MadisonConservative:

Iraqi incidents are given the benefit of the doubt because actual targeting of the press is rare.

Really? Before the Iraq war Kate Adie of the BBC was told by a senior officer in the Pentagon that anyone transmitting signals from Iraq would be fired upon, even if they were journalists. The US made good on their threats. According to the AP, as of April 8, 2003 (less than three weeks after the war started), these were the journalists that had already been killed:
Tareq Ayoub
Kaveh olestan
Michael Kelly
Christian Liebig
Terry Lloyd
Paul Moran
Kamaran Muhamed
Julio Parrado
Taras Protsyuk

But I am sure they were all accidents.

dave742 on August 15, 2008 at 10:52 PM

TheBigOldDog:

Right, that’s why the were doing live remotes from the top of APCs and Tanks you moron.

Embedded reporters of course were not targeted, because their reports were vetted in order to reflect the party line. The US did not want independent reporting from Iraq, and those were the reporters who were targeted.
rockhauler:

Didn’t you forget something? Or did you deliberately leave it out? Why is your list so short?

As I said, my list was from the first three weeks of the war. The lists of total journalists killed in Iraq that I have seen are over 100.

Just straight up, honest post, what is your point?

My point is that the US military deliberately targeted journalists, and said to a BBC journalist that this would be their goal. This thread is about an incident where Russians may possibly have targeted one journalist, but this is unknown. My point is that the US military admitted that they would target independent journalists, and over 100 have since died. In light of that, I find this thread ironic.
MadisonConservative:

comparing a country where freedom of the press is fiercely defended

When comparing freedom of the press between Russia and the US, the US does seem to come out on top. When comparing all nations, the US comes in 31st place. Not that impressive.

dave742 on August 16, 2008 at 8:26 AM

Inmypajamas:

Michael Kelly was an embed

Finding one, or a few, examples where a reporter that died in Iraq was an embed is a pathetic attempt (but a common technique used by apologists to ignore information) to ignore the fact that the vast majority of the 100-plus reporters killed in Iraq were independent. Kelly is not even an example of a reporter killed by the US military, since he died in an accident. I used the list I used since it was readily available. A detailed accounting of journalists killed by the US military under suspicious circumstances would take a while to compile, and I don’t want to spend the time right now. The number is in the dozens, and I doubt that any were embeds.

you just copied your list from some anti-American, fever swamp conspiracy site

As I noted, I copied my list of reporters killed in the first few weeks of the war from the AP. Your description of the AP as an “anti-American, fever swamp conspiracy site” is a little extreme, even from an extremist website.

ample clear evidence of targeted reporters

This is not clear evidence of targeting reporters in Georgia, and the only way for you to realize that this is so is to imagine a similar video from Iraq. In that case, an identical video would, in your opinion, constitute no evidence whatsoever of targeting the reporter. In that case, you could easily come up with alternate explanations.

from an anonymous source and no evidence

My evidence for the US admission comes from Kate Adie of the BBC. She quoted an anonymous source from the Pentagon saying that journalists would be targeted. Kate Adie is a well known BBC reporter that became chief news correspondent in 1989. She has won numerous awards. It is doubtful that she would risk her career by making up stories. Her account of the conversation with a Pentagon official is credible evidence of the US targeting reporters. This is supported by the fact that dozens of reporters were indeed killed by the US military in very suspicious circumstances. It is you that has no evidence.

dave742 on August 16, 2008 at 10:43 AM

inmypajamas:
Find a credible reporter that says he has spoken with the Russian government and they said journalists would be targeted, then find dozens of cases of reporters being killed by Russian forces under circumstances that make it clear they are being targeted. Then you will have some evidence.

leucanthemum:
If the Russian government said that “anyone transmitting signals from Georgia would be fired upon, including journalists,” and subsequently dozens of journalists were killed where it is clear they were targeted, you would be OK with it, right?

Look. I made my point. If you spent any time whatsoever looking at the evidence showing that the US deliberately kills journalists in Iraq, and compared that to you evidence of Russian targeting journalists, and were able to say that Russia is targeting journalists and the US is not, you are simply incredibly biased. Of course I know that is exactly what you think, and its hilarious.

dave742 on August 16, 2008 at 11:43 AM