"You Mean You Won't Shoot My Ass Off For Doing My Job? Uh....Thanks." The British Ministry of Defense (MoD) released a statement today that I'm sure has journalists world-wide breathing a sigh of relief:

UK forces on operations will never deliberately target either individual correspondents or civil media facilities".

Thank goodness. Reporting will be so much easier now that the UK Army is off our backs. The statement goes on to say:

...although UK forces will not target journalists, media representatives must recognise that war creates extremely hazardous environments and mistakes "resulting from misidentification, weapon systems failure or mal-location" may result.

Mal-location? I think I've been there once.

The announcement also claims the UK Armed forces has no special responsibility to protect journalists, other than those laid out in the Geneva Convention.

In other words, the British military is saying something roughly akin to, "I'm going to swing my arms and walk towards you. If you get hit, its your own damn fault".

Does anyone else find it odd that a western government is going out of its way to sate that it won't blow up reporters on purpose? Call me crazy, but I always thought that was more or less a given. Live and learn.  ¶ 5:23 a.m.