As both a Soldier and someone who holds a BA in Journalism, I think I see both sides of the issue. Mr. Curley, I fear, does not. While he correctly states all of the military's arguments for limiting the press during war, he dismisses them as if they were too absurd to bother with.

We are talking about war. War. The media, as a whole, seem to view war as just another beat, except more dangerous. VERY different rules apply, or at least should apply. It is not normal, nor should it be. As one of our greatest generals (Lee) said, "It is good that war is terrible, else we should grow too fond of it."

The First amendment should apply to the battlefield? Does he also believe that the Second amendment should apply to the battlefield? Perhaps we should be prohibited from confiscating our enemy's weapons once we have captured him? Before someone says this is a ridiculous comparison, I must remind the reader of the classic maxim: "All warfare is psychological." An American media that reports disproportionally negative and damaging news gives just as much assistance to our nation's enemies as do the terrorists who build the IEDs. I'm not talking about relative culpability. I'm just stating a fact about the psychological nature of war.

Instead of insisting the military grant all of these concessions to the media, perhaps he should work on making the media more loyal. I will never forget Peter Arnett's (CNN) statement during the Persian Gulf War that his loyalty was not to the United States, but to CNN. (Don't even get me started on the New York Times.) I suppose if reporting only the news that is favorable to the enemy will sell more commercials or more newspapers, then that's what he'll do.

The media do not have to report only the positive. If you read the Dallas Cowboys Weekly, they report both the good and the bad. But at least you know one thing--they want the Cowboys to win. I do not believe the same can be said of the American media in regard to the American military.

AP CEO Tom Curley was wrong on a number of counts in his speech at the University of Kansas earlier this month. To start out with, he has a profound inability to distinguish the difference between the First Amendment and the right to information. The refusal by the military to provide members of the media with any and all information they might want does not, in any way, interfere with or compromise their right to print whatever their hearts desire. This argument is not a knew one, but I, for one, have begun to tire of the endless tantrums journalists seem to throw. The right to free speech does not, and should not, include the ability to force the government to divulge information which endangers those whose lives are entrusted to their commanders. For some reason, though, journalists and editors don't seem to be able to perceive the clear distinction between the right to voice your view and the right to obtain information.

Tom Curley's second error was just outright deception: his continued balking at the notion that information is a weapon. Information has always been a weapon. Journalists know this better than anyone else on the planet, so Mr. Curley's pretense of naivete on the subject was entirely disingenuous. The mainstream media in this country has a virtually monopoly on public perception because the media has a huge degree of control over information. Mr. Curley's attitude that it should be the media who control what the public's perception of the war will be rather than the military is nothing more than sour grapes. It isn't out of some deep commitment to Truth that Mr Curley objects to the military controlling information to shape the opinions of the public, it's because that's the job of the media.

The mainstream media uses the argument that they are the watchmen, safe guarding public interest by exposing the truth, to justify whatever it is they want to broadcast. Yet, when the personal political views of those same journalists will be advanced by their silence, they are startlingly silent. I was having conversations with friends about President Obama's racist pastor six months before the story broke in the mainstream media. It only broke at all because youtube forced the hand of mainstream journalists. If the media doesn't like an ideal, goal, institution, group, or individual, the right of the fourth estate to protect the public by exposing the "truth" is immediately invoked. If the mainstream media does favor an ideal, goal, institution, group, or individual, a conspiracy of silence ensues amongst those who only yesterday insisted that the public always has a right to know.

I'm sorry that Tom Curley believes that only journalists are honest and pure enough to bear the burden of controlling public perception by controlling the flow of information, but the military has a mission here and they are not going to compromise that mission because the feelings of Tom Curley and his contemporaries are hurt.

Mr. Curley's third major error in judgment was the ludicrous notion that the military does not have complete authority in a war zone. "Political appointees and uniformed officers alike insist they have total authority in a war zone," he complains. Hello. They do. It's called martial law and it long predates (and trumps) the rights of the fourth estate. This is war. People are dying. Our people are dying. Control of the situation is critical to succeeding in the mission and keeping as many of our people alive as possible. If you can't understand that, you might want to re-examine your priorities. Your selfish desire to sell papers or promote your point-of-view or get the truth out first (no matter who pays the price) gets people killed. It gets our people killed and we resent that.

Tom Curley did get one major point right and that is the strong sense of animosity between the mainstream media and the military. As he illustrated through numerous examples, military leaders through out our history have regarded the media as the enemy. This is for two reasons: 1) most military commanders understand implicitly the need to control information as part of the mission--something which is infinitely harder to do with journalists hanging around; and 2) because most members of the mainstream media today were trained by ultra-liberal college professors in the post-Vietnam era and have an extremely negative view of the military. Frankly, the majority of journalists today are regarded as the enemies of the military because they act as if they were the enemies of the military.

Mr. Curley was kind enough in his speech to illustrate this, though he undoubtedly did not see his example in that light. "In 1945, [AP] Paris bureau chief Edward Kennedy reported the surrender of Germany the day it happened rather than waiting 24 hours for the official, politically orchestrated announcement." General Eisenhower had made an agreement with the Russians (our allies at the time, if memory serves) to wait that long. But, the AP couldn't be bothered with honoring the arrangements of an honorable commander. Rather than strengthen Eisenhower's position with the Russians, the AP undercut him. Hmmm, I wonder whether Eisenhower was more or less inclined to view the press as an enemy after that backstabbing? But ratings were in the balance, so the public's right to know was instantly invoked even though the public would not have been harmed in any way (and indeed might have been well served) if they had received the "official, politically orchestrated announcement" the very next day.

Perhaps I am simply too jaded at this point to be willing to give the media a fair shake. I'm certainly not under the impression that all members of the media are scheming, profit-driven villains, just waiting to betray the military to make it big in their field. But I've seen enough during my years on this earth to come to the conclusion that the mainstream media in America is not a non-biased conduit of critical information necessary to the preservation of freedom and liberty. Most members of the mainstream media have an agenda, whether they admit it to themselves (or anybody else) or not, and most of them are biased against the military. It is not a wonder or a surprise that the military seeks to protect itself from and to counter that influence.

Every single soldier, sailor, airmen, and marine that I serve with has sworn an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States and to defend America from all enemies, foreign and domestic. I'm not aware of any member of the vaunted fourth estate taking a similar oath. Maybe Mr. Curley could start requiring that of the employees of AP. Maybe we in the military would be more inclined to treat the media as a member of the same team if they started acting more like they were on our side. But the constant whining that the military treats the media like the media acts is really getting old.

"Today, I want to encourage you always to remember the importance of two pillars of our freedom under the Constitution – the Congress and the press. Both surely try our patience from time to time, but they are the surest guarantees of the liberty of the American people."

Worthy, thoughtful responses from DanSSwing and christopher.butz above. Those are just the sort of thing I was looking for when I invited you all to weigh in on the topic.

Keep 'em coming! And that's no matter what side of the argument you're on.

Your voices need to be heard on an issue that will impact you and the country -- and how the world perceives the American military.

And thanks to JetTX for posting a reminder of Defense Secretary Robert Gates' words to service academy graduates about the press. Below is a longer excerpt. Here are links to the text of the original speech (at least I think it was the first), at Annapolis in 2007, and an Associated Press account published by the Washington Post. Gates has delivered the same message to other service academy audiences, as well, over the last couple of years.

        "Today you will take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. I have taken that oath seven times in the last forty years – the first when I enlisted in 1966 and the last when I became Secretary of Defense.

        "Today, I want to encourage you always to remember the importance of two pillars of our freedom under the Constitution – the Congress and the press. Both surely try our patience from time to time, but they are the surest guarantees of the liberty of the American people.

        "The Congress is a co-equal branch of government that under the Constitution raises armies and provides for navies. Members of both parties now serving in Congress have long been strong supporters of the Department of Defense, and of our men and women in uniform.

        "As officers, you will have a responsibility to communicate to those below you that the American military must be non-political and recognize the obligation we owe the Congress to be honest and true in our reporting to them. Especially when it involves admitting mistakes or problems.

        "The same is true with the press, in my view a critically important guarantor of our freedom. When it identifies a problem, as at Walter Reed, the response of senior leaders should be to find out if the allegations are true – as they were at Walter Reed – and if so, say so, and then act to remedy the problem. If untrue, then be able to document that fact. The press is not the enemy, and to treat it as such is self-defeating.

        "As the Founding Fathers wisely understood, the Congress and a free press, as with a non-political military, assure a free country. A point underscored by a French observer writing about George Washington in 1782. He wrote: “This is the seventh year that he has commanded the army and that he has obeyed the Congress; more need not be said.”          --  Robert M. Gates, Secretary of Defense, at the U.S. Naval Academy, May 25, 2007"

As a former Texas newspaper reporter, and current Army public affairs sergeant in Iraq, this topic is very important to me. I wanted to thank you for writing about it.

I believe there are valid concerns on both sides of the table. But I believe we have made great progress, and that the U.S. military is more transparant than it has ever been, and certainly more transparent than other militaries. DOD guidelines for public affairs are very clear. It is on the battlefield that they sometimes get muddied.

It is an evolving relationship, and we will get there. I can't speak for higher-level stuff, but at my level I make every attempt to facilitate civilian reporters, and have only asked that they not print or broadcast matters of operational security.

Could we get more civilian input on this? I would be interested in seeing some specific complaints, or input. Again, thanks.

I agree with writerkeith -- this is an important subject with far-reaching impact, and the more informed the people are who will be making the decisions, the better the result.

So I hope some more folks heed his call and weigh in here on this issue. It's kind of like politics -- don't gripe about who got elected if you didn't bother to vote.

I'd really like to hear more stories from people in the field, and that includes reporters and editors as well as service people.

Letter to the editor:
(Editors note: The following is purely the opinions and observations of the writer and in no way reflect the opinions of the writer’s employer.)

Sir,
I have read with some dismay the “debate” some of your readers have had concerning AP CEO Tom Curley's speech to the University of Kansas. As a retired US Marine, and now a staff photographer for a major newspaper who has covered combat operations in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and, most importantly, as a citizen and taxpayer of the United States of America, I'd like to point out a few things.

I live in a democracy. That's what I fought for as a Marine. When the military decides what the citizens of its country needs to know and actively generates propaganda (lies), that's no longer a democracy.

Just because 19 criminals crashed airplanes into the Twin Towers does not mean that Americans surrendered their Constitutional Rights. (By the way, none of those criminals were from Iraq.)

Since I'm fairly sure none of the comments writers have ever personally seen or dealt with an honest to gosh journalist, I am again amazed at the level of ignorance so many in the services have concerning the Fourth Estate.

First, when I cover something, I'd don't have a “dance card.” I report on what I see. That's it. It doesn't matter if you are a squad leader in Tikrit or a gay rights activist in LA.

There is bias in journalism. But 90 percent of that bias comes from readers. While reporters, photographers and editors are trained to recognize their bias, the readers are not. Especially today, with Ditto-heads and Huffington-Posters of the world, too many are upset when they read something that does not perfectly reflect their own preconceived views. A wise man once said, if you agree completely with your newspaper, it’s time to read another newspaper.

Second, war coverage does not make money for me or our newspaper. It is a huge money loser. After 9/11, most newspapers sent teams overseas costing hundreds of thousands and later millions of dollars. Ad space was slashed to open up more news holes for the expanded coverage. Did readership go up? Yes. People were interested in what their government was doing. But we don’t make money from selling a newspaper, we make money from selling ads. The paper we sell for 75 cents costs about $5 to produce. As for me, I get paid the same whether I'm in Iraq or Iowa.

As far as “non-loyal” journalists selling out their soldiers and Marines to “make it big in their field”.... sorry, it just doesn't hold water. Most journalists who covered the wars are already“big in their fields.” I can think of many more examples of officers flocking to the war zone to “punch their tickets” and grab some fruit salad in their quest for their next promotion.

The Press knew when the lst Gulf War was to begin. Nobody called Saddam. They knew when the Marines were invading southern Afghanistan. Nobody called the Taliban. And they knew when the invasion of Iraq was going to begin. Again, no phone calls to Saddam. The enemy doesn't need the press to tell them they just lost a town. They can figure that out themselves when their guys don't pick up the phone anymore.
Getting the truth out (whether first or last) doesn't get people killed, it saves lives in the long run. If we (the press) had not by and large bought into the Bush administration lies on the reasons to invade Iraq, we could have saved the lives over 4,000 of America's finest. Sadly, and to our shame, we did not.

The truth is that way too many service members seem to have drank the “purple Kool-
Aide” administered by the former Bush/Cheney/Rumsfield junta. They have forgotten that they are all the sons and daughters of Americans, that they are armed, trained and paid for by Americans and that they represent all America. And, apparently, some have forgotten that they swore an oath to the Constitution (ALL of it) to the United States, not to a political administration.

I have lost two friends in Iraq. One was a Marine and the other was a civilian journalist.
One swore the oath, one didn't. Both died doing their duty and both died serving their country, oath or no oath.

I swore the oath, too. Ironically, I still believe in the oath. I feel I am doing more now to serve my country by being a journalist that I did when I carried a rifle.
But that doesn't mean that the press should be the military's cheerleaders. I am still stunned by the comments and actions I have witnessed from members of our officer and senior enlisted corps. I have been flat-out lied to by PAOs and other officers. Too many of them are running their campaigns for major or colonel. What has happened to integrity? To be fair, I have dealt with many PAOs and other officers who lived up to their ideals and made me proud to be an American. But the mere fact that there are so many "politicians in uniform" concerns me gravely.

Please forgive me if I, as a citizen, have serious issues with DanSSwing and Christopher.Butz on their desires for “the military controlling information to shape the opinions of the public…”. Mr. Butz leads off his diatribe with this: “…. (Curley) has a profound inability to distinguish the difference between the First Amendment and the right to information. “ Huh? Mr. Butz, I propose that YOU have the profound inability to tell the difference. After all, why should the American people have the right to their information gathered by their elected officials and paid for with their tax dollars so that they can made informed decisions on this country’s actions? The ideas on the press that these two respondents propose is exactly how this world wound up with guys like Hitler and Stalin.

Someone must report to the American people what their sons and daughters are being asked to do in their name. Someone must tell the people that their soldiers need better armor, better weapons, better medical care and why their child had to die. Someone needs to tell the people why they even have a war in Iraq anyway.

Personally, I'm sick of the desert. So I hope you find an answer. But I know the answer isn't the military.

Sincerely,

An American Citizen

Gunner, a good, substantive piece, one that comes from the heart as well as the head. Thanks for taking the time and trouble to pull your thoughts together and write. It really illuminates the issue from a perspective we haven't yet seen in the comments posted here.

We really do need an array of perspectives and arguments to inform the debate -- and the people who will be making the decisions. Keep 'em coming, people.

I disagree. Journalists are either freelance or on a staff. When a journalist goes into a combat zone, he or she is going there for either themselves or for their employer. Not for their country. That would be like saying a protester, exercising freedom of speech, gets run over in the street is dying for their country. Not happening. I agree with freedom of the press, however in instances of security of the troops and to prevent tactical information from being disseminated (read Geraldo), we need freedom from the press.

I welcome your heartfelt views, RetiredGunner, but let me offer a point or two of my own to consider.

I’ll agree that reporters may not always define patriotism as a soldier might and that journalists are, as a group, probably more open to “citizen of the world” constructs.

But I would also argue that most people who work for American news media in war zones believe that what they are doing is a public service – seeking out meaningful, accurate information about what is happening on and around the battlefield and getting it back to the people at home in whose name the troops were sent and serve.

After all, one thing most every family of a fallen wants to know is, what happened? Journalists can go beyond vetted after-action reports or letters of condolence to try to answer that question comprehensively without having to factor in career concerns about rankling a chain of command.

Sure, reporters are paid and dream of glory. But so it is with soldiers, too.

I also remember, as I suspect by your handle that you do, that the crucible of combat has a way of dispelling noble but abstract notions of the greater good, leaving most soldiers, in the end, fighting for themselves and their buddies.

None of this is to minimize the rigors and sacrifices anyone faces in wartime but to acknowledge that motives are complex and rarely wholly altruistic or cynical. 

(As for the merits of protest, consider the Colonial dissidents who sparked the founding struggle of this country; the later marchers for civil rights; Czech students standing against Soviet armor at the end of 1968’s Prague Spring; and that indelible image of a lone protester in Beijing halting a column of Chinese tanks in 1989.)

I’m not one who believes journalists have some intrinsic right to a foreign battlefield, but neither do I believe they should be barred. This should not be an either/or issue. War is history, and the best history grows out of a diverse body of evidence and testimony, not a handful of tailored official chronicles. Journalists, it is often said, write that first rough draft of history.

Still, the task of revising the rules for how the military and the press interact in an evolving global media environment is not clear-cut. The result must weigh the need for government and the military to hold back some vital information against the people’s broad right to know and journalists’ right to inform them. Lives and legitimate national interests hang in the balance.   

Easier said than done.

These are monumentally complicated times. The world has been shrunk by instant communication. National identities, interests and even loyalties have been clouded by unprecedented migrations, not just of people but of cultures, ideologies and information.

Journalists, commanders and political leaders must factor these phenomena into any new military-press calculus.

Journalists must acknowledge that notions that they are still writing and reporting solely for a discrete domestic audience are, at best, quaint. Gone are the days when, for example, a Chicago Tribune can publish a front-page story at the height of World War II signaling the breaking of Japan’s naval code – and that news never reaches Tokyo.

In a 21st Century world of news and information, there are no longer any borders.

For their part, politicians and the military must realize that journalists, as annoying as we can be, are not the enemy and, to the extent that reason allows, need to be accommodated in our pursuit of news and information that fuel a free and open society.   

What I fear most in this world are decisions based on ignorance, supposition or narrow self-interest. A free flow of information, be it from the battlefield or simply in forums like this one, helps counter that.

And I emphasize again that what I invite here are views that collide, not collude. We all learn from healthy debate.    

So, RetiredGunner, even if I don’t share all your sentiments, I thank you for sharing them with the larger audience. They have opened another window.

And I urge you and others out there with something to say to continue to say it.

WOW, reading these inputs shows me this is a very emotional issue. I for one recognize the need to have freedom of the press, but everything has its limits especially if lives were on the line. For instance:

- When Mr Rivera showed the world how an upcoming military operation was to take place (in the name the people needed to know), needless to say he jeopardized that mission. Luckily he was kicked out after this

- When Mr Novak decided to tell the world of a CIA undercover agent, did he even think her life would be endanger, that he just committed a crime (he is lucky he is not in jail), and then his compatriots jumped all over Karl Rove saying he released the info, but it turned out Mr Libby did. Talk about misguiding people to a conclusion

These are 2 examples of the media controlling events and not just reporting facts. Stick to what people really desire to know and not what sells papers. Wait until the event can be disclosed safely and everyone wins.

I have been connected with -- or in -- the military in one capacity or another my entire life. I grew up as a military dependent, living mostly overseas, and thus not only highly loyal to the military and aware of its strengths and benefits to America, but also very aware of its flaws and shortcomings.

My first career was as a journalist, and I was a journalist both as a civilian and in the Air Force. During my time in the Air Force, I served during Desert Shield and Storm, in the U.S. and in Saudi Arabia. I hosted national and international visiting press, dignitaries, and senior officials at home and in the war zone. I wrote news articles for our base newspaper in the U.S. and for our deployment newspaper in zone. I drafted press releases, spoke to the media, and made "officially-orchestrated" public statements on a wide range of aspects of the war and our troops, as well as topics unrelated to the war.

As a civilian journalist, I reported on whatever news came up, and it often involved the military.

During college, I also worked for the Navy at the Pentagon, and helped write speeches and press releases for senior Admirals making statements to the public. I was intimately involved in the process and the thinking that were behind those statements.

My current career is as an attorney, again both in the civilian world and in the military (Army, this time). I've spent several years on active duty in overseas locations, and several years as a reservist. I've also been a civilian attorney for the Department of Defense and the Army, in addition to other government agencies and pure civilian law firms and prosecutor offices. In the course of my legal work, both in and out of the military, I have routinely had to work with the press, deal with press-military conflicts and issues, make statements to the press, approve press statements for release, and give legal advice on First Amendment issues.

I have therefore been both a military member and a journalist, an officer and an enlisted person, a soldier and an airman, a military family member, on active duty and the reserves, and a military civilian employee, as well as a non-government civilian, and I have additional insight due to legal issues in this arena. Perhaps my perspective is a little different as a result.

I agree with the general premise that new 'rules of engagement,' so to speak, need to be established between the military and the press. My experiences with the military and with the press have been that the vast majority of people carrying out the duties in both worlds are doing so because they believe in freedom, believe in our country, believe that what they are doing serves a greater good beyond themselves. Yes, they also both are serving themselves -- a paycheck is an important item in almost everyone's lives.

But most journalists I know believe they are also serving America and freedom, and they believe that informing people is an important part of the country and its freedom. And most journalists I know work very hard to tell the truth, report accurately and correctly, are very concerned with the safety and well-being of those they are reporting about, and do their best to be fair and unbiased, while also being aware that every person has a filter through which they see things -- even the people who are providing the reporters with information. The reporters I know who report from deployment zones are very aware that information they gather is not only important to give to the citizens in pursuit of the country's need to know, but also important to the safety and well-being of the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines -- and civilians -- they are reporting about. I don't know a single journalist covering those zones who hasn't agonized about whether or not to report information that could still have military operation ramifications, endanger others, or be printed at moments of bad timing. They do think about those issues and they do try to balance both sides of the spectrum. They don't want to publish something today just to get a reporting coup if it will mean a convoy is ambushed or an operation voided or a life lost. They are individuals, people, and they care -- about what they are doing, our country, and the things they are reporting about. I know several reporters -- myself included -- who've held a story, kept back specific details, or agreed not to release something out of concern for the impact it would have on soldiers or military safety or operations.

And most military members I know believe they are not just collecting a paycheck, especially those serving in deployment zones. They put their lives on the line -- as reporters often do too -- for something bigger, for a sense of honor and loyalty and belief in the country and the need to protect it. And they most certainly do so to protect people -- their families, themselves, their war-zone buddies, and even strangers.

The reporters I know and the military members I know are among the most honorable and sincerely dedicated people I've met in my lifetime. In many ways, they are not that different. But they are individuals, and they have individual views on information, facts, situations, ideas, and honor. There are, in both groups, bad apples, people who aren't so honorable or dedicated, and people with some sort of personal agenda. But most of them are not that way.

At the same time, both reporters and military members are also very zealous in pursuing what they think is right. Often, they can appear to be arrogant, or pushing (in the case of reporters) or stonewalling (in the case of military or even military PAOs) for some hidden motive, because of this zealousness and their underlying belief that what they are doing is bigger and more important than themselves, is in a worthy and just cause. Reporters believe their mission is important. Military members believe their mission is important.

And both missions are important. Ironically, it is because of the importance of the military mission that reporters are anxious to report on it, and it is because of the importance of the press mission that military members are leery of it. Balancing these missions is critical, for our country and for the success of both missions. While it is possible for reported information to harm the military, it is also a fact that often reported information has helped the military, in a wide variety of ways. Many injustices to military members within the military itself have been revealed by zealous reporting, by military reporters and by civilian reporters. Problems with veterans care have been reported, and as a result, changes were made to improve that care and the issue of veterans care remains in peoples' minds. Without reporting, those issues would not have come to public light or consciousness. On the other hand, there are the incidents when the power of the press has been damaging to the military, and several examples have been set forth in previous responses above.

It is true that some PAOs and commanders have stonewalled and edited and even lied when dealing with reporters. I've experienced it and seen it, both as a reporter and as a person working with the commanders as a public affairs member and an attorney. It is equally true that some reporters have skewed their reporting of the facts and have written their articles with a personal agenda or vendetta in mind. I've seen that as well. But there are always going to be people who do not do the right thing in a given situation; there are always going to be bad apples. Tarring everyone in the press or everyone in the military because of those few is ridiculous. This bad apple syndrome is no more prevalent among journalists and military members than it is among the general public. And engaging in inappropriate actions in retaliation is not in any way beneficial to either side or the underlying missions they believe in.

The bottom line is that the press is not going to go away. It is not going to stop reporting. It is not going to think that its mission to bring information to the people so that we can be an informed and education citizenry is no longer a strong and good mission. It is not going to stop seeking out information individuals may not want the press to know. And it will continue to be made up of individual people, most of whom are honest, honorable, dedicated, sincere people who believe in their mission, believe in fair and honest reporting, question the status quo, resist efforts to censor them or to coerce them into doing the wrong thing or printing something that they believe to be inaccurate or untrue because of someone else's agenda. Complaining about the press, resisting the press, lying to the press will not make it go away or change, and, in fact, is more likely to make the press feel the need to push back, push harder, dig more.

The military mission and its need for secrecy to preserve lives and mission integrity is also not going to go away. The military need to keep information from the enemy during war operations -- especially in an ever-more-connected world -- is not going to stop. The military has a critical mission and lives are at stake, sometimes hanging in the balance on what can seem, out of context of the bigger picture, to be a minor, unrelated, incidental piece of information. Any person who has studied military history will be aware that often wars or battles are won or lost, lives are saved or not, whole operations are successful or failures, because a decision-maker knew or didn't know one vital piece of information, or knew it but didn't understand its importance or how it fit into the picture until it was too late. Military history is replete with these examples. And military members are always, always aware that lives are at stake. They will not stop taking this issue seriously. They will not stop wanting their information protected because it can mean the difference between success or failure and thus life or death, in a very real and tangible way. And the military will continue to be made up of individual people, most of whom are honest, honorable, dedicated, sincere people who believe in their mission, believe it is important to carry out the country's mandates even if they don't personally agree, and who know that they and their comrades are laying their lives on the line, dealing with the hardships and stresses, living in often-extreme conditions, separated from their families, and put at risk every day. They are going to continue to resist providing information to the press that they sincerely believe could do harm if released. Fighting this, complaining about it, forcing their hand will not change any of this, and may instead, push people into corners where they feel they need to push back harder, resist more, and even lie to protect peoples' lives.

Balance is the key. And balance is something we clearly do not have here. We have two groups of people that, because of a combination of their true, strong belief in their missions and some bad incidents in the past, have become entrenched in mind-sets that the other group is the enemy. Sometimes, the mission goals are in opposition. But once you start thinking of the opposing group as an enemy, you change the dynamic between the groups. As an attorney, for example, I have to deal with opposing counsel every time I handle a case. We are definitely in opposition. But those attorneys are not my enemy, nor am I theirs. They are honorable opponents. We each have our mission. We each have our goal. Yes, they are in opposition to each other. But underlying them, we have things in common. We both believe in the orderly process of the court system as a way of airing issues and getting fair trials. We both want to be treated respectfully and politely. We are both people trying our best to do our job and to do the best we possibly can for our clients, who are also real people with real issues, and whose lives can often be at stake, both literally and in terms of jobs, finances, family, etc. And so forth. When we treat each other as honorable opponents, not only do we both feel better personlly, but we are better served in fulfilling our mission, in doing the best we can for our clients, and in making the court system be the process we believe it is. When either of us treats the other as an enemy, we start getting bogged down in little fights on stupid, beside-the-point issues. This means we both have to spend our time and our client's resources on fighting those battles, rather than pursuing our main goal. We come to dislike each other, and often engage in retaliation, which further derails things. And we end up dragging the judge, jury, and clients into the mess as well. It never works well and takes signficiantly more work -- and does nothing to change the underlying facts of the case or either party's side.

The same is true when the military and the press view each other as enemies. Most of the time, we are not even in opposition. Both military and press believe in freedom. Both believe in a strong American government, and a citizenry that is informed and involved. Both even believe in a free press -- the military members who have learned about their government or who have found bad military practices that harmed them exposed to public view in the press have personal experience with how a free press can be beneficial. And both believe in the military mission and the need for the military to be able to carry out its mission without being sabotaged by information being exposed to the real enemy. Both also want bad practices exposed and fixed. I've never met a reporter or a military member who thought it was okay to allow a commander to force females working for him to perform sexual acts, or who thought it was better for DoD monies to be spent on cushy transportation for bigwigs instead of better armor for soldiers.

The truth is that both the military and the press, at least at the individual level, are on the side of truth and justice and the American way at its best. The big machines of both sides may cause us to lose sight of that. The few bad apples may sometimes obsure that. And sometimes, we just lose sight of the bigger picture, whether reporter or military, when we're focused on the issue before us at a given moment, or entrenched in a stance.

I think it's high time that both sides of this issue sit down and take stock of what they want and why. The vast majority of information the press wants from the military is not harmful to the military mission. Being open about what information you can is good for everyone involved. At the same time, the press needs to respect and honor the limits that really do exist. Being zealous to report on something is laudible. Forgetting that real people are involved and lives and operations and a bigger picture context hinge on careful information control is not laudible. If the military releases honestly all the information it can and treats the press more as a respected oppoonent instead of an enemy to be blocked at every turn, the process would be much more beneficial for both sides. If the press treated the military better as well, and honored requests to hold information or to not publish certain information because of mision necessity, the process would also go much more smoothly. And the truth is, many members of the military block release of information to the press that has no possible bearing of mission-critical issues. I've seen a commander refuse to allow reports on a court-martial during a time when there were no wars going on and we were in a theater that had no connection with hotspots, and the crimes being court-martialed weren't connected with anything to do with the military mission, but were instead an individual's bad acts. I've also seen press reports that flat-out should not have been published.

Ignoring these problems will not make them go away or fix them. Fighting the other side by entrenching further into the trenches and lobbing grenades at them will not make the problems go away or be resolved. Lying or being dishonorable in engagements with each other will not solve the problems or make them go away. The best possible thing to do is to be candid with each other about our concerns, our fears, our needs, to cooperate whenever and wherever we can without harm to a legitimate mission need, and to work out guidelines and rules for the real conflicts so that they can be handled respectfully and appropriately by both sides. There will always be some tension and there will always be times when the two missions are not compatible. But if we at least work out a decent way of dealing with each other for all the other times, we make the entire system and both missions much smoother and much stronger. The thing to glean from the 'two columns' quote, in addition the obvious meaning of the words, is that the two missions of press and military are heavily intertwined. They each protect the other. It's about time we both started maximizing that.

The embarrassing revelation of the Pentagon influencing the American media and American public opinion (starting about 2002 and going pretty much up to the present), with their cheerleader-like retired generals, lobbyists, “Pentagon Pundits”, who were pro-war, positive-spin artists, “message force multipliers” and “surrogates”; is once again in the news. What do they say about a bad penny? Well; the fact that this penny keeps turning up, is a problem the Pentagon created for itself, and totally unnecessary; as if at that time there wasn’t enough propaganda and gung-ho for war.

Taking responsibility for mistakes made has never been a strong point in Washington, but in this case there is even the question of a law violation. It is against the law by the way, to us psyops on the American people.

When I say that this was “in the news”, I don’t mean the popular mainstream media, TV news, (sic), like CNN and Fox: because they ignored it. But hats off to the New York Times, and its investigative journalist David Barstow: (a real nice guy), who received the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. His articles: “Message Machine: Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand” and “One Man’s Military-Industrial-Media Complex”.

I have the feeling that the New York Times is trying to make amends (or take revenge) for the Judith Miller fiasco, could well be. The Times has never admitted its part in the propaganda war, for war. But unlike the Pentagon, it has people on its staff who are intelligent enough to know, that it was never images of naked Vietnamese children running from a napalm attack; that lost the war in Vietnam; terrible though those images were. (If you do believe that, I have a bridge to sell you.) Wars are won and lost for quite different reasons.

What is so sad and tragic, is that the White House should debase itself and seek gravitas from the flagship of American newspapers, the New York Times, for its spurious arguments regarding Iraqi WMD’s by feeding the newspaper false leads that the Times then gave respectability and for which the Pentagon then took the credit. Talk about creating something from nothing. This is surely a new low in American politics, and for the military. This gives the lie to those who say the military is outside politics. Like hell it is, it’s up to its neck. Nixon had contempt for democracy and the press too, but at least he had style, and he had the guts to tell his own lies.

Ironically: Nixon’s impeachment and the Vietnam loss was also the end of an era, of an independently free media. And the portentous rise of the two gentlemen who had previously worked for Nixon, and so wanted to extend the powers of the president and reduce those of the press: Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Cheney. As we now know, they got their wish – as indeed did the Pentagon.

And as we sow, so shall we reap - someone once said. But it was said a long time ago, and in a Galaxy, far, far away.