would have made them the most money?

What would have made them the most money?


Bingo. They'd probably keep switching back and forth in an effort to keep people watching during the commercial breaks.

What would 1930's Germany look like if it had 24 hour cable news? Soviet Russia? Napoleon's France?

Maybe exposing people to how useless and wasteful war is isn't a bad thing?

Okay. How about Vietnam as covered by FOX News?

We'd still be there.

Okay. How about Vietnam as covered by FOX News?

We'd still be there.

Thomas Jefferson being investigated by Kenneth Starr? And "developments" being run 24/7 on the cable news networks, right next to the pretty 1700's white girls who have gone missing.

"I did not have carnal relations with that slave."

What would 1930's Germany look like if it had 24 hour cable news? Soviet Russia? Napoleon's France?

Maybe exposing people to how useless and wasteful war is isn't a bad thing?
And the Roman Empire. Oh wait... they did that one on Star Trek.

Thomas Jefferson being investigated by Kenneth Starr? And "developments" being run 24/7 on the cable news networks, right next to the pretty 1700's white girls who have gone missing.

"I did not have carnal relations with that slave."
How about the Hamilton/Burr duel? That would have been one hell of a perp-walk followed by one hell of a press conference.

As to the topic of wars and battles, history shows that the more people know about war the less they like it. Before the age of mechanized war and urban war, people who were exposed to battles took a very dim and cynical view of them as wasteful and meaningless. With the advent of photojournalism in the Civil War, you began to see the first home-front backlashes against the very idea of war as the images of the battlefields strewn with the dead were printed in the newspapers. With the beginning of heavy mechanized war in WW1, we barely even needed pictures. All we had to do was look at the surviving soldiers to create a reaction so severe it launched the pacifist movement. There is a reason why the Bush admin refuses to allow the public to honor the dead of Iraq by showing us the ceremonies of the returning coffins. It's because people usually honor war dead by trying to prevent more from being made.

So for war-lovers, ignorance is definitely bliss.

American Revolution:
Day 1: start of a great struggle between a tyranical king and a bunch of people fighting for their freedom. These are real freedom fighters, not the Islamic terrorists who hate people who follow different forms of their faith more than Americans and Jews combined. An entire fundy group hating something mroe than Jews is quite an accomplishment. Also an accomplishment if you replace Jews with Americans.

Later: Oh, what did the king ever do to us? Wah wah. We're losing. Democrasy is evil because if it wasn't, we'd win by now. All hail King George. All hail King George.

Later still: The King is Jesus. The King is god. All hail King George, not those colonial terrorists who fight traditionally and generally treat POWs better than the English at the time.

7-4-1776(the m/d/y format commonly used in the US, not the d/m/y some people use): Hurray for the colonial heroes. They've funally established themselves as a seperate nation and the first democratic nation in millennia.

Oh boy... The "this war isn't an useless exercise of manslaughter, it's just the eeeeevil media that makes it look that way" argument...

*SNIKT*

You're going DOWN!

1- The strategic decisions aren't influenced by the media. And if soldiers are so insecure that they need to feel cuddly and supported by EVERYONE without ANYONE daring to question (which you conveniently re-worded as "second guessing") so they can do their jobs, then, MAN are they pansies.

2- So far the media has pointed out nice incidents such as Abu Ghraib and the most recent "My Lai Wannabe" fiasco. If you'd rather let them go unreported for being unpleasant to the government, go live in Turkmenistan under your friend the Turkmenbashi and admit to not being pro-democracy at ALL.

3- The media is useful there to make people realize that, NO, the soldiers are NOT being heroes in Iraq. The same media, if it were in WWII, would portray the soldiers as heroes. You know why? Because, in that context, it would be impossible not to do so. Simply because that war had a REASON, which Vietnam didn't have, and which Iraqnam didn't have.

4- This war has been going on for more than 3 years now. Bush didn't find the WMDs he SWORE TO HIS UTTERLY MISGUIDED INTERPRETATION OF THE DIVINE were there. Nor did he manage to give Iraq ANY safety or ACTUAL human rights, which were his SECOND excuse for the bloodshed. After all, Abu Ghraib was a torture center under Saddam. And, after the nice American soldiers started running the place... guess? It STILL WAS. But you'd rather the media shutting up while the niiiiice soldiers kept torturing people, among them innocents, now, wouldn't you?

WOULDN'T YOU?

Then again, you can sit tight there and enjoy that nice and fuzzy "It's not happening to me" feeling, by all means. But do not expect me to sit idly by and NOT humiliate you in an argument when you - if subtly - blame the media for the fiasco your beloved president caused.