All this week CNN is running a special on the story of three Army Sergeants who were convicted of premeditated murder of 4 Iraqi detainees. This story first surfaced as the Killings at the Canal. Briefly, there were four detained Iraqi men who were believed to be a constant threat to soldiers. With the rules that govern the intake and release of these individuals it is not uncommon to keep fighting the same enemy over and over due to the fact that if there is not enough evidence to hold detainees then they are released. These sergeants apparently saw this flaw as detrimental and took matters into their own hands. They killed the four men and swore, along with 10 other soldiers who knew of the incedent, not to speak of it again. This story obviously did get out and the men in charge are currently serving prison sentences of multiple decades each.
My first reaction to this is that theses unfortunate soldiers have been used as an example. I feel that this may be something that we hear about in a few years, only as a happy story of soldiers being released from prison. I am not sure how closely the military imprisonment of an individual parallels that of a civilian, and maybe I am simply jaded by years of innundation by movies and TV shows on law, court, trials, etc., but I feel that these men stand little chance of serving their entire sentences. I feel that the media in this case acts as both a harm and a good for these men.
The media hopped all over this story and soon after the American public knew of the actions of these three soldiers, they were being sentenced. I think that the ability for information to simply explode onto the American public at the rate that it does, in a sense, prevents these types of secrets to be held. Sensationalist reporting and ratings chasing leads to the unearthing of some things that may be best left untold. I am by no means condoning the actions of the three sergeants, but who is to say that what they did did not make them and their men safer? Do these men deserve to be serving these sentences?
No. And that is where the media can play a positive role. This story includes families, wives, kids, fathers (on both sides of the lines) and there is sensational appeal in alomst ever layer. The very same media characteristics that have acted as a detriment to these men thus far can also help their cause in the future. As soon as this story is forgotten, a few weeks of breaking news later, the majority of Americans will have thier minds on something else. It appears as though the American government is doing what it needs to to in order to 'play fair' among warring nations, and the unfortunate soldiers stand as scapegoats. A few years from now though, don't be surprised to hear of the commuted sentences of these three American soldiers.
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I think that you are right about the sensationalism. The media should be telling us why we are fighting in Afghanistan or how we are doing or what our strategy is. There is a line. I don't think that the whole country needs to know about this stuff. I think that all is fair in love and war. It is easy for us to sit here in the U.S. where we are safe, with food to eat and clothes to wear, and talk about what the soldiers should be doing. The reality is most people who have something negative to say, that includes journalist and reporters, about these men's actions have never been in their shoes or anywhere close to them. Those soldiers do things everyday to keep us out of danger just so we can send the to prison and talk bad about them. That should never be the propose of journalism.
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