Embeds and Transparency
The government of the United States has no right to send our people off to war and keep secret that which it has no plausible military reason to keep secret. After all, American blood and treasure is being spent. Americans should know how our soldiers are doing, and what they are doing while wearing our flag. The government has no right to withhold information or to deny access to our combat forces just because that information might anger, frighten, or disturb us.
He confirmed the figure of only nine embedded reporters. Three were from Stars and Stripes, one from the Armed Forces Network, another from a Polish radio station who was with Polish forces, and one Italian reporter embedded with his country’s troops. Of the remaining three, one was an author gathering material for later, leaving two who were reporting on a regular basis to what you might think would be the Pentagon’s center of gravity: American citizens.
The atrophy and now collapse of embed efforts throughout the Iraq war is telling. Someone near the top fundamentally does not get it. This is a characteristic of the doom loop–
The risk such companies face is getting caught in a development dynamic where innovation is driven not by a focus on what the customer values and is willing to pay for, but on solving an engineering problem.
-Shlok
Sign up for my newsletter.