They stick it in your face and let you smell what they consider wrong. That’s why I say ‘Hey man, nice shot’. ‘What a good shot, man’.

The war I’m concerned with is the one with, on one side - Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush Sr., the think tanks that trained them, Saddam Hussein and his CIA buddies, Al-Queida the US-created organization, fanatical Muslims, fanatical Christians, fanatical slavers i.e. property-rights-fanatics, and the multinational oil companies - and on the other side, the Constitution and legitimate government of the USA, the once-upon-a-time-first-world Afghanistan, all the people of the Middle East, the world’s ecology, America’s natural resources, the majority of Muslims worldwide, the majority of Americans, and the rest of the species on the planet, especially the more sentient ones.

It’s not that I won’t be watching CNN again - it’s that I NEVER watched them and never trusted them from day one.

Most Vietnamese were pretty realistic about Americans - the good and smart ones never went to Vietnam, and the ones that went were nearly all part of a killing machine that wanted Vietnam’s whole culture. They welcomed the US after the war just like the South welcomed carpetbaggers, and for the same reasons. The Vietnamese were fighting to not be exploited - they weren’t fighting over who they wanted to exploit them.

As a former Marine and National Guardsman, the video scared the hell outta me. You never know what dangers you face out there until the world was blowing up around you. Having been there, it was hard to watch because those few seconds encapsulating how insurgents were sniping American forces could have been any day on any patrol anywhere. It could have been their first patrol in-country or their last one before rotating home. It was hard because those soldiers went out on patrol the next day, and the day after that and so on regardless of the insurgents waiting for them outside the wire. One of your guys gets hit, you go back to base, cry, smoke some cigarettes, hold a memorial and then clean your rifle and prepare for the next combat patrol, waiting for it to happen all over again.

As a journalist, I appreciate the fact that the video was aired. People need to see the consequences of war from all perspectives.

There are times when people need to see what’s going on out there and this is one of those times. Many people who post on this board - thankfully - haven’t faced the horrors of war firsthand. Many people, including some lawmakers, are outraged that a few seconds of B-Roll provided by the ‘other side’ ended up getting put on CNN. Good because they should be. They should be and realize that those 30 seconds of video represented 30 seconds of 12 months of time that American troops are dealing with during their tours in-country.

People also need to realize that this video is no different than a two-star standing at a podium at CENTCOM showing reporters antiseptic smart bomb footage as the Air Force plasters Zarqawi’s place or Saddam’s bunker. The only difference is that while Americans are seemingly enthralled at seeing smart bombs drop on evildoer lairs they are equally disgusted with insurgents blowing up Humvees on home video.

I remember hearing that about the Vietnamese, too. That worked out pretty well, as I recall.

Americans go for the blood and gore when it is a US soldier triumphantly butchering the enemy, be that a “terrorist” or “collateral damage”, or perhaps a chainsaw-wielding hockey-mask-clad villain in some horror flick. But you all become a bunch of little squeamish sissies when its your own taking one for the team.

Perhaps it is easier to question the motives of that washed-up prostitute of a news network, CNN, than those of the “terrorist”, because you might find the motives of the terrorist frighteningly similar to those of the American Minuteman, refusing to engage redcoats on the filed of battle, choosing instead to whittle away at their ranks from the cover of trees.

(and this comes from a Greek, who has few kind words to say about a culture and religion that enslaved my people for four centuries)

Oops.

I do have a problem comparing our soldiers holding a camera to someone who kills pedestrians in a market to make a political point. Guess it’s more a finer point than the bigger point of one side v. another, but I still see a world of difference between the two.

As for the Tamil Tigers, they’re, for the most part, a terrorist organizatoin. That they’re using those tactics to gain secession sort of mitigates that, but they are what they are. It’s not quite the same thing because that’s really a civil war in another country. I take your point, and it’s a good one, but I don’t think the comparison is apples to apples.

Either way, CNN has the right to run the video. CNN has the right to run whatever it pleases. It doesn’t mean we have to buy their justifications for doing so. That really is my only point.

You’re going to *hate* this, but yes - I’m talking about it like it’s the same thing.

Leave CNN’s “unvarnished truth” thing out of the argument for a moment: If we’re going to use video taken by the US side, then there is nothing wrong with using video taken by the other side. Call them “terrorists,” “insurgents,” whatever - it’s a war, and there are two sides.

(( I don’t want to go down the “terrorist” vs “insurgent” label bunnyhole with you - I know I’ll lose anyway ))

Instead, put yourself outside the equation: suppose this were happening in another country - say, Sri Lanka. Would you only support video taken by the Sri Lankan army and none shot by the Tamil Tigers?

We’re not supposed to pick sides, as journalists. Argue whether the video was newsworthy. But I can’t see a “they shot it, so don’t run it” argument flying.

(Also - a correction. 10 years ago, cable had a good-sized audience. The 1991 Gulf War was a big coming-out for cable news. 1995 saw big numbers from the OJ trial.)