Thanks to the internet, major media reporting on Iraq is being challenged by military bloggers who offer first-person accounts and detailed facts that don't appear in the major media (because of space restrictions, a contradiction to anti-war meme, or mainstream media incompetence).

For an earlier generation of now middle-aged Vietnam servicemembers, whose voices largely went unheard and whose reputations were tarred by major media echoing of Kerryesque fabrications, the rise of the milbloggers is cheered -- and many are finally getting their voices heard.

The condescension toward milbloggers oozes from the head of establishment journalism's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, for whom the truth is his fellows' “big picture,” rather than the piecing together a better picture from the individual shards of first-hand facts:

If the overall picture is one of continued violence and a significant lack of stability in many parts of Iraq, the individual shards of good news could be more of a distortion than a reflection of the truth.

The former managing editor of American Journalism Review, another major center for establishment journalism, exhibits this failure to gather all the facts in her reporting on the mainstream journalists of the Haditha incident. Near the end of her long piece in AJR, she does get to the core of the problem, but ends up agrreeing with the mainstream media's "big picture” concept:

Coverage of these incidents is only going to increase as the cases go to trial, presenting a challenge for the press to provide fair and contextual reporting.

Galloway [Joe Galloway, recently retired military affairs correspondent for Knight Ridder] and others point out that mistakes and abuses happen in every armed conflict. "The slaughter of innocents, accidental and deliberate, has occurred in every war man has ever fought," Galloway wrote in a June 7 column. "It's especially true in the wars of insurgency."

I asked Galloway if he has seen that kind of context, a more realistic picture of war, in coverage of Haditha. "I can't say that I have," he answered.

Human Rights Watch's Sifton says that the media should be looking at systemic problems, the bigger picture, not simply "incident, incident, incident." He adds, "I don't think Haditha coverage alone is a good thing."

I emailed her:

 Lori,

… after repeating the charges and allegations, you don't bother to mention the unreliable and changing narratives of "witnesses", the suspect provenance of the tape, or the refusal to allow exhumation (which is allowed in Islamic law; happy to send you the reference) although it has been permitted widely before and since.

Lori, it's far from a complete narrative you provide, and I guess the outcome will be different than many of the rushes to judgment.  Although, then the major media will have moved on. 

She responded:

Bruce,

Thanks for your comments. Having not been to Iraq or talked to any of the people involved, I wouldn't want to comment too much on the case itself. Witness accounts in any situation can be unreliable and the tape in this case doesn't provide proof of what did or didn't happen -- it simply served as a tip to a reporter that he should look into it. Everyone I talked to is still waiting for the NCIS report for the final word. I know at least one reporter who would love to talk to the families about the exhumation question but hasn't been able to do that.

It does feel like the media have moved on from this, but I think they'll be there to cover the outcome -- it's been such a big story.

I replied:

Thanks for your reply Lori.

 However, you don't address that you did not address these evidentiary issues, in simpler terms matters of direct relevance to the charges, but only the charges, as if or leaving them as if true in the minds of readers without deeper information.

 Also, granted, the media will be there to cover the outcome of the case, but will they cover their prior coverage lapses? 

At least Military.com's 8-million online readers, well larger than any national newspaper, can see the milbloggers posts at Milblogging.com. As CBS's PublicEye blog points out:

The site links to some 1,400 blogs written by soldiers and veterans, mostly to correct what they see as shallow or inaccurate reporting by the mainstream media.

Vietnam veterans' voices are also increasingly being heard. We often find each other in unlikely places on the Internet. I recently formed a friendship with a fellow Vietnam Marine (a 1/5 grunt and then helicopter door gunner named Harley Melton) when I came upon his post at the academic discussion website H-War which debunks many of the myths about PTSD.

Melton writes:

I do suggest that you read Sally Satel's book, One Nation Under Therapy. It is a rather neat book which explains how the “rules” for determining if a person has any symptoms of PTSD have been expanded…. There has been virtually constant expansion and widening of these parameters since that time, almost to the point where if you were to have a firecracker explode in your fingers during a Fourth of July celebration, that “Trauma” you experienced (through your own clumsiness) could actually allow you to be diagnosed as having PTSD symptoms. The new rules are almost really that silly. However, as Ms Satel notes often in her book, these expanded parameters used for PTSD diagnoses do help psychiatrists and psychologists maintain a really decent income…

…you have to wonder how, if you only use the low estimate of 700,000, how in the world did it become such a part of the “common knowledge” that 162% more than the number of actual combatants in the Vietnam War come home to become mentally deranged victims of their war experiences. Especially since the latest research on PTSD shows that of those people who experience a major trauma, be it a hurricane, tornado, a war, a plane crash, or even a second or third divorce, only four to seven percent will have any long-term symptoms of PTSD for more than a few months after the event.

I'm halfway through Harley Melton's sadly funny semi-autobiographical novel Touch Not This Wall, which I heartily recommend. Harley writes within, drawing on the lessons his platoon learned from Winnie The Pooh:

Now another generation has its war….They, as we and our fathers and our grandfathers before us did, will come home to a land they do not recognize. To a people that do not know that the only thing that ever matters…is how you treat another.

Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are also actively flexing their literary muscles. James Clark is gathering vets' narratives for Global Security Press for a new book, Outside The Wire: True Stories of American Soldiers in Iraq. (You can email Clark here with your stories)

Another new book, Operation Homecoming: Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Home Front, in the Words of U.S. troops and Their Families, is supported by a National Endowment for the Arts program. The Operation Homecoming director says:

 

 

I think this book will be the book of a generation.The book's material came...

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