Okay I understand and accept that many people have not paid much attention to the news and just got on with their daily lives. With the emergence of wikileaks many people are able to have access to information about what is going on. Thing is many people do not have the inkling or the understanding of the implications of what has come about and will possible choose the status quo. Most do not want a war in their own backyards, most are happy to have in their minds their country defended even if this is not actually the case. Most people want to just get on with life.
Maybe wars are not being reported honestly because honesty can have many definitions to some people. WW2 bought wars in to peoples backyards in the western countries so they wanted to do something about it. Now most of the wars are in middle eastern countries or far away countries from the western world. All they know of is terrorism which people go yeah go to war defend us now let me get back to my life.

Maybe wikileaks will help some people realise what is going on maybe people will just become immune to it and like I said stick with the status quo.

Dear John, it is not just wars that are not being honestly dealt with by the media, so why not be a little more inclusive? The media are now mainly a bunch of news release junkies who rely on “officials” to give them their “opinions”.

The media is no longer either honorable or professional because they have “agenda’s. Once a journalist has an agenda they are finished. Does John Pilger have and agenda?

Wikileaks will be well contained by diplomats and I doubt that anything too significant will emerge to cause other than embarrassment. The media on the other hand, are the ones with most fear. I support Mr. Assange and hope he gets to release all 250,000 cables, most of which we can reasonably expect will cover every conceivable topic, many of these will have been the subject of a “news item” and an “opinion” from the media.

Its going to be just like the “My School” website, perhaps we could call it “My honest John Journalist” website?

I find it interesting that so many media personalities are currently squawking about journalistic integrity at the moment. Do the media know something we don’t?

We already know about media collusion and incompetence, so why tell us about it? Don’t you have your own channels and professional bodies to which you can refer this corruption?

If not I guess you’ll just have to be a “whistleblower”.

Good luck and keep your head down.

Wars have never been reported honestly - full stop.

Once upon a time they were almost considered to be a "boys own adventure" whereby one could have a bit of a lark and get to see foreign countries. Witness all the naive young men who happily volunteered to join up for the sake of the Mother Country and the Empire. And who were thus slaughtered in their tens of thousands in the trenchs of Europe during WWI.

It is only now, and beginning with the American war against the people of Vietnam, which was the first war that could be observed every night on TV, that there is even the possibility of such occurring. Only the possibility.

I am sure the people in the former Soviet Union did not get to see what was happening in Afghanistan on Russian TV. Or in Georgia/Chechnya in more recent times.

And what about the murderous activities of the charming outfit which is the subject of this site:

http://www.soaw.org

Of course, in our dreadful sanity, we could all choose to watch the Shock and Awe assault on Iraq - in full colour too! But of course we could not see the blood and guts or smithereened bodies, or the screams of terror of the the victims of this Shock and Awe.

Or the now devastated state of Iraq altogether in December 2010.

We all know that in the case of Iraq there was very tight censorship as to what could be "officially" reported by the officially approved embedded "journalists".

The way things are going we might even get to see the beginning of the ultimate holocaust, or meltdown of civilization altogether, on our TV screens too. Until some one pulls the plug on, or deliberately destroys our power supply, or deliberately shuts down the system.

Okay I would like to know if they were what would happen?

Not much I do not think there is anyone who is blinded by their governments and fully believe everything that is said about things like this. Why not ask the question why do people join the defence forces?

I can only talk for myself that it was out of wanting to do something for my country, out of job security and at a time jobs and training was a little hard to get. It was not to fight in a war, or defend from a enemy. I am aware that some people have joined for those reasons but this is really the question more so than why are wars not being reported honestly

Yes Poirot, nasty governments ! Bad governments !

After all, the options in, say, Afghanistan are:

* the Yanks continue the war against the Islamists;

* the Taliban take over the country and make it a have nfor Islamists;

* peace.

Now if only we could somehow work up that third option ......

Perhaps Mr Bilger has some positive suggestions - in addition to cheap and easy, populist gripes ?

Joe

Loudmouth,

Whatever a government represents, it's basic logic that if you want to protect classified information then you make sure your internal security systems are rock solid.