
The man who shot down a Baby Killer - olibates
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tees-37164689
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pmoriarty
_" This success in the skies above London, which saw him awarded the Victoria
Cross just 48 hours later, was due to a mixture of the 21-year-old's own
bravery, an improved defence strategy and a revolutionary flammable bullet."_

I've always found it interesting how you virtually never see stories with this
sort of tone or content (using positively charged words like "bravery" or
talking about military honors) from the BBC about soldiers on the German side,
unless they were effectively acting on their side.

Similarly, you virtually never see articles detailing the lives and "bravery"
of Vietnamese soldiers, or Iraqi soldiers in the US mainstream media.

This is understandable (if not excusable) during the wars themselves, when
censorship and "patriotic" pro-war sentiment is rife, but now, decades after
those wars, it's interesting that the taboo still holds strong.

I'm sure there were many "brave" and interesting people and actions to write
about on all sides of any war, considering the number of people involved and
the historical drama of the events. But you really only hear from the
mainstream media of these countries about the "bravery" and "heroic" actions
of people on their own sides.

That may vary in Germany, considering the collective guilt many Germans feel
over their country's role in WW2. So stories of "heroic" Nazis are probably
not very prevalent there.

On the other hand, considering the allegedly unrepentant and arguably
revisionist views of many Japanese about Japan's role in WW2, there may be
more stories about "heroic" and "brave" Japanese soldiers still told in
Japanese mainstream media.

I don't read enough German or Japanese media to say, though it would be very
interesting to know if my guesses about them are right.

It would be similarly interesting to know how many stories of "brave" Iraqi
soldiers are told in the Iranian media, and of "brave" Iranian soldiers in the
Iraqi mainstream media, etc.

Because of this tendency, people who rely on only their own country's
mainstream news to paint them a picture of what happened during that war tend
to get a very one-sided and incomplete view. I personally see this as a great
failing of the mainstream media to educate and inform their viewers and
listeners on history. They could be doing a much better job.

