Communicating Arts - Main Web SiteReuters reports a possibly drone-launched U.S. missile striking an al Qaeda safehouse in North Waziristan on Monday. [1]
In addition to the story resembling a 2006 winter event reported by BBC News [5], the latest seems to have a run-up to it, with Voice of America reporting on the topic January, Dawn running AP coverage on the 29th, and USA Today and Reuters, top blogged citations for "U.S. strike Pakistan", continuing to raise the curtain.
In his classic on reporting war, The First Casualty, Phillip Knightly draws on Senator Hiram Johnson's epigrammatic statement of 1917, "The first casualty when war comes is truth" [6], for his professional skeptic's view of the matter from the "Charge of the Light Brigade" to the end of America's Vietnam era.
The same may apply here.
Elements repeated:
1. Denial of strike confirmation by both Pakistani and U.S. officials to this point;
2. On-the-ground reports of a white airplane flying over the area of the incident;
3. Resident claims that casualties were all civilian;
3a. Resident claims that armed men surrounded "a" or "the" burning house, preventing immediate inspection or / and, later, funeral attendance (suggesting casualties were other than local).
It seems no one who isn't the press seems to like the press in any of the world's conflict zones, but this is one of those days where it would behoove state governments, tribes, and Al Qaeda to provide safe passage to journalists and let them report freely and at length the facts as they find them and from whatever position in the conflict.
Censorship and propaganda both produce universal mistrust of governments and media alike, and neither serve the promotion of freedom, if that is of interest to any given reader, or integrity, which should be of keen interest to political and religious leaders alike.
No reliable reportage: no reliable image of any sort of trustworthy reality for anyone, and that probably including defense intelligence entities all around.
Candor benefits everyone.
1. "U.S. missile strike in Pakistan hit al Qaeda nest." Reuters, January 31, 2008.
2. "Pakistanis protest U.S.; missile strike kills 12." USA Today, January 30, 2008.
3. Bowman, Michael. "Pakistan Rejects U.S. Plan to Strike Terrorists on its Soil." VOA, January 6, 2008.
5. "Pakistan rally against U.S. strike." BBC News, January 15, 2006.
6. Knightly, Phillip. The First Casualty. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975.
Correspondence: James S. Oppenheim
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