Putting "Horrible Images" on our T.V. Screens, and the Larger International Challenge

The President's can not be mentioned often enough statement that "The enemy cannot defeat us on the battlefield, but what they can do is put horrible images on our TV screens" -- unless "horrible images on our screens" was long winded slang for "violence" -- is troubling. Particularly in light of his assertion that his popularity rating is exceptionally low because "people are unsettled because of the war," when, shortly after 9/11, the most horrific images on our TV Screens in U.S. history helped catapult these same ratings to exorbitantly high levels, and after the beginning of the war in Iraq, his ratings were again fairly high.

While the President's point may have been well intentioned (hard for many to assume, I know), it needs to be vigourously and repeatedly pointed out... that those images are real. They are reality. War is reality. (As is terrorism). Something that we all would hope is not hard for those who have not fought in it to recognize.

With respect to the Haditha incident, which brought forth particularly brutal images, and a particularly brutal reality: We are all responsible for our soldiers. This journalist, in his separate web log, eloquently makes the case.

But our image to the world is critical. As pointed out here, it is also critical to effectively communicate and illustrate to the world that we are in Iraq:

"Liberating Iraq from a repressive regime, and temporarily assisting the new government with security," nothing more.

Stories/incidents such as Abu Ghraib, and Haditha, hurt that image. And our message. Abu Ghraib was a mistake by those managing the war, and was wrong. Haditha was a mistake by a small isolated group fighting that battle, among thousands fighting it, and was wrong, but can be an outgrowth of war, if never excusable.

It is also important to continually emphasize to the world that we don't repress information to manipulate or hide (it also would be important to convince the pack of faux journalists masquerading as news people over at the clever as a fox station, if they didn't already have a pre set and manipulative political agenda).

Thus, unlike with many other countries, the world knows about our mistakes, our failures, as well as our successes. And it is similarly important to emphasize that Haditha was a grievious, cold blooded mistake by otherwise honorable fighting men and women, that in no way reflects upon the values, goals, or actions of the larger group or the U.S. military, or our presence there.

We want to help Iraq stop its internal killing, where Sunnis kill Shiites, and Shiites kill Sunnis, merely for their ethnicity, and insurgents fight the formation of a new Iraq governent that reflects the will of the Iraq people rather than a small group at the expense of real Iraqi sovereignty. Should we go? Should we stay? Out intentions have always been honorable, and we have freed Iraq from the dictatorial rule of a malevolent despot. But what is now best for the Iraqi people?

Some other related considerations, and questions, regarding Iraq, and the war on terror, which it has become part of. And which it is sometimes being confused for, including by the media. And some regarding the symbolism and implications of the poor job that the media is doing covering this issue -- and the related issue of what we are doing instead here at home.