[Cross-posted from Freedom Camp!, because this issue really matters to me, and I want to give my .02 cents as full an airing as possible, so there.]
George Bush telling the American people the Iraq war needed to be fought is like me telling a potential date I've got washboard abs when what I've really got is one of those river boulders third-world housewives pound their laundry on; it's a teensy bit misleading. This war didn't need to be fought. Certain people wanted to fight it. The difference is huge.
Bill Maher is right. This is a war of luxury, not of necessity; there is no draft, no one's buying war bonds, there is no rationing of gas or food. Our leaders are not asking anyone on the "home front" to make any real sacrifices save for those civil liberties nobody seems to be using anyway (well, they are asking the poor to sacrifice of themselves in the form of sending family abroad, but I risk digression...) And in a war of luxury, journalists are the most reviled enemy.
When survival is at stake, butcher's bills and reports of civilian casualties, while heartbreaking, are not deal-breaking. If criminal acts are committed in the course of war, justice will be done, but we don't bother killing the messenger; we have more important things to think about -- you know, like survival. We the people are too busy plugging along, joining in the fight ourselves where necessary, because by definition there is nothing else we can do. Outside of the Quakers and Buddhists and other tiny minorities of true pacifists, there is no real dissent.
But when survival isn't at stake, when a foreign war is engaged in primarily for domestic political points, you can take it only so far; the people have a spending limit. And journalists are the ones printing out the receipts.
Mind that by journalists, I'm not talking about the Judy Millers and Andrea Mitchells and Chris Matthews, the complacent, compromised talking heads who are (sometimes literally) in bed with the ruling elite. The real dangers here are the Christiane Amanpours, the Riverbends, the Giuliana Sgrenas, the Ali Fadils -- the people who dig and ask questions and actually pay attention and have normal memory spans.
In a war of survival, journalists are welcome, or at least, not really minded -- with few exceptions it is expected they will be documenting heroism on every front, taking down the truth for a prayed-for posterity. In a war of luxury, journalists, documenting fraud and use of banned weapons and civilian casualties, are deadlier than any IED; for one thing, real reporters are murder on hard-won and expensive PR campaigns.
In a war of luxury, journalists are legitimate targets.