How to win a war without firing a shot (Our lose one)
Above is a prime example of how pictures can win or lose a war. The United States was bleeding money and was almost broke. And along comes this picture from the AP showing a gallant flag-raising that somehow went right to the heart of what it meant to be an American and an American fighting man. Anyone who has read the book "Flags of our Fathers" knows that this one picture helped fund the rest of the war. Little did everyone know that what it depicted was less then honest.
It doesn't matter that the picture didn't tell the true story of what was actually happening. Fact was, at the time the picture was taken, not only wasn't the battle won but three of the flag-raisers would die within a month after the photo was taken before Iwo Jima was secured. There was a lull in fighting and some of the worst fighting was soon to follow.
The flag-raisers were totally unopposed when they scaled the instinct volcano. However, not long after the flag was planted the Japanese realized that somebody dared to place a flag on what they considered sacred ground, so it wasn't long till all hell broke loose again.
This was the arguably the worst battle in U.S. history, and it was the first time we suffered more casualties then the enemy. Over 26,000 Marines were wounded or killed along with 22,000 of the Imperial Japanese Army. On top of this, the flag pictured was a replacement flag. It was not even the original flag that was planted on Mount Suribachi. So it seems that a picture may be worth a thousand words, but many times the wrong words are portrayed.
During WWII journalists were for the most part looking to prop up the war effort. These days journalists know that they'll never get a Pulitzer Prize for being patriotic or appearing to be aligned with the war-mongers in the Pentagon, so pictures like the ones below are the rule of the day. You'll rarely see anything that helps our country win a war if our media can help it.
Let us suppose you wanted to infiltrate our society and do serious damage to the physic of the American people. A foreign operative knows now that the best way to turn the tide of the war is become a journalist. Problem is, our enemies don't even have to use spies or plants because your media is more then willing to do the job for them lately. This has been the case since Korea.
This illustrates how important the media is to winning a war. If the media isn't on the side of the war effort then it's simply a lost cause.
These days they're not really showing an active interest in Afghanistan. 116 of the 101st Airborne Division's troops died in March of 2011 but not one word of it has reached the general public. It's like the war doesn't really exist. Perhaps the media is trying to ignore the war because it doesn't serve their purpose. While Bush was POTUS it was a totally different story.
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