That may be true but a couple things have changed since those very dated sample points. (1) Definition of journalist (2) quantity of journalists (3) willingness to be on the very front lines in order to get better stories (4) technology enabling journalists thus being able to be more dangerous spots. (5) speculation -> journalists who are using press credentials as cover
I'm neither way on the conflict but want to correct some of your arguments assumptions that lead your conclusion astray.
Yes if you google 'how many journalists died in WW2' in Russian you get numbers from a couple of hundred to over a thousand for the Soviet Union alone. The 69 number listed at https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/30/world/middleeast/30embed.... is almost certainly just US journalists.
Tbf, a lot of those victims were due to dubious strategic choices. They could have probably conceded Stalingrad, for example, and refused to simply because of the propaganda angle. That battle alone was an absolute meat-grinder, and didn't really have to be.
But yes, the overall cost in human lives was higher for the Soviet Union than for any other country or federation.
Stalingard was a trap for the 6th Army, which was beyond overextended and undersupplied. I have a strong prior that giving up Stalingrad and allowing Germans and their allies to resupply would've caused even more causalties, especially considering the Soviets would have had to attack over Volga. That final Russian bridgehead in Stalingrad was a horrible place, I imagine.
No, that was "the great war" that started with what's called "WWI" by many and ended with what's called "WWII". Basically, one big war with a really long intermission.
Ah, you are one of the people seeing WW1 and 2 as the new 30 years war. Ok. Still wrong saying tze assination started WW2, and oversimolyfied saying it started WW1.
Worth pointing out that your view is still not mainstream.
They are linked, for sure. The Versaille treaty and reparations did not directly cause the Nazi's rise to power so. I know it is a popular believe, it is just not the case. At best, they were a Nazi talking point. After all, the pre-Nazi goverment got rid of them. Same for the economic downturn, no direct link to Nazi popularity. It simply made it a little bit easier for them.
Re WW1: The assassination gave the Austrians the excuse to pose excagerated demands on Serbia. Because Austrian leadership, politically but especially military, wanted to conquer the Balkans. Austria got German support for those demands after Russia got involved on Serbias side, Germany was affraid a war with Russia was inevitable and would be unwinnable for Germany at a later date (history would proof both of these points correct).
Proof for the assassination being a welcome excuse, and not the reason: Serbia agreed to basically all of Austria's demands. Austria refused on basis of minor details, and the fact thatvthey needed an excuse. Back the day, formal declarations of war and acceptable excuses were still a thing in diplomacy, truely more civilized days in some regards.
After Austria declared war on Serbia, and launched its almost failed invasion, all the existing treaties kicked in: Austria and Germany declared war on Russia, France and Britain declared war on the central powers, including the Ottoman Empire, and events couldn't be stopped anymore. After all, everyone believen it would be a quick affaire, akin to the war of 1870. Didn't work out like that.
After the war, the German Empire was no more. The ancient guard and Prussian royalists were as opposed to the Weimar Republic as were the communists and Nazis (they came later). The result was a mess politically. When the conservatives failed to gain a majority in parliament, in part because society driffted away from the middle to the fringes left and right (immensly supported by mas media, radio, and Hitlers and the Nazis brilliant use of that as well as air travel, Hitler sometimes held two rallies the same day in different parts of Germany), they formed a coalition led by tze NSDAP. Conservative leadership hoped they could control the "Austrian private". They couldn't.
Which brings me to another myth: The Nazis were never led legitimate government. Truth is, they did. The first election on 1933 was in deed free and as fair as the other ones in the Weimar era. The fact that the NSDAP needed a coalition is normal, Germany was back the, and is today, a multi-party system. The times one party won a majority and not a mere plurality are extremely rare. Hence, the fust Nazi-led government was legitimate, they won that role fair and square.
The interesting, and today extremely important, part is thus: Once the Nazis were in power, they lost no time dismantling democracy from within. The next election the same year were the opposite of free and fair. The Nazis used their party apparatus, very well established across Germany, as a shadow govenrmwnt and administration. They used violence and every other trick in the book to manipulate the election outcome. It worked, they won a majority. And with that majority, their shadow party government and the additional powers assigned to the Chancellor, thay took power. When Hindenburg died, they merged the powers of Prwsident and Chancellor into the role of the Fuhrer, and their power grab was done.
The lesson of this being: democracies are a fragile beast, they can be attacked and destroyed from within if we are not carefull. And when this happens, well, the outcome usually is very, very ugly. Everybody should keep that in mind when they vote in 2024, regardless of where they are.
What? That Germany started WW2 by attacking Poland in cahoots with the USSR? How is that wrong?
Edit: The European theatre, in Asia the war started earlier when Japan invaded China. The most commonly understood start of WW2 was thebinvasion of Poland and the resulting declarations of war.
The narrative that USSR started the war, surrounding the "Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact" often misinterprets it as a partnership between the Nazis and Soviets to undermine the sovereignty of Central and Eastern European nations. Typically misrepresented as an "alliance," this controversial "nonaggression" pact, which included undisclosed provisions, was actually the culmination of a complex and urgent sequence of events. It's noteworthy that similar agreements had previously been established with Nazi Germany, such as Britain's naval arms agreement in 1934, and a nonaggression pact with Poland that same year. Additionally, it was almost exclusively the Soviet Union that took a stand against fascist forces in the Spanish Civil War two years later, offering support to the democratically elected government facing a fascist uprising, without the backing of other international powers.
Finally the infamous Munich agreement of 1938, where Britain and France agreed to the dismemberment of the last democratic and multinational state in Central and East Europe, Czechoslovakia, occurred without any consultation with the Soviets.
Appeasement was a failure. And enabled Hitler a lot. It also gave him legitimacy.
And no, the USSR did not start the war, that "honour" goes to Germany. The USSR did grap its portion of Poland so.
Regarding Munich, even worse, Czechoslovakia wasn't really consulted neither.
Edit: The war in Europe was ended by all allies, including the USSR. And that the USSR did most of the fighting, and dying outside the holocaust, should be crystal clear to everyone who ever read a short history of WW2 on wikipedia.
> (1) Definition of journalist (2) quantity of journalists (3) willingness to be on the very front lines in order to get better stories (4) technology enabling journalists thus being able to be more dangerous spots.
How have these things changed, and how have the changes affected the number of journalists killed? The changes could reduce the number.
My point is, we need much less speculation and possibilities, and much more credible fact. CPJ provides some credible fact.
Internet does not allow nearly all to be publishers? Does not foster many small online news sources? Has number of news sources not gone up with rise of the internet? Outsourcing of news collection by global news sources to (technology connected) hired locals has not gone up? Number doing (and claiming to be doing) journalism has not gone up?
TFA has a list of those included, who they worked for, and the circumstances of their death. I saw one that was only credited with having a podcast (which has 225k followers on their instagram account,) and a few others that seemed to work for smaller local websites and whatnot, but it seems like the vast majority had affiliations with established news agencies.
I think the argument is that its a lot easier to protect journalists if there are very few journalists in the war zone, so absolute numbers are the wrong way to look at it.
So you don’t think there is a difference between a huge front across a country, and a tiny blob of very densely packed land, with a huge population density? Just something as simple as the chance of a bomb exploding near you is significantly higher in case of one.
I think the US chose not to level Baghdad and if it had, it would’ve been at least as catastrophic as what’s going on in Gaza. So no it’s not merely a matter of a different situation, it’s a matter of different decisions.
I am however pointing out the very significant differences between what the original comment is referring to and what is happening and what might be driving the largest (if true) difference in numbers.
I didn’t say you were. I am pointing out a more directly analogous war to demonstrate that similar militaries have waged similar wars against similar adversaries for far, far greater spans of time yielding far fewer journalist deaths.
I am also pointing out that “this war is extra hard to prosecute” is not actually justification for certain actions. The difficulty of fighting the war falls on the people fighting the war, including the difficulty of protecting civilians during that war. What else would any standards or laws mean if that weren’t the case? The whole premise of these standards is to set a ceiling on what sort of awful conditions can be allowed during warfare.
> The onus of protecting journalists (and medical workers) falls on the military regardless of how difficult the war they’re trying to prosecute is.
No it doesn't?
Just searched the International Criminal Court's English document on war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity for 'journalist' and found no results.
1. Onus doesn’t mean legal requirement. Civilized nations can be, should be, and generally are held to standards far exceeding legal statutes.
2. They DO have an actual legal obligation to protect journalists as well, try searching for “civilian.” If they are targeting journalists (read: civilians) that would obviously be illegal.
> Onus doesn’t mean legal requirement. Civilized nations can be, should be, and generally are held to standards far exceeding legal statutes.
Are they? USA literally has a law on the books that authorizes bombing the netherlands if any of their troops are ever held responsible. Trump pardoned 4 people who masacared civilians (including 2 children) in Iraq
The west doesn't just not go beyond the legal requirements, it flouts the legal requirements when convinent.
GP is referring to the "Hague Invasion Act", aka "American Service-Members' Protection Act of 2002" passed under GW Bush to authorize a US invasion of The Hague, to protect American officials and military personnel from prosecution [by the ICC] or rescue them from custody. Originally drafted in response to the Iraq invasion.
Oh dear... I knew the US is one of the few to not recognize the ICC. Never heard of Section 2008. The wording so interesting, especially part covering also people of NATO allies: So theoretically, the US could sent Seal Team Six to extract a member of the Dutch armed forces from The Hague, and attack a NATO member in order to free a citizen from said NATO member. Theoretically, right after Seal Team Six delivered a wanted war criminal to The Hague. Well, I guess at least the strike is easy to position in that case...
Thanks for the throw back to the times of bad George W. policy and laws, almost forgot how bad it was over everything that happened since 2016...
You said "protecting" and protection is far different from "not target".
We have laws for an important reason, without them it's up to any individual to decide for themselves what is just at any given moment. What happens when Israel decides that what's fair and just seems barbaric to you or me? We agree on the rules ahead of time so that we can act accordingly.
If you want war crimes to include "must protect journalists", then I'd suggest your best chance at realizing that goal would be to get the legal codes modified.
You said journalists, not civilians. If you want to talk about civilians now not journalists, that's a new topic.
Sorry, correction, Concentration Camp would be a proper term in this case. Prison implies a crime, the only crime is that they are born in an occupied land by a brutal occupier.
The Israelis are the ones setting those parameters and creating the conditions, though. It's not a "gotcha" to point out that journalists are also affected along with the other noncombatants.
> but all you can muster is evidence that journalists are not being targeted but are rather being killed at rates of other civilians.
No, they are being killed at much faster rate, to the point of depletion in relation to other civilians. Look at this plot: https://imgur.com/a/SWNSYOn
In my first post in this thread I did a detailed estimate that for the curve to bend this way, the journalists must be decimated with odds between 51:1 - 96:1 higher when compared to other civilians. This post got heavily downvoted and now sits at the bottom of the thread, but you can read the full explanation there.
Is it actually a reasonable assumption that journalists die at the same rate as civilians? Arguably, journalists are much more susceptible to go to dangerous places, close to actual combat, etc, for better videos.
In my estimates I used a biased urn model. Given the number of remaining journalists is very small when compared to total population (hundreds vs. millions), the final proportions should still be similar, unless the risk disparity is huge enough to overcome the effect of four order of magnitude difference in absolute number between groups.
Some of the individual incidents do point pretty strongly to deliberate acts. The incidents in Lebanon, for example, rule out a lot of the "proximity" reasoning, as do the methods and types of weapons.
I'm neither way on the conflict but want to correct some of your arguments assumptions that lead your conclusion astray.