[F]uture wars may require censorship, news blackouts and, ultimately, military attacks on the partisan media… a media establishment that has forgotten any sense of sober patriotism may find that it has become tomorrow’s conventional wisdom. The point of all this is simple: Win. In warfare, nothing else matters. If you cannot win clean, win dirty. But win.
Of course, what Col. Peters is advocating is not new, nor does he need to propose it as a policy for “future wars.” It is already a de facto U.S. policy to target journalists. The U.S. has consistently attacked journalists and media organizations in modern wars. In the 1999 U.S.-led NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, General Wesley Clark, then the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, ordered an airstrike on Radio Television Serbia, killing 16 media workers, including make-up artists and technical staff, an action Amnesty International labeled a “war crime.” Richard Holbrooke, who is currently Obama’s point man on Afghanistan and Pakistan, praised that bombing at the time.
Send to Kindle
