In the wake of a horrific magazine spread depicting Taliban fighters showing off war trophies looted from the bodies of French soldiers, President Sarkozy has been predictably and commendably resolute. France isn’t going to run away for a change.
Unfortunately and just as predictably, that might not be the majority opinion in France. A recent poll found that 55% of the French public wants to pull out. For his own part, Eric de Lavarene, the journalist who published the pictures, grotesquely defended his actions as morally equivalent to reporting as a NATO embed. A statement as contemptible as arguing that a serial murderer is as entitled to his perspective on his crimes being broadcast, as the detectives pursuing him in the cause of self-evident justice.
Though not publishing them is problematic, too, if the goal is to keep the French as passive as possible.
I’m pretty uniformly disgusted with the role of journalism in this war and the attitude of journalists about what it is they are actually supposed to be doing.
I would like, very much, to see our allies (and certainly the French among them) stop playing at war… offering troops, but only out of harm’s way. (I have a guilty suspicion that those sending troops to either Afghanistan or Iraq in a capacity that actually involves shooting or getting shot at are motivated more by their own pressing need for combat experienced troops than anything else… which isn’t *bad* exactly…) If it takes a scummy journalist releasing “triumphant” photos or video to illustrate that there really *are* good guys and bad guys in this fight… that might be a good thing.