Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
Do you want to tell all journalists that holding a camera in a war zone turns them into fair game?
Not exactly fair game, but every war zone journalist knows that when you walk into that zone you are at risk (and yes, I have been there and done that). You may be intentionally targeted by people who don't want journalists around. You may be accidentally targeted by an adrenaline-soaked combatant who expects to see an enemy and decides that you are what he expects to see (the degree to which expectation governs perception has to be experienced to be appreciated). You may simply be standing in the same space where a projectile happens to be passing. It's not a safe environment, and being a journalist is no protection at all. Maybe it should be in theory, but in reality it's not.

From the perspective of a civilian who's been around a little bit of it: anyone who thinks you can send young men into combat and get politically correct dialogue, accurate and dispassionate interpretation of observed circumstances, and calm, rational, effective decision making all the time is living in the land of fantasy. War is hell; that hasn't changed and I don't expect that it will. We may feel it necessary to punish those who remind us that war is hell and who fail to conform to the illusion of a precise, clean, surgical war in which every action can stand up to hindsight... but there's probably just a bit of hypocrisy in that need.