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April
26 / 27, 2003
Elaine
Cassel
The Other War: Bush, Ashcroft and
the End of Civil Liberties
Saul
Landau
Iraq War: a Policy of Christian and Jewish Fundamentalism
William
A. Cook
Sharon Recruits US as Mercenaries Against Syria
William
S. Lind
Now the Real War Starts
John Chuckman
In Jesus's Name:
Franklin Graham's Christian Empire
David
MacMichael and Ray McGovern
Ex-CIA Analysts on WMD: Where? Find?
Plant?
Gary Leupp
Why the War on Iraq was (and Remains) Wrong
Robert
Sandels
Cuba Crackdown: a Revolt Against Bush's National Security Strategy?
CounterPunch
Wire
An Open Letter to Jerry Brown on Oakland Police Violence Against
Peace Activists and Dock Workers
Mickey
Z.
Our Ba'athists
Anthony
Gancarski
Nader Plays Pullman
Scott
Handleman
The Mumia Abu-Jamal Case in Its True Colors
Claud Cockburn
Evelyn Waugh's Ear Trumpet
Poets'
Basement
Matt Simon, Sam Hamod, Hammond Guthrie and Stew Albert
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 4/26
April
25, 2003
David
Vest
It's Not the Oil; It's the Art!
Steven
Higgs
All About Tucker Carlson
Walt
Brasch
The Shock and Awe of American Ignorance
Alexander
Cockburn
The Decline of American Journalism:
the Case of Judy Miller
Zeynep
Toufe
A Letter to the People of Iraq from an Anti-War Activist
CounterPunch
Wire
Season of the Witch: Jeane Kirkpatrick Unbound
Hammond
Guthrie
Springtime in Iraq
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 4/25
Website
of the Day
Having
a Great Time, Wish You Were Here: Postcards from a War
April
24, 2003
Lois
Whitman
An Open Letter to Rumsfeld on the
Child Detainees at Guantanamo
Uri
Avnery
Abu vs. Abu: It's Not About Egos
David
Lindorff
Day Care in the Name of National Security? About Those Kids in
Camp X-Ray
John Grebe
Rev. Pat Robertson's Message in the Temple
Dokhi
Fassihian
Monster.Com: Ethnic Cleansing on the Web?
CounterPunch
Wire
Israeli Army Chief Threatens Peace Activists
Sam
Hamod
Our Man in Baghdad
Annie
C. Higgins
Do You Regret Being an American?
Harold
A. Gould
Will They Hate Us Forever?
Stew Albert
Big Brother in Bed
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 4/24
Website
of the Day
Muscles
Abroad
Hot Stories
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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April 29,
2003
Closing Down
the Press
Did the US Murder Journalists?
By ROBERT FISK
What is a journalist's life worth? I ask this
question for a number of reasons, some of them--frankly--quite
revolting. Two days ago, I went to visit one of my colleagues
wounded in the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. Samia Nakhoul
is a Reuters correspondent, a young woman reporter who is married
to another colleague, the Financial Times correspondent in Beirut.
Part of an American tank shell was embedded in her brain--a millimetre
difference in entry point and she would have been half paralysed--after
an M1A1 Abrams tank fired a round at the Reuters office in Baghdad,
in the Palestine Hotel, last week.
Samia, a brave and honourable lady who
has reported the cruelty of the Lebanese civil war at first hand
for many years, was almost destroyed as a human being by that
tank crew.
At the time, General Buford Blount of
the 3rd Infantry Division, told a lie: he said that sniper fire
had been directed at the tank--on the Joumhouriyah Bridge over
the Tigris river--and that the fire had ended "after the
tank had fired" at the Palestine Hotel. I was between the
tank and the hotel when the shell was fired. There was no sniper
fire--nor any rocket-propelled  grenade fire, as the American officer
claimed--at the time. French television footage of the tank,
running for minutes before the attack, shows the same thing.
The soundtrack--until the blinding, repulsive golden flash from
the tank barrel--is silent.
Samia Nakhoul wasn't the only one to
be hit. Her Ukrainian cameraman, father of a small child, was
killed. So was a Spanish cameraman on the floor above. And then
yesterday I had to read, in the New York Times, that Colin Powell
had justified the murder--yes, murder--of these two journalists.
This former four-star general--I'm talking about Mr Powell, not
the liar who runs the 3rd Infantry Division--actually said, and
I quote: "According to a US military review of the incident,
our forces responded to hostile fire appearing to come from a
location later identified as the Palestine Hotel... Our review
of the April 8th incident indicates that the use of force was
justified."
But it gets worse. A few hours before
I visited Samia, I was in Beirut with Mohamed Jassem al-Ali,
the managing director of the Qatar-based Arab al-Jazeera channel.
On that same day--8 April--that the American tank fired at the
Reuters office in Baghdad, an American aircraft fired a missile
at the al-Jazeera office in Baghdad. Mr al-Ali has given me a
copy of his letter to Victoria Clarke, the US Assistant Secretary
of State of Defence for Public Affairs in Washington, sent on
24 February this year. In the letter, he gives the address and
the map coordinates of the station's office in Baghdad--Lat:
33.19/29.08, Lon 44.24/03.63--adding that civilian journalists
would be working in the building.
The Americans were outraged at al-Jazeera's
coverage of the civilian victims of US bombing raids. And on
8 April, less than three hours before the Reuters office was
attacked, an American aircraft fired a single missile at the
al-Jazeera office _ at those precise map coordinates Mr al-Ali
had sent to Ms Clarke--and killed the station's reporter Tareq
Ayoub. "We find these events," Mr al-Ali wrote in his
slightly inaccurate English, "unjustifiable, unacceptable,
arousing all forms of anger and rejection and most of all need
an explanation."
And what did he get? Victoria Clarke
wrote a letter that was as inappropriate as it was "economical
with the truth". She offered her "condolences"
to the family and colleagues of Mr Ayoub and then went on to
write a preachy note to al-Jazeera. "Being close to the
action means being close to danger," she wrote. "...we
have gone to extraordinary [sic] lengths in Iraq to avoid civilian
casualties. Unfortunately, even our best efforts will not prevent
some innocents from getting caught in the crossfire [sic]...
Sometimes this results in tragedy. War by its very nature is
tragic and sad..."
Pardon me? Al-Jazeera asks why its office
was targeted and Ms Clarke tells the dead man's employer that
war is "sad"? I don't believe this. General Blount
lied about his tank crew on the Tigris river. "General"
Powell went along with this lie. And now Ms Clarke--who clearly
was told to write what she wrote since her letter is so trite--does
not even attempt to explain why an American jet killed Al Jazeera's
reporter (just like an American missile was fired at Al Jazeera's
office in Kabul in 2001).
A Ukrainian, a Spaniard, an Arab. They
all died within hours of each other. I suspect they were killed
because the US--someone in the Pentagon though not, I'm sure,
Ms Clarke--decided to try to "close down" the press.
Of course, American journalists are not investigating this. They
should--because they will be next.
As for Mohamed al-Ali, he has the painful
experience of knowing that he gave the Pentagon the map coordinates
to kill his own reporter. Who was the pilot of the American jet
that fired that missile at al-Jazeera? Why did he fire? What
were the coordinates? Who was the American tank officer who blasted
a piece of metal into Samia's brain? A day after he fired, I
climbed on his tank and asked the soldier on top if he was responsible.
"I don't know anything about that, sir," he replied.
And I believe him. Like I believe in Father Christmas and fairies
at the bottom of my garden.
Yesterday's
Features
Elaine
Cassel
The Other War: Bush, Ashcroft and
the End of Civil Liberties
Saul
Landau
Iraq War: a Policy of Christian and Jewish Fundamentalism
William
A. Cook
Sharon Recruits US as Mercenaries Against Syria
William
S. Lind
Now the Real War Starts
John Chuckman
In Jesus's Name:
Franklin Graham's Christian Empire
David
MacMichael and Ray McGovern
Ex-CIA Analysts on WMD: Where? Find?
Plant?
Gary Leupp
Why the War on Iraq was (and Remains) Wrong
Robert
Sandels
Cuba Crackdown: a Revolt Against Bush's National Security Strategy?
CounterPunch
Wire
An Open Letter to Jerry Brown on Oakland Police Violence Against
Peace Activists and Dock Workers
Mickey
Z.
Our Ba'athists
Anthony
Gancarski
Nader Plays Pullman
Scott
Handleman
The Mumia Abu-Jamal Case in Its True Colors
Claud Cockburn
Evelyn Waugh's Ear Trumpet
Poets'
Basement
Matt Simon, Sam Hamod, Hammond Guthrie and Stew Albert
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 4/26
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