Keltic, there were very few US journalists left in Baghdad on Tuesday, most left before the fighting started to avoid casualties – as someone has already pointed out.

The journalists on the Palestine hotel roof had a limited field of vision, I think, about 120 degrees toward the river, so they would not be able claim with absolute certainty, that there was not fire coming from their position.

If anyone here has ever been shot at, you’ll know it’s usually near impossible to tell where the fire is coming from because if someone’s trying to kill you, they’ll do it from a covered position for their own safety, unlike the movies. It’s a frightening position to be in, being shot at. In combat people who are shot at tend to fire back in all directions as a means of self preservation. War can be an indiscriminate and dirty business in urban areas.

There are situations in war where it is impossible for anybody to remain calm and logical, like when someone you can’t see is trying to kill you. Soldiers are humans, not robots.

A good book to read in this respect is Michael Herr’s Disptaches. It gives a very real and honest perspective of war. Michael Herr was a journalist who covered the Vietnam war and in one incident he ended up manning a machine gun post because the US soldiers he was with had been killed. Herr spent the whole night shooting at the North Vietnamese because his own life was threatened.

“There are no rules in war”
– Sun Tzu

I don’t clutch straws INK. They may well have known that the Palestine was full of journalists.

But when troops are under fire they shoot at anything they think is shooting at them, call it adrenaline, call the battle fatigue, call it the moment. You don’t stop to think, oh there might be journalists there….they’ve even shot at their own people as you know.

Seen it more than once. I’d probably do the same in their position.

I think part of the problem at the Palestine Hotel and at the Abu Dhabi offices is that a Betacam rig might look much like a Milan launcher or something similiar when you see it through thermal sights on an M1.

There was a Betcam mounted at both locations, possibly the M1 commander thought he was seeing a missile launcher on both occasions. The Reuters guys were trying to get a better view of the fighting from their window at the time, which was way above the deck where everybody else was.

The cameramen I work with often complain they get targeted because the camera looks suspect from a distance, which it does. I’ve often been in situations where you can see combatants scoping you with binocs and even telescopic sights because of the camera.

I really feel for those people who got killed. I hate to say this as someone who has been in similiar situations, but I have to agree that it is not realistic for the US or even the Iraqis to be blamed for these deaths in anyway.

Most of the American journalists moved out of Baghdad before the shooting started last month for this reason.

Warzones are deadly and that’s the end of it. I got really annoyed when Terry Loyd got killed, he was wondering around in the middle of a red hot combat zone with no escort, most journalists would never do that and he should not have been doing it.

The odd thing about being in a war is that it never looks anything like what you might imagine it to be, like on normal TV. You can never anticipate when things are going to happen, when the shooting starts, it always comes out of nowhere.

A lot of people who have worked in combat zones loose their fear after a while and start taking chances, which is a bad sign. Fear makes you respect things that are more powerful than yourself.

I think you’re being a general with your answers Geforce. Journalists are like anyone else, judges, traffic cops or computer salesmen, you get some you like and others you might not.

John Simpson is a solid reporter of the facts, possibly he got a bit swept up with the euphoria of liberating Kabul .The worst thing about being a journalist is that your mistakes are exposed for everybody to see.

But Simpson is nothing compared to people like Fox’s Geraldo Riviera who declares he wants to personally kill Saddam or Osama – he was too much even for the US army who kicked him out him out of Iraq the day.
Then on the other side, you get the entire crew from AL Jazeera who see themselves as crusaders for Arab cause, you might possibly include Sky’s David Chater here as well.

🙂 🙂

Just because you’re not paranoid doesnt mean they’re not watching you.

Good one Ashley, I was begining to suspect this place was a gentlemen only kind of place.

Obviously planes dont turn me on in sexual way. Though apparently there are people who might be, I think on those late night channel 4 shows maybe.

🙂

There are a lot of charities that should be prosecuted for war crimes. I think it is shocking how these vampires prey on liberal guilt and get away with it. I’m not going to mention any names because it might be slander, but I can think of a few charities which gave food to Somali warlords for example, knowing the warlords would only sell it on. Also a lot of charities in Africa, the type that advertise in Guardian regularly, like to “discover” famines or crisises in Africa to keep the money flowing into their coffers. The trouble with these famine charities is that they impose a culture of hand-outs on poor people who become so dependant on aid they forget basic skills like farming.

The causes of famine in Africa and other places are complicated, but often the situation is caused by increasing population numbers on an environment that simply cannot support extra numbers. Simply giving out medical care, not in itself a bad thing, often increases populations and this deacreases available food. One solution would be to impliment a total strategy of western style family planning alongside giving out western medicine. But many aid charities have little idea of these kinds of population dynamics and continue to exploit this cycle of poverty with weepy ads in newspapers etc to encourage people to assuage their middle class guilt by handing over money, ostensibly for a good cause. The tragedy with this kind of emotional response is that it often ignores the hard and complicated facts of life in developing countries. As well as the fact that many charities have a vested interest in sustaining their “causes.”

I might suggest some charities and the people who work for them should be locked up in Guatanamo Bay! Emotional terrorists who exploit the guilt of others to extend to cycle of poverty in order to massage their own “save the planet” egos.

No its not me. I don’t collect pictures of small children.