Media is rewarding terrorism in Iraq

The following are comments I made at Bill Roggio's blog that I thought were worth including in a post here.

Since attacks on non combatants do not change the corelation of forces, would there be any reason to continue attacks like the one at the mosque, if the coverage was limited to a few entries in the obit section. My point is that these attacks are meant to feed the media and dominate the media battlespace. If reporters deemed the attacks militarily insignificant, which they are, there would be no reason to continue to engage in mass murder by human bomb attacks. The reporting of these events as significant fuels the enemy objective and encourages the enemy to stage more such events.

So who in the DOD is in charge of the media battle space? Apparently no one.

In response to another comment I added this:

I don't think war is about feelings.

The only significance of the attacks is the coverage they achieve in the media. To be militarily significant an attack must effect the ability of the opposing forces to function. You have to attack those forces to do that. The reason IED attacks in Iraq have been less effective in recent months is the attacks of US and Iraqi forces that have killed or captured the bomb makers. Their replacements are less skilled and their materials for making bombs is becoming more scarce. Those are militarily significant attacks.

The attacks on non combatants do not effect our military's ability to function and in fact push more Iraqis to our side. In the hearts and mind battle they are a real loser. That is why the tips leading to actionable intelligence are way up in Iraq.

The attacks on non combatants do have significance for those who want to lose the war, because they become an excuse. To the extent that the attacks help elect anti war candidates in this country they are a problem beyond killing of innocents.

I would add that I did not advocate not reporting on the attacks at all. I was advocating reporting them in the context of obituaries. If they must be reported on the front page, then it should be in the context of the wickedness of the enemy and not in the context of the failure to prevent the wickedness. By reporting the attacks the way the media did on these stories, the media is giving the enemy incentive to further wickedness.

Congessman Murtha has wrongly argued that our troops being in Iraq is prevoking violence. The evidence is to the contrary, since the enemy is actively avoiding contact with our forces. On the other hand, the media coverage is clearly rewarding the enemy's wickedness and contributing to future violence. If the media got as upset with the enemy's murder of noncombatants as it did with the hazing at Abu Ghraid, this war would be almost over.

Since the comments were mine, I thought my regular readers would find them worth reading.