Taliban kill more than 20 people (including children) for being "un-Islamic"

No theyre not. They are looking for people they can put into power and control.

Since when is barring the media from covering the war illegal? How hard is it to say no, you cant come on this mission with us, you can stay behind and wait until we get back? My whole issue is selective reporting. Like I said, you read that NATO helicopters killed children, but what they leave out is that the children were planting bombs in the road. To kill Americans. To kill me.

Part of me says we should just leave that place. Nothing good has EVER come from there. They are backwards, ignorant people who will never amount to anything. If they want to let the Taliban consume their country and live in the 6th century, fine, enjoy it.

But another part of me has seen first hand how the people over there are suffering. It makes me want to help them. They want our help, despite what you may read on MSNBC. I saw positive change over there. 3 months after we blasted our way around the Helmand Province, the markets opened back up. The school children willingly came up to us. The people began being able to walk down the street without fear of being kidnapped or murdered. Then the reigns got put on us, and someone (a Taliban sympathizer more than likely) that we were being too aggressive. We stopped returning fire, our air support started getting denied (always nice to hear them say no when you need them), and the towns turned to **** again.

Like I said, you can make whatever assumptions you want, but they are not implementing what Ive suggested. Go see for yourself.

 

No greater time to be an American then Sept 12, 2001. Race was put aside, and nothing mattered more than helping out your fellow American.

Now look where we are. How quickly we forget.

 

Right, you obviously have a handle on EVERYTHING. Mali expert. MBA. LLM. Calling the Ellsberg case irrelevant to media censorship during wartime might indicate that your encyclopedia of a mind is running a little low on analytical ability.

 

Same here.

 

JD, it was largely frowned upon before, but ever since 1971, when the Supreme Court ruled that the protections accorded to the press in the First Amendment superseded the right of the executive branch in keeping such material classified due to wartime conditions (New York Times Co. v. United States), it has been a pillar assumption that the reach of the First Amendment when it comes to wartime coverage of classified and yes definitely, unclassified material that the American people have a material interest in, exceeds any spurious conditions you might implement to block such coverage.

Given that the First Amendment is so strongly protected in the Roberts Court, I have a very high degree of confidence that if something like what you proposed came to pass, it would fall 9-0, swiftly, and without a doubt.

Censoring media is also not your typical wholesome American suggestion, but to each their own, I suppose.

 

Learn something new every day. To that I say, if they want to report on the war, dont ask for my protection so you cant write some backward ass story on what is going on.

Go out at your own risk, dont expect me to let you take up space in my already cramped truck.

 

Fair enough, though me personally, I subscribe to the notion of "I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

 

So I guess you served in the military as well? Or do you just think it sounds cool?

 

I've been in the trenches (of national and international development/reconstruction projects).

We can't all be warriors. I personally abhor war, which makes it kind of hard for me to find a good one to fight. There are different ways to fight for democracy and the values you believe in. I don't think war (or at least the wars of this era) is one of the good ones.

 

If there is an American war being fought, and the journalists are American citizens, and there is a material interest to the American people, and there can be no claim that the material would harm the soldiers in the moment (obviously what you just said was the extreme and dumbest case), well, I'll let Justice Potter summarize---

"In absence of governmental checks and balances", per Justice Stewart, "the only effective restraint upon executive policy and power in [these two areas] may lie in an enlightened citizenry - in an informed and critical public opinion which alone can here protect the values of democratic government."

 

Thank you for your assistance,

Robert Fox
Executive Director
Oxfam Canada

 

Oh well, you may have a different out look when you see the results of an IED explosion, after your best friend had his truck blown in half. Or after an anti-aircraft round goes through your door and rips your drivers leg off.

If we could all be arm chair generals....

You speak of what you don't know.

 

Applies to the present as it does to the past, doubly so for material that is not dangerous and cannot even be considered classified, given how the embeds have been a part of the media scene for a good ten years or so now. You'd have a hell of a legal fight establishing a reason for a complete ban that supersedes the executive privilege that was overruled in this case. And with this court? Forget it.