Censorship during the Iraq war.

Words as propaganda and censorship are most often linked to the old communist states and Islamic countries ruled by horrible dictators. The western world is proud of the independent media which have evolved side by side with our so treasured freedom. The global community’s progress is measured in freedom of speech and we fight for our right to speak what is on our minds. Not many of us would believe that our journalists are met by censorship when they report from a war zone. Not the Danish government or the newspaper which brought the Muhamed drawings apologized to the Muslims based exactly on the reason above. Denmark and America for that matter does not believe in censorship.

So when the Vietnam War began the American government had no problem with giving the Journalists all-area backstage-passes to an once in a lifetime concert of various screams in the devastated land on the other side of the globe. But the situation took an unexpected turn when the pictures which was send back to the Land of oppotunities and it’s citizens. Photographs of burning children and americans soldiers shooting themselves on purpose so they would be send back home did not have a positive effect on the Americans. The children of the flower power days started marches which soon spread across the Atlantic ocean to Europe. Suddenly the war for freedom was not all that popular and the presidents support decreased.

We like to eat the steak, but that does not mean we want to meet the cow, now does it? The wietnam was thaught all goverments and their military this. The people will support a war based on good arguments as long as they do not identify with the casulties. So when the Iraq war began Bush had to find another way to insure the media’s cooperation and in extension the good will of the Western population. He could do a numerous of things. The first scenario would be to freeze out the journalists and the media and hope they would find something ells to focus on. The danger of this would be the journalist’s curiosity which could result in negative stories towards the war and the goverment.

Bush could also repeat the happy story of the Vietnam War, but who anted to that?
His welleducated suit-dressed employees and counsellors came up with another idea. What if we gave the journalists permission to air live from the battle? Gave them information on the attacks so they would have something to sell? What if we insured that all news and information came from the US goverment and was controlled? Wht if we gave them just enough news so they would not go snooping around? Or what if all journalist in Iraq under the collision protection had to sign a contract which said that every tiny bit of news had to be looked through and approved by the military before publishing? What if we censored everything in a way that was not obvious?

So that was what they did. They fed the mssmedia with just enough information so they would not send journalist out to find dirt on the troops or the war in general. They gave journalist permission to air directly from Iraq but cencored everything. Not often did we see dead bodies in the news during the war or hear from Iraqis who was unsupporting. Is we think censorship do not excist in our democracy we are wrong. The Iraq war is a great exsample.