Word: battlefield
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Ever since the Vietnam War, many military officers have contended that U.S. troops in combat face two foes: one on the battlefield, the other in the news media. In this view, reporters are more interested in probing for contradictions between official statements and the testimony of footsore grunts than in emphasizing any underlying unity of purpose. They seek out graphic images of suffering, invading the privacy of victims and allowing emotion to obscure larger concerns of national policy. Above all, they may be so skeptical about war in general, or a current war in particular, that they do not root...
...likelihood of combat has risen in the Persian Gulf, where battlefield conditions and terrain would make military assistance a necessity for reporters, distrust between the brass and the press has blazed anew. Despite repeated contacts with news executives who believe they made their concerns clear, the Pentagon has expanded its proposed ground rules for the behavior of journalists on any gulf battlefield from one page to six. Even after a promise of revision following a heated session with about 60 senior Washington journalists late last week, the Pentagon seems firm in its intention: to impose unprecedented restrictions on where reporters...
...drawback of germ warfare is its unpredictability. Saddam might be reluctant to use it on the battlefield because his own soldiers could become infected. He would be more likely to launch germ attacks against specific targets, such as airfields, command centers and ships, or against civilian populations in an attempt to cripple oil production. Even then, the Iraqi leader would need to choose his weapon carefully. Some hardy microbes, such as anthrax and plague, can infect an area for years, which would make it dangerous for Iraq's troops to move into a territory that had been captured with...
...withdraw from the field, it would not be for the first time. In 1973 Richard Nixon announced that the U.S. had "turned the corner on drug addiction." The federal antidrug effort was allowed to shrivel even as Colombia's "cocaine cowboys" were establishing their first beachhead in Miami. Some battlefield reports from the latest round...
Chimed in another friend, "Bush's got this jet-propulsion problem. He's always moving, and everything becomes a tactical decision, not a strategic decision. He is like Patton on the battlefield, not Eisenhower at headquarters...