I tend to agree a lot with Lawrence Martin. Today is no exception. For those of you with Globe insider access, his column is here. It hasn’t made its way on the the Google News site yet, so I can’t point you all to the back-door just now.
Martin expresses his dismay with the way journalists become “patriotic pushovers” in war time. In railing against the widely-accepted notion of “friendly fire” and embedded reporters, Martin writes:
It’s like going into a courtroom and reporting only from the point of view of the prosecution. Nothing from the accused. In war, of course, it’s extraordinarily difficult, sometimes almost impossible, to get the enemy’s side of the story. But that’s still no excuse for 90-10.
He goes on to ask a few rhetorical questions that we’d all do well to ponder ourselves:
[O]n Afghanistan, I’ve already jumped on the bandwagon. Good cause. We should be there. Is it? Do we know that?
That’s why this is a good idea. Reflection and re-examination are never bad things – and I thank Lawrence Martin for reminding me of that.
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