Friedman: Flying blind in Iraq and Syria

The Islamic State has accompanied its brutal takeover of large swaths of Iraq and Syria with the kidnapping and beheading of journalists.

Any Western journalists who would dare to venture into Islamic State territory today would be risking their lives every second.

So the United States is now involved in the first prolonged war in the modern Middle East that American reporters and photographers can't cover firsthand on a daily basis, with the freedom to observe and write what they please and with the sustained presence to offer perspective on how the story is evolving.

That is not good.

But it gets worse. The New York Times reported last week that the Islamic State had one of its British hostages act as a combat reporter in a propaganda video from the Syrian town of Kobani, 'forecasting that the town is about to fall to militants despite waves of American airstrikes' and suggesting that the Islamic State was getting even more savvy in promoting its cause by adopting the techniques of a 24-hour news channel.

' 'Hello, I'm John Cantlie,' the hostage says in the video, dressed in black, 'and today we are in the city of Kobani on the Syrian-Turkish border. That is, in fact, Turkey right behind me.' '

And it will get even worse. Dylan Byers, Politico's media reporter, wrote on Oct. 23 that the FBI had sent a bulletin to news organizations warning that the Islamic State had identified reporters and media personalities as 'legitimate targets for retribution attacks' in response to the U.S.-led airstrikes.

What are we missing by not having reporters permanently present inside Islamic State territory? A lot. We can't answer for ourselves important questions: How is our bombing campaign being perceived? Is it drawing Islamic State fighters and local Iraqi Sunnis closer together or pushing them apart? How is the Islamic State governing, running schools and the justice system, and how is this perceived by Iraqis and Syrians under its rule? What motivates so many losers and lost souls to join this jihadist movement? Do we have the right message directed at them? I could go on.

Retiring Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns recently authored a piece in Foreign Policy magazine with his parting advice to U.S. diplomats. He quoted Edward R. Murrow, the CBS News giant, advising incoming diplomats that the 'really critical link in the international communications chain is the last three feet, which is best bridged by personal contact — one person talking to another.'

The same is true for reporters and photographers. Sure, polls, graphs and Twitter feeds are important. They are one form of data. But interviewing another human being about hopes and dreams, fears and hatreds, is also a form of data collecting and analysis — something the best diplomats, journalists and historians rely upon.

You can't capture in numbers a raised eyebrow or a wry smile or the fear in a refugee's eyes or the regret in a militiaman's voice. Sometimes just listening to someone's silence speaks volumes.

I often reflect on interviews I did with Egyptian women at an all-female voting station in the poorest neighborhood in Cairo in the 2012 election that brought a Muslim Brotherhood leader to the presidency.

Almost all of them had voted for the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, Mohammed Morsi.

But when I asked why, not a single one cited religion. Instead they said that Morsi would bring jobs, security, sidewalks, better living conditions and an end to corruption — in short, better governance.

Morsi was eventually toppled for bringing none of those, not because he was impious.

Recently, Vice News used the veteran Al-Jazeera and Arabic photojournalist Medyan Dairieh to produce a compelling documentary from Syria, called 'The Islamic State.' But that was a one-shot deal done with 'conditions in order to get in and get out with your life,' Jason Mojica, the Vice News editor-in-chief, told a panel at NYU, according to the Huffington Post.

I asked Mina al-Oraibi, assistant editor of the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat, how an Arabic daily covered the Islamic State, also known as ISIS:

'We have our correspondents supported by a few local stringers who risk their lives by being in touch with us from Iraq. However, we have a blackout from ISIS-controlled areas in Syria, especially Raqqa. In Iraq, our use of phones and emails to get information leaves us worried about the safety of these reporters, and often they are working without knowing how they will eventually get paid. … Having said that, our coverage is enriched by networks of Iraqis and Syrians reaching out to tell us their stories, in addition to relations with Iraqis, Syrians and other Arabs who have either interacted with some ISIS militants or had relations with them when they were under other banners.'

But the reality, she added, 'is that much of what we know is either from ISIS militants, or anecdotal stories from observers or people with families in places controlled by ISIS.'

Indeed, the Islamic State is telling us what it wants us to know through Twitter and Facebook, and keeping from us anything it doesn't want us to know.

So be wary of what anyone tells you about this war — good, bad or indifferent. Without independent reporting on the ground, we're in for some surprises. If you don't go, you don't know.

Thomas Friedman is a columnist for the New York Times.