[eshvk]

From my very limited understanding of embeds, it appears that they are journalists who form part of the army team. It is not clear to me if they are protected/have access to military secrets by virtue of being part of the team; however, it appears to be implied. In such a scenario, I am not sure how the question of neutrality even ever appears. If you are embedded, you are by definition not neutral? Surely, there are other means for war journalism to exist? As was the case during the other wars of the past century?

[revelation]

Of course other ways exist! In these, you will have your head blown off by 18 year olds who mistake your camera for a RPG.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007_Baghdad_airstrike

[growupkids]

18 year olds don't fly Apaches. It takes 2-3 years at a minimum, after enlistment, before all the required schools are completed before someone is qualified in an AH-64. In the case of most officer pilots, tack on another couple of years for commissioning.

[brownbat]

The risk goes up if you're hanging out with a group of armed insurgents heading towards US infantry wearing no clothing to distinguish you as a noncom before crouching behind cover to aim a shoulder mounted lens at an Apache that was just subjected to RPG fire.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007_Baghdad_airstrik...

[brownbat]

Maybe the silent downvote was for the snark. I was trying to follow the tone of parent, but this is probably too serious an issue to joke around on. My apologies.

I get frustrated, though, that so many still take the WL narrative of events at face value, even though WL edited the video and omitted relevant facts, ultimately distorting the entire nature of the incident.

First, WL marked up the video to highlight non-weapons, suggesting by omission that there weren't weapons in the video, even though there were. Then, they omitted facts like how the Apache crew had avoided engaging insurgents earlier that day, because they suspected noncoms were present, and were going out of their way to avoid civilian casualties.

I find it especially frustrating that supporters of a group that promotes the open discussion of information will just suppress, through silent downvotes, anyone with a different perspective on events, even if that perspective is based on facts they should know if they had only read the source they originally cited.

For the record, revelation, I didn't even downvote you, I just added my take. Even though we disagree, I don't think hive minds and one-sided discussions are ever beneficial for a site like this.