War coverage should be more than a parade of retired generals and retired government flacks posing as reporters.

In one of his final acts in office, President Obama shortened the sentences of 209 prisoners, pardoned 64 individuals .The list included Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning, longtime imprisoned Puerto Rican independence activist Oscar López Rivera and retired U.S. Marine Corps General James Cartwright. But missing from the list is 71-year-old Native American activist Leonard Peltier.

But for the media to name their coverage of the 2003 invasion of Iraq the same as what the Pentagon calls it — everyday seeing 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' — you have to ask: 'If this were state controlled media, how would it be any different?'

I really do think that if for one week in the United States we saw the true face of war, we saw people's limbs sheared off, we saw kids blown apart, for one week, war would be eradicated. Instead, what we see in the U.S. media is the video war game.

The media—stenographers to power.

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War coverage should be more than a parade of retired generals and retired government flacks posing as reporters.