Would Iraq and Afghanistan be resolved more quickly with increased censorship of the media?
Nope. The media doesn’t in any way dictate the outcome of any war. Just look at the Soviet-Afghan War, where the government-controlled Soviet media were spewing lies of victories in Afghanistan in direct contrast to the slaughter of the Soviet troops occuring there. Despite these rosy pictures of the war painted by the Soviet propaganda media, the Soviets still lost the war. So what does this tell you?. In the current war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the American media is in fact restricted on the news that they can report, in accordance with the guidelines imposed by the US military. For example, no pictures of dead US troops are allowed to be published or broadcast, as well as coffins of dead soldiers being unloaded from airplanes upon arrival in the US. American reporters had to be embedded with American troops, and cannot simply go to the front-lines and do the reporting on their own.
The issue is that Bush’s government made a fundamental series of blunders. The media plays a minor role. The major errors – disbanding of the armies, the disbanding of the government ministries, rife unemployment. People who are unemployed, have little money and have had their dignity take away, tend to be easily swayed. It’s considered very bad not to be working in the Middle East for the men. They cannot support their families so they look for “better” alternatives. The media in the USA has a lot of spin attached to it about Iraq, but it will not change things on the ground for the average Iraqi just trying to get by.
