04-07-2003, 10:28 PM
And rather funnily enough, he thinks it all about him, and he thinks that he knows enough about what General Franks is thinking to be an authority on the entire plan. How droll. His mistake, IMO, was to assume that some of the hyperbole from Washington was evidence of the entire range and depth of options inherent in the Op Plan.
Some of it was propaganda itself, and some was to my view pure Op Sec violations.
(You NEVER let the enemy know what you are going to do, yet Sec Def revealed that 'we were talking to Iraqi commanders at all levels.' That was, IMO, an Op Sec violation, and IMO, I could be wrong here, may have lead to Saddam and company taking some countermeasures that he might not otherwise have taken. I am guessing here, the guns at the backs of the troops were already there in some cases.)
Arnett, like any media person, knows who his audience is and speaks to them. For some reason, he might have thought that he was only talking to an Iraqi audience, and thus packaged his message thusly. He also had developed a relationship with the local authorities that allowed him to even operate at all in Bagdad. That, I think, is where NBC and others found professional fault with him. Not for treason, but for so obviously pandering to the Iraqi state owned media. When viewed through the need for integrity in a news organization in a free press world, that is what, IMO, harmed his credibility and induced his bosses to let him go, not that he chose to see events through a different lens than the folks in Washington. Arnett got plenty of jeers in 1991, for his attention whoring ways, but he at least kept his credibility intact well enough to satisfy his bosses that he was calling it pretty straight.
Again, where you sit determines what you see. He had not changed his tune for 12 years, in that he felt that a certain view from Iraq is a good contrast to how the world is seen from New York, and needed to be heard.
Where he erred, in the eyes of his network bosses, I think, was in attempting to lend his, and therefore the network's, credibility to what is a blatant propaganda machine in a place where the 'free press' does not exist on a local level.
Some of it was propaganda itself, and some was to my view pure Op Sec violations.
(You NEVER let the enemy know what you are going to do, yet Sec Def revealed that 'we were talking to Iraqi commanders at all levels.' That was, IMO, an Op Sec violation, and IMO, I could be wrong here, may have lead to Saddam and company taking some countermeasures that he might not otherwise have taken. I am guessing here, the guns at the backs of the troops were already there in some cases.)
Arnett, like any media person, knows who his audience is and speaks to them. For some reason, he might have thought that he was only talking to an Iraqi audience, and thus packaged his message thusly. He also had developed a relationship with the local authorities that allowed him to even operate at all in Bagdad. That, I think, is where NBC and others found professional fault with him. Not for treason, but for so obviously pandering to the Iraqi state owned media. When viewed through the need for integrity in a news organization in a free press world, that is what, IMO, harmed his credibility and induced his bosses to let him go, not that he chose to see events through a different lens than the folks in Washington. Arnett got plenty of jeers in 1991, for his attention whoring ways, but he at least kept his credibility intact well enough to satisfy his bosses that he was calling it pretty straight.
Again, where you sit determines what you see. He had not changed his tune for 12 years, in that he felt that a certain view from Iraq is a good contrast to how the world is seen from New York, and needed to be heard.
Where he erred, in the eyes of his network bosses, I think, was in attempting to lend his, and therefore the network's, credibility to what is a blatant propaganda machine in a place where the 'free press' does not exist on a local level.
Cry 'Havoc' and let slip the Men 'O War!
In War, the outcome is never final. --Carl von Clausewitz--
Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum
John 11:35 - consider why.
In Memory of Pete
In War, the outcome is never final. --Carl von Clausewitz--
Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum
John 11:35 - consider why.
In Memory of Pete