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Recent
Stories
April
7, 2003
David
N. Gibbs
Spying, Secrecy and the University:
The CIA is Back on Campus
Harry Browne
War and Peace Summit a Royal Farce
Gideon
Levy
America is Not a Role Model
Diane
Christian
A Scene from an Obscene War
Jules
Rabin
Remembering Deir Yassin
James Davis
Oddsmaking in Dublin: Will Bush
Shake Gerry's Hand?
Robert
Fisk
The Twisted Language of War
Patrick
Cockburn
Slaughter on the Road to Dibagah
John
Mackay
War and Art
Seth Sandronsky
Wars and the Color Line
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/7
April
5, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
The Iraqi Humanitarian Relief is
in Shambles
Anne
Gwynne
A Drowning in Salem
Uri
Avnery
Roadmap to Nowhere
Chris
Floyd
Hell for Leather: Bombs, Bullets, Bibles and Bush
William
Cook
Would You Have Sent Your Son (or Daughter) Off to War If...
Gila
Svirsky
A Busy Day for Bulldozers
Mike Ferner
Back from Baghdad: What Next for the Peace Movement?
Joanne
Mariner
Civilian Deaths and Official Apologies
John Stanton
Bush Takes His Killing Orders
from the Lord
Romi
Mahajan
Learning to Count the Dead
Aluf Benn
After Iraq, US Vows to Deal with
Other Mideast Regimes
Mary
Ellen Peterson
Gay Marine Refuses to Fight
William
MacDougall
Country Music and the Crimes of Patriotism
Ron
Jacobs
War and Occupation
Bernie
Pattison
Aborigines and the Different God
Mark
Engler
Iraq War as Arms Expo
Adam Engel
Li'l Box of Love: a Novelini
Poets'
Basement
Tripp, Albert, Katz
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Flesh and Its Discontents: the Paintings of Lucian Freud
Norman
Madarasz
Canada and the War
April
4, 2003
Anthony
Gancarski
Colin Powell's Shame
John
Chuckman
Was Einstein Right About Israel?
David
Krieger
The Meaning of Victory
Tom
Gorman
The Mantra of the Troops: Support
or Treason?
Adam
Federman
The Absence of War
Vijay
Prashad
There Are No More Arguments
Tom
Stephens
The End of the Innocence
Mickey
Z.
Makes Me Sic (Sic): Copy Editing
Bush Speak
Pierre
Tristam
War Coverage: a Dishonest Reality
Show
Hammond
Guthrie
The Deadly Mihrab
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 04/04
April
3, 2003
Uri
Avnery
A Crooked Mirror: Presstitution and
the Theater of Operations
David
Vest
Can You Hear the Silence?
Anthony
Gancarski
Colin Powell Telemarketer
David
Lindorff
Takoma: the Dolphin Who Refused
to Fight
Michael
Roberts
War, Debts and Deficits
Ramzy
Baroud
Now That Iraqis Are Being Killed Is Israel Any More Secure?
Jo Wilding
From Baghdad with Tears
Anton
Antonowicz
Cluster Bombs on Babylon
Alison
Weir
Israel, We Won't Forget Rachel Corrie
Bruce
Jackson
Hating Wolf Blitzer's Voice
Eliot Katz
War's First Week
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 04/03
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April 8,
2003
Killing the
Messengers
Deliberate or Accident: It Doesn't Really
Matter
By DAVID LINDORFF
When it comes to the killing of three journalists
by American troops in two separate incidents in Baghdad over
the last 24 hours, there really are only two alternatives, neither
one of them very pleasant to contemplate.
Either the U.S. is targeting journalists
to punish those who are reporting honestly about the horrors
of the war (the bombing of the Al Jazeera office) and to send
a message to others not to get to close to the conflict (the
tank blast at the Palestine Hotel, home base formost of the foreign
press corps), or else these were simply the kinds of mindless,
accidental yet inevitable attrocities that are going on all over
Iraq, and especially Baghdad.
If the explanation is the former--that
the U.S. is deliberately targeting journalists--we're talking
about murder pure and simple, and someone should be made to pay
for the crime. It wouldn't be the first time the Pentagon has
targeted journalists or attempted to silence them through threats. Several mainstream American
reporters trying to get to Grenada by small boat during the U.S.
invasion of that little island (which had been barred to the
press by the U.S. military), were threatened with being blown
out of the water by a U.S. destroyer. They turned around and
stayed clear. Certainly there was a motive: Al-Jezeera has clearly
frustrated and angered the U.S. military and the White House
by airing the scenes of death and destruction that the American
media has submissively censored out of American livingrooms.
But the press in wartime has to expect
to antagonize the authorities if it's really doing its job, so
while we may be upset at the thought of the U.S. deliberately
targeting journalists, we shouldn't be too surprised.
In a way, the second explanation for
these two recent attacks is far more awful to contemplate.
Consider. There are basically only a
couple of clearly identified places in the Iraqi capital where
journalists are known to congregate. One is the Al Jazeera office.
The other are the two hotels where journalists have been staying.
These locations, like hospitals, are clearly well-known to Pentagon
war planners and to the pilots and soldiers on the ground who
are tossing around high-explosive ordnance. And the assumption
is that the Pentagon is trying to avoid injuring civilians.
If they really did hit these two clearly
off-limits locations and kill three journalists "by accident"
in just one day's fighting, just imagine how many innocents are
being slaughtered "by accident" every day of this war
whose locations don't even register on all those war maps?
We've been asked to believe that while
a decade ago, only 10 percent of the allegedly "smart"
bombs hit their designated targets, this time around the bombs
are "smarter." Are they twice as smart? That would
mean they're missing only 80 percent of the time. Three times
as smart? That would still leave a 70 percent error rate. Does
anybody really believe they're 10 times as smart as a decade
ago?
It is significant that when a U.S. pilot
accidentally bombed a convoy of Kurdish troops and American special
forces personnel, reporters were quick to report on the incredible
carnage caused by the single bomb--and not a particularly large
one at that. Try to find a similar account in the American media
of the carnage caused by one of those bombs that fell where it
was supposed to fall. I've tried, and haven't been able to find
one. Obviously these "precision" weapons don't just
cause "collateral damage" when they miss. They make
a big circle of destruction around whatever target they hit,
too, which virtually guarantees a lot of "collateral damage."
If the American media gets off its knees
now and starts honestly reporting about what is happening at
the receiving end of all these bombs and shells, the deaths of
these three journalists will at least have served a valuable
journalistic function. Americans might finally start to understand
what this war is doing to the Iraqi people and the fabric of
Iraq.
They might also understand why, after
the U.S. occupation of a conquered Iraq begins in earnest, why
there will be so much resentment and, no doubt, armed resistance.
David Lindorff
is the author of Killing
Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal.
A collection of Lindorff's stories can be found here: http://www.nwuphilly.org/dave.html
Yesterday's
Features
Anthony
Gancarski
Colin Powell's Shame
John
Chuckman
Was Einstein Right About Israel?
David
Krieger
The Meaning of Victory
Tom
Gorman
The Mantra of the Troops: Support
or Treason?
Adam
Federman
The Absence of War
Vijay
Prashad
There Are No More Arguments
Tom
Stephens
The End of the Innocence
Mickey
Z.
Makes Me Sic (Sic): Copy Editing
Bush Speak
Pierre
Tristam
War Coverage: a Dishonest Reality
Show
Hammond
Guthrie
The Deadly Mihrab
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 04/04
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