Posted on 02/17/2005 1:39:29 PM PST by RWR8189
from NEWS DISSECTOR:
DO THEY KILL JOURNALISTS?
I am citing these stories to show also how war desensitizes soldiers and leads to abuses especially when the polices set on high encourages such abuses. So why should journalists be spared?
I would add that it is this type of systematic conduct that makes Eason Jordan's charges of abuses against journalists all the more believable. I am beginning to get letters from soldiers who acknowledge it too. Here's one:
ARMY RESERVE MAJOR WRITES
"I am a Major in the USAR who was mobilized under Enduring Freedom. The unit I am in is a training support division which conducts simulation exercises for battalion, brigade, and division level commands using various computer simulation systems.
"I met a guy who came to the unit after his tour in Iraq. He was part of the very first armor unit to roll into Baghdad. He told me that when they saw any Iraqi males on the street, even though they were unarmed and just standing watching tanks roll by, his unit would just "fire them up".
"He said the guy who "fired up" the Al Jazeera journalists in the hotel was a tank battalion commander who was a lieutenant colonel who knew that was where the Al Jazeera journalists were.
[NOTE: THE FACTS HERE ARE A BIT OFF ?THE JOURNALISTS KILLED IN THE HOTEL WERE NOT AL JAZEERA BUT MAYBE THE TANK COMMANDER THOUGHT THEY WERE! AFTER ALL, 'SEEN ONE NON-EMBEDDED JOURNALIST, SEEN THEM ALL' ?DS]
"A target like this would not be nailed by a private of corporal, it would have to be done by someone with some weight so that no private could come back and say, "The commander told me to do it so I followed his orders."
"So find out what was the first armor unit in Baghdad and then start talking to troops. The guys I know in combat arms units would have no problem knocking off Al Jazeera journalists by viewing them as insurgent forces who are part of the "propaganda effort" of the enemy."
I have no way of checking out all of these observations but the attitudes sound right, even if some of the details may be confused. To some soldiers, all the non-embedded journalists were considered supportive of "the enemy."
SCAHILL: EASON JORDAN IS RIGHT!
Jeremy Scahill of Democracy Now who reported from Baghdad comments on this story in the Nation:
"Eason Jordan's comment was hardly a radical declaration. He was expressing a common view among news organizations around the world. "We have had three deaths, and they were all non-embedded, non-coalition nationals and they were all at the hands of the US military, and the reaction of the US authorities in each case was that they were somehow justified," David Schlesinger, Reuters' global managing editor, said in November. "What is the US' position on nonembeds? Are nonembedded journalists fair game?"
"One of the BBC's top news anchors, Nik Gowing, said recently that he was "speak[ing] for a large number of news organizations, many of whom are not really talking publicly about this at the moment," when he made this statement about the dangers facing reporters in Iraq: "The trouble is that a lot of the military ? particularly the American? military ? do not want us there. And they make it very uncomfortable for us to work. And I think that this?is leading to security forces in some instances feeling it is legitimate to target us with deadly force and with impunity."
"The US military has yet to discipline a single soldier for the killing of a journalist in Iraq. While some incidents are classified as "ongoing investigation[s]," most have been labeled self-defense or mistakes."
www.thenation.com
No one can ever accuse the WSJ of being in touch with what is going on on Mainstreet. This inbred bunch of country clubbers
were suspicious of Reagan and true conservatives from the beginning of the revolution, regarding Reagan's armies as lower caste. They are as scared as the NYT that they are becoming less relevant by the day. Too bad...we don't need them.
Have you got a link for that?
Meanwhile, an American journalist, who was former vice-president Al Gore's photographer, is missing in Iraq along with two other US journalists taken from their Baghdad hotel. Molly Bingham was taken by Iraqi police from her room in the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad last Tuesday, said her cousin, Clara Bingham, adding that the family feared Iraq believed she was a spy. "They searched her room, packed up all her belongings and they took her away," said Ms Bingham in an interview with ABC's Good Morning America program. "We are really frantic at this stage," she said. Two other journalists working for New York's Newsday newspaper also disappeared last Tuesday from the Palestine Hotel and are still missing. They are Matthew McAllester, 33, and photographer Moises Saman, 29.
So, now.. what. That's the military's fault too??? 20,000 independent journalists running around Iraq and someone expects the military to babysit them? Why the heck weren't those jouno's reporting on Saddams torture and rape rooms.. why is it that the slant is ALWAYS against the Americans.. If that doesn't tell you they supported a genocidal maniac, I don't know what else could.. If they are there to GET THE STORY OUT.. then why the hell havent' they? Maybe they just didn't give a crap about the Iraqi people in the first place. ]
Well, he restored the phone, but killed the DSL, which was working, so I'm on dialup until they can "resolve the problem"-- sometime next week.
I swear, BellSouth used to be fast, and courteous. They really need to treat customers better.
I've been dealing with them today, too! TOO LONG!
I don't understand the business model they are using- you do not have a business very long without customers, and treating them shabbily is a good way to drive them to another competitor. Last time the phone was out- about 3 weeks ago- it was dead for a week, until they finally sent a lineman to inspect the lines.
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