Putting journalists in line of fire

Why do you think it is that you know anything at all about ISIS? Or al-Qaeda? Or the war in Syria, the war in Libya, the war in Yemen, the war in Gaza, the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, the war in Ukraine? Journalists, that’s why. Journalists, of course, aren’t the only ones whose lives are on the line in wars. There are professional soldiers and homegrown militias, aid workers and medical personnel, and civilians caught in the line of fire. But the people day in and day out who are risking their lives to tell you what’s going on in the big bad world out there are the journalists.

I worked wars for a long time, dodging everything from artillery to bullets to machetes. In one particularly bad year, I made it through but lost three journalist friends to warfare: in Nicaragua, in Lebanon and in Iran, where a reporter from the Los Angeles Times was shot to death right next to me.

Last year was awfully bad for journalists in general: The Committee to Protect Journalists counts 61 killed in the line of duty. Most died in the middle of wars.

That’s what makes one small part of a very long report issued by the Pentagon earlier this summer, the “Department of Defense Law Of War Manual,” so dangerous. Most of the directives in the manual are necessary and constructive, calling for “self-control … under the stresses of combat,” and “prohibitions on torture and unnecessary destruction.” They are about a soldier’s duties and a soldier’s rights.

But then there’s the part about journalists. It uses language meant to describe the role journalists play and define the risks journalists face. But it ends up giving authoritarian leaders — which certainly includes any of our enemies today, whether sovereign governments or not — a ready-to-use set of charges against any journalist they don’t like. In many parts of the world, that means all of them.

One example from the manual: “In some cases, the relaying of information (such as providing information of immediate use in combat operations) could constitute taking a direct part in hostilities.” Another: “Civilian journalists who engage in hostilities against a State may be punished by that State after a fair trial.” And the worst: “Reporting on military operations can be very similar to collecting intelligence or even spying.”

Imagine those phrases in the hands of our enemies when they have a journalist in their sights.

If the Pentagon believes in the value of information it can’t collect itself, not to mention the right of all Americans to a free flow of information, it should erase what it wrote.