John D. McHugh of the Guardian embeds with the US Army, and provides a reasoned description of his expedition. This is a more sober affair and far removed from the dilettantes of CiF. Note how the embedding agreement is a conscious negotiation between military fairness and conscious scepticism, as it should be.
Before I can get the ID, I have to sign the embedding agreement. This sets out the parameters of what I can and cannot do during my time with the army. Despite accusations embeds are controlled and manipulated, the agreement is not the draconian affair often cited by those opposed to the whole process. There are obvious restrictions any army must put in place if it is to balance a free press with operational security. I will often be told of impending operations, including troop numbers, deployment, timing, etc. If I published these details in advance the plans would be useless.
There are other rules, but I would probably breach OpSec (operational security) just by talking about them. There are one or two I do object to, because I believe they are politically motivated, not militarily, but I have found ways to wriggle around them before. I will again.
What I am trying to explain is this: I have never been stopped by US forces from photographing or filming anything I have seen; I have never been stopped from seeing events unfold. In fact, once I was travelling with a US lieutenant colonel to the mountains of Paktia. I asked him if there was anyone I couldn't photograph, because of the ban on images of special forces or their equipment. Instead he said he wanted to be told if anyone refused to be photographed. "That means they are up to something they shouldn't be," he said
Still, the discourse is familiar, as some of the readers will think that the US is entirely evil:
The phrase hearts and minds has been much sullied. But the concept is
sound, and I believe that these medical services do more than anything
else to convince the ordinary Afghan that the US is not entirely evil.