Why We Fight (38 of 48)

Why We Fight

LEWIS: We have this idea that we have lots of information available.
There's so much that's not available, and so much of the "truth" is obscured by political actors who don't want the world to see what they're doing.
Needless to say, the President is correct.
(ALL LAUGHING) But what's going on, I'm sorry to say, is a belief that the public doesn't need to know.
WOMAN: Policy is I'm...
I'm working my way over to figuring out how I won't answer that.
(ALL LAUGHING) RATHER: Limiting access, limiting information to cover the backsides of those who are in charge of the war is extremely dangerous and cannot and shouldn't be accepted.

And I'm sorry to say that up to and including the moment of this interview that overwhelmingly it has been accepted.
KWIATKOWSKl: The Pentagon for many years now, since Vietnam, has worked extremely hard at shaping news and how the media reports that news.
We train people to say certain things in a certain way.
Our defeat and humiliation in South Vietnam...
JOHNSON: What they learned from Vietnam above all was that they lost the war because they couldn't keep it private from the American public.
LEWIS: After the Vietnam War, the Pentagon began studying how can we make sure there are no more body bags in American living rooms?
And we must find a way to no longer allow reporters in the field to actually see death.
JOHNSON: You get to the Iraq war when they're discovering this new typical Pentagon jargon called "embedding."
Heavy gunfire coming from the tops of the building.
We've gotten to know these Marines very well.
We...
We do live with them.
We eat with them.
We travel with them.
But I...
I have, I think, remained objective.