War Is Boring

Well, this is embarrassing.

U.S. Navy SEAL commandos deployed to the Horn of Africa have refined hostage rescue to a lethal art. But their recent success in retrieving kidnapped Westerners comes at a cost. Every rescue forces Somali criminals and terrorists to change their own tactics. The result is an arms race of sorts as SEALs and kidnappers try to stay ahead of the other. Aid workers, journalists and ship’s crews — the usual targets of Somali ransom plots — are caught in the middle.

Just one reporter had the unconstrained ability to get a bird’s-eye view on police action during the height of the Occupy protests. Tim Pool, a 26-year-old independent video journalist, began sending a customized two-foot-wide robot–made by French company Parrot–whirring over the police’s and protestors’ heads. The camera-equipped ‘bot streamed live video to Pool’s smartphone, which relayed the footage to a public Internet stream.

So it appears that Neil Tolley, the general who accused me of fabricating quotes attributed to him, has either been fired or has voluntarily stepped down — though it’s also possible he was due to be replaced in any event.

Five days after falsely accusing me of “making up” quotations I attributed to him, it appears Brig. Gen. Neil Tolley, commander of Special Operations Forces for U.S. Forces Korea, has either been fired or has voluntarily stepped down. Per a Pentagon press release dated today, his replacement is …

Briefer: Capt. John Kirby, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Media Operations

Finally! Lt. Col. Jim Gregory called. This is what he said.

Three years ago a physically disabled Chinese man unwittingly broke the law when he shot video of a military airbase in eastern China and uploaded the footage to his website. Huang Moumou’s subsequent arrest and conviction for leaking state secrets is a surprising wrinkle in the tale of China’s “accidental spies.” Civilians with cameras are Beijing’s preferred method of revealing military developments to the world. But only, it seems, when the civilians stick to the government’s script.

On Dec. 22, 2010, someone apparently pointed a cellphone out of the window of a car driving along a public road outside the perimeter of a military airfield in Chengdu, an industrial city in central China. The person holding the phone, whose name has never been revealed, snapped a photo of a black-painted jet fighter taxiing through fog blanketing the airfield.

The Australian Institute of International Affairs published an interview with me that they labelled a “career snapshot.” I honestly don’t recall giving this interview, but let me tell you: I was in rare form. Asked what advice I would give to young reporters considering taking up war journalism, my response was classic Axe.

Marielle Uitert is a conflict photographer who has worked in Afghanistan, Iraq, and West Africa. She has made a book about her experiences in Afghanistan called Bye Bye Bullshit.

University of South Carolina communications department dean Charles Bierbauer responds to the outrage following my recent speeches.