The Vietnam War (or the American War as the Vietnamese call it) was the first war to be covered in all of its gore on television and in the media. Few who ever saw it could easily forget the shocking imagery when the South Vietnamese General Nguyen Ngoc Loan executed a Vietcong fighter with a bullet shot to the head. It helped to make the US population aware of the brutality of the war they were waging in Vietnam and shaped the resistance to the war.

By the time the Iraq war came round, lessons had been learned. Journalists and camera crews were 'embedded' and in return for titbits from the Generals, according to one report at the time...

The New York Times correspondents live in Baghdad behind a massive stockade with four watchtowers, protected by locally hired, rifle-toting security men, complete with NYT T-shirts. America's NBC television chain are holed up in a hotel with an iron grille over their door, forbidden by their security advisers to visit the swimming pool or the restaurant "let alone the rest of Baghdad" lest they be attacked. Several Western journalists do not leave their rooms while on station in Baghdad.

The Israelis have tried to go one step further by banning the media from entering Gaza. Even the Israeli Government with its almost total disregard for international opinion know the images of fatalities in Gaza will be very powerful, and they have done everything they can to prevent the media getting in, whilst at the same time showing graphic images of the impact of missiles in Southern Israel.

However, technology moves on. The power of internet and e-mail means that people can get a worldwide distribution of their images out into the world within minutes of an explosion. The various Iraqi bloggers were able to paint graphic pictures of life inside a war zone, and the same thing is happening in Gaza. The revolution may not be televised, but the internet war is the future.