Jon Leidecker wrote:
  
Anyway, the main reason I mention this is that I later went to
find any mention of this "unexpected resistance", so honestly and
dramatically reported by the BBC, in the American press. nothing.
everything was going acccording to plan....
Every channel is covering all aspects, just at different times, it takes several hours to hear the cycles though.  As for the "unexpected resistance" that's up to the interpretation of the reporter.  and guess what, the people who are less happy with this military operation tend to use that terminology.  it's day 4.  they probably haven't seen "light", "easy" "heavy" "unexpected" "naked" "banana" resistance yet.  it's interesting watching the terminology used by each channel.  in the US most reporters use "US collalition forces", on BBC for an hour yesterday, those same forces were all "American", in the Arab Media it's the "Evil Empire" in Iraq it's something else.  The same thing with the Shock and Awe bombing.  At first since everyone was assuming the imaginary stat of 3,000 munition, it was the be all end all, well after day 1 it was only several hundred munitions, then the bombing became "Heavy", and every day since the terminology has changed.  remember it's only day 4-5 now, to talk about another statement in another e-mail, it was talked about 'where is the food' the Humanitarian Aid... are you serious... nothing is certain, every household could have a soldier in it and they might all decided to come out.  we've just drove by, the Humanitarian Aid is still several days away, depending on the 'Resistance' given by the locations along the route.  one of the keys now is getting the French Chem Unit (they sent the unit to our bases 2 days ago, briefly mentioned in reports but not dwelt on) into the supposted Chem Plant.  If they give the signal that it is a Chem Plant, then the world can decide to get on board.  that could be a major shift.  there's alot of stuff happening.   nanny nanny boo boo
that's all I meant by 'filters are off'...  a lot of stuff gets broadcast
exactly once, by networks who are desperate to fill airtime, it's just more
content to them.  Filters come into play when they compile the highlights
of the day's events for prime time...

A good example of this, is when they went to an embedded reporter near Naseriah (sp?) he was at the front line, and fairly clearly a soldier was heard saying "die, motherfucker",  your not going to see that clip again anytime soon.

though reports of 'strong resistance' have finally trickled to domestic
websites.  it's official, day 4 didn't go so well for the 'coalition'...

The coverage waves through all the different opinions.  Like on FoxNews, they interviewed an ex-relative of Saddam, who living in England still has ties with the family.  Well all he could say was that Saddam was still alive.  but they gave him a full segment 3-4 minutes and he repeated it over and over.  when asked for proof or anything substantial, just like Tariq Aziz, nothing could be given, but he was able to say over and over that Saddam was alive.

having Al-Jazeera around is a fantastic thing, even thought their coverage is odd, that tape from the other day is proof of why we were there.  and we'll see if the Arab world understands it. (heck most of you probably don't believe it)  after watching the Iraqi military play with the dead bodies, they start to ask questions to the soldier.  (i'm paraphrasing here) question "Why are you here" answer "because we were told"  question "What you feel about Iraqi" answer "nothing, i have no problem with Iraqi people" some other questions about name rank etc. then the soldier says something like "i don't want to kill Iraqis, if you shoot at me i'll shoot at you"  this same answer was given by another of the capture soldiers.  sure you can play all the mind games you want, but this is probably the first time this was heard by the Arab population from a normal US citizen.  (can't remember but i don't think the english though is translated into Arabic languages, so they might not get the message right away, but it's being played a ton suppostedly so we'll see if anyone believes the soldiers)  if you have the stomach, i suggest you watch it.  anyway, if military is left alone to solve battles, only one soldier will be left, there are governments and public opinion which are the other side of the equation, influence it as you will.

PeterALopez
i watch tv.