Politico: Pentagon reporters frustrated by Mattis
Trump's war on the press may be spilling over into the Defense Department, journalists fear.
Pentagon reporters are complaining of decreased access to Defense Secretary James Mattis, as well as a reduction in journalists allowed to travel on official trips, at a time when the Trump administration is dealing with national security challenges from the Middle East to North Korea.
Under Mattis, the Defense Department has become less transparent and publicly accountable than it has been in previous administrations, according to interviews with numerous reporters who cover the beat. The reporters requested anonymity, saying they feared that being quoted by name could lead to further loss of access.
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Update: Pentagon reporters annoyed with decreased access to Mattis: report (The Hill)
WNU Editor: This blog has been covering the Pentagon for the past ten years, and during the Obama administration I was always astounded on the news and strategies that were made available to the public via through the news media. I could never understand why the administration was doing this (aside from the political reasons) .... because all it did was to give America's adversaries a heads up on what the U.S. was going to do. Case in point .... announcing the date for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan even though the war was (and is) raging in the countryside. As for the Trump administration .... especially the Pentagon .... they have adopted a different approach, and one that is more in line with the past. Is the press frustrated with this new policy .... quite clearly they are. My prediction .... I expect this frustration to only increase with time, because I doubt that Defense Secretary James Mattis and President Trump are going to bend on this one.
4 comments:
Dear Mr Az and your comments on not trusting people. These remarks to you have come about after years of reading your comments. You Az read like a Muslim or your heritage is middle eastern ( don't care if i'm wrong this is what is see when I read your spit) to me it sounds like english is nowhere near your first language ( can't remember how many times I have laughed to myself at your english). You Az ask other people to announce where they stand, but it is you who come across as a sweating terrorist over and over through and through, month after month. You stand next to jay in my book, not a place I would want to be in life.
Wnu, I was wondering about the same thing wrt Obama's tendency to announce.
There's two typical scenarios:
1. Removal of troops from Afghanistan
2. Announcing when the siege of a city/the war for a city starts
Possible Reason(s) for 1: to reduce dependency, to make it clear to the afghani government when it will end, to publicly commit to it (and less likely being talked back into the afghan/us dependency), a clear cut if you will, with the message "better prepare for it"(unfortunately the message is not only heard by the government but also by the enemy, who indeed exploited the situation. The Obama administration of course would have been capable enough to predict that. Hence I assume it involved payback for something, Obama didn't get along with quite a few politicians*, so maybe it was that)
Possible reason(s) for 2: psychological warfare; to allow population to escape; to give population hope;
However it resulted likely in an increased number of the population being trapped, and we found some of them in mass graves.
But that's the power of hindsight and maybe it was actually effective and maybe we just don't understand this grand mastery of military chess.
It's possible. :)
Anon,
What you outlined is possible. In the above post I was just mentioning how different the Obama administration was in comparison to past administrations (and the Trump administration) on how the Pentagon should treat the press.
I note merely that in the new Ken Burns documentary on the Viet Nam war, the generals made it clear that they did not care for journalists being professional and stating facts if those facts varied from what the generals wanted the folks back home to believe about the war
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