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News :: International Relations |
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Why The Media, Including The News-Gazette, Is Not To Be Trusted |
Current rating: 0 |
by Sam Smith and ML
(No verified email address) |
19 Apr 2003
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The News-Gazette included a "victory" insert in their Saturday edition, chock full of carefully selected pictures celebrating Bush's war of aggression. The cover was a series of staged photos of the statue of Saddam being pulled down by U.S. forces, made to look like it was done by a crowd of Iraqis, when in fact it was a photo opportunity designed to somehow justify the death and destruction meted out to innocent Iraqis in the name of overthrowing erstwhile CIA puppet Saddam Hussein. IMC thus decided to present, again, a more accurate view of this incident. ML |
 Why The Media Is Not To Be Trusted |
Selective News from Baghdad
I thought there was something odd about those TV stories describing the removal of the Saddam statue. Why had this spontaneous crowd gathered only on one side of the statue? Why no long shots? And why were those people in the background going about their urban business as though nothing was happening?
DC Indymedia has the answer:
"The up close action video of the statue being destroyed is broadcast around the world as proof of a massive uprising. Still photos grabbed off of Reuters show a long-shot view of Fardus Square... it's empty save for the U.S. Marines, the International Press, and a small handful of Iraqis. There are no more than 200 people in the square at best. The Marines have the square sealed off and guarded by tanks. A U.S. mechanized vehicle is used to pull the statue of Saddam from it's base. The entire event is being hailed as an equivalent of the Berlin Wall falling... but even a quick glance of the long-shot photo shows something more akin to a carefully constructed media event tailored for the television cameras."
More here:
http://dc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=63743&group=webcast |
See also:
http://prorev.com/indexa.htm
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Comments
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The News-Gazette's Spin |
by pm
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
19 Apr 2003
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The 'victory' section in today's News-Gazette that Mike referred to featured a 12" x 9.5" (nearly the entire page) photo of the statue of Saddam Hussein falling. Here's the picture:
#file_1#
And here's the News-Gazette's spin on what was happening:
"A giant statue of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is brought down by U.S. Marines as people watch the demolition in Baghdad on Wednesday April 9, 2003. Jubilant crowds swarmed into Baghdad's streets Wednesday, dancing, looting and defacing images of Saddam Hussein as U.S. commanders declared that his regime's rule over the capital had ended." |
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Re: Why The Media, Including The News-Gazette, Is Not To Be Trusted |
by G
soundboy818 (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified) |
Current rating: -1
19 Apr 2003
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All Media is selective.....its called editing. That picture isnt at all like the berlin wall, but they also didn,t meet a heck of alot of iraq,s army in the capital either. |
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Re: Why The Media, Including The News-Gazette, Is Not To Be Trusted |
by Jack Ryan
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: -6
20 Apr 2003
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ML,
It is you who can't be trusted. The initial attempt to tear down the statue was made by Iraqi's with a rope. (Similar to the one that you always put around your little neck with your tangled arguments) Yes, the Marines eventually used equipment to drag the statue down, the same machinery that was used to liberate these people.
It was Iraqis, however, who dragged the head of the beast throughout the downtown. Did you mention that? Face it, ML, we were right and you and your sorry collection of children of the Vietnam War Protesters were wrong again.
Your parents can say "We helped stop an unjust War". You can say "We attempted to stop a War against a murderous dictator and we failed".
Never admit failure ML, let the people see it for themselves.
Jack |
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Re: Why The Media, Including The News-Gazette, Is Not To Be Trusted |
by pm
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: -1
20 Apr 2003
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Jack-
The US installed Saddam Hussein, knowing he's a homicidal nut. Why do you think our government is going to install someone better, this time?
And just to be clear: Do you still believe that Saddam Hussein was connected to the 9-11 attacks? I ask because it's pretty clear that Saudi Arabia did have connections, but we attacked their neighbor, instead. Odd, don't you think?
Peace.
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Re: Why The Media, Including The News-Gazette, Is Not To Be Trusted |
by Jorge
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: -1
21 Apr 2003
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Uh, is there any _actual_ evidence that the US "installed" Saddam Hussein? Or is that just another one of those left-wing urban myths?
I know the "US armed Saddam" one is a myth. The Yanks were responsible for less than 1% of the total weapons sales to Iraq - whereas the USSR accounted for about 60% and France for about 25%. |
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Simple Searches And Little Education Will Show... |
by 5
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 2
21 Apr 2003
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you the answer to your question, Jorge. There are many article written about our own role in creating Frankenstein.
Do some simple searches like "Ronald Reagan+Saddam" or "Rumsfeld+Saddam+1980s" or even "U.S. support for Saddam".
Course, if you truly wanted the truth, you would have done that already, instead of trolling here. |
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Re: Why The Media, Including The News-Gazette, Is Not To Be Trusted |
by g
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: -5
21 Apr 2003
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Trust me, if people wanted the truth, they wouldn't be stopping by Indymedia. |
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Re: Why The Media, Including The News-Gazette, Is Not To Be Trusted |
by John "The Duke" Wayne
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
21 Apr 2003
Modified: 05:47:39 PM |
Hey Pilgrim! (that'd be you Jack Ryan),
How do you feel about trusting the following non- 'murikan media story? All lies, right? Only the Faux-News crew reports the truth. (well, when Geraldo is giving away US troop postions anyway)
And, tell us, is it really really cool now that you warmongers and the little big man you refer to as president are bona fide war criminals and international outlaws. Woooeeee, almost just like Jesse James, huh Jack Ryan? So cool, so butch, just so darn manly it was, killing and maiming all those poverty-stricken, poorly trained and ill-equipped swarthy third-world children and their folks? Oh yeah, you da man, you bad, you bad.
And for what?
Oh nevermind, just read on pilgrim.
This occupation is a disaster. The US must leave - and fast
Any gratitude for the removal of Saddam is now virtually exhausted
Abdul al-Malaki lives opposite the gatehouse of the extravagant palace that Saddam Hussein built in his home town of Tikrit. Flanked by megalomaniac twin statues of the former Iraqi president riding a horse above four missiles, the palace arch was a daily affront to locals.
"The people of Tikrit are like the rest of Iraq. They hated Saddam Hussein. I want to kill him," the 28-year-old cafe-owner spat out his words. But as lorry-loads of US Marines trundled through the arch, he switched focus: "This is an occupation. Nothing else. We will keep quiet for a year and if they have not gone we will kill them."
The gratitude for removing Saddam Hussein on which Washington mistakenly expected to bank for years is almost exhausted. Those who warned the Bush administration against this war have been proved right. Only in the Kurdish areas of the north is there any satisfaction.
The Tikrit cafe-owner's views are replicated throughout the largely Arab parts of Iraq. In Nassiriya, Shia protesters greeted the US proconsul General Jay Garner with shouts of "No to Saddam, no to occupation" last week. In Baghdad, tens of thousands of Sunni and Shia worshippers came out of Friday prayers and marched through the streets, calling on the US to leave.
In the Iraqi capital, where American troop strength is most visible, it is easy to understand why people complain of feeling humiliated. The soldiers' presence is a reminder that Iraqis failed to topple the dictator themselves. Adding to their long list of complaints against him, Iraqis now blame Saddam Hussein for letting the Americans in.
Hassan Ali Hussein, a graduate of the Oil Institute, says he refused a job at the oil ministry because it meant joining the ruling Ba'ath party. Now this principled anti-Saddam man delights in the dictator's overthrow and accuses him of failing to organise urban guerrilla warfare. "Saddam betrayed us. We think there was an agreement between Bush and Saddam for Baghdad not to resist," he says.
The Pentagon's failure to plan for the "day after" adds to the anger. Making the time-honoured mistake of re-fighting the last war, the only preparations they made were for food. Air-dropping humanitarian parcels or delivering food by road provides good propaganda images. In a country that had suffered from three years of drought like Afghanistan it also made sense.
Washington did not seem to know Iraq was different. The one thing people are not short of is food, thanks to the monthly rations of basics such as rice, sugar, cooking oil, tea and flour that every Iraqi receives, regardless of income. In a sanctions-damaged economy, 60% rely on the state-run programme and on the eve of war Saddam Hussein sensibly issued up to five months rations in one go.
Instead of concentrating on food aid, the US ought to have prepared teams of water and power engineers, as well as flown in extra troops to prevent the postwar looting that breaks out in every country when regimes collapse (there should have been no surprise here).
The immediate priority is to provide security and get the lights and telephones back on. But a far greater problem looms. Ten million Iraqis, who depend on the state sector for jobs, have not been paid for a month. Washington may parrot the mantra about turning Iraq into a free-market economy, but this is for the birds. The poverty that hundreds of millions of Russians and other eastern Europeans faced in the over-hasty dismantling of a state-run economy is as nothing to what is hitting Iraqis. Eastern Europe at least had a "transition". In Iraq the budget and the government that ran it collapsed overnight.
Who is going to pay the doctors, teachers, bus-drivers, and other government employees now? Many Iraqis are looking to the UN oil-for-food programme, and suggesting additions. The UN should take over paying government salaries to the thousands of people who are currently working for nothing in the mood of postwar solidarity. Looting has had most of the international media attention but the enormous amount of work being done free in the country's hospitals is equally important. When electricity returns and schools resume, no doubt most teachers will work for nothing too.
Another proposal is that every family that benefits from subsidised food rations and is listed at one of the scheme's 45,000 well-run distribution points should be given a monthly cash handout of $10 per person. This would ease the threat of postwar poverty and pump-prime the local market.
Along with humiliation over defeat and anger at the postwar chaos, resentment over colonisation is on the rise. People point to the fact that the oil ministry was the only government office in Baghdad that the US did not bomb and protected from looters by planting a ring of troops around it on day one of "liberation". Episodes like the massacre in Mosul when on two consecutive days last week US troops fired into crowds of protesters have classic imperial overtones and feel like the foretaste of greater repression to come.
In the vacuum of power the mosques are emerging as the main source of resistance. The good news is that far from confronting each other, Sunni and Shia clerics and worshippers are uniting behind a common agenda. Many are fundamentalists but Iraq's progressive secular forces say this is not the primary issue at this stage. "What we're faced with today is not a choice between secularism and religion. We're facing an invasion and foreign rule. We have to work together to end it," says Dr Wamid Omar Nadmi, a leading political scientist at Baghdad university.
Every aspect of today's chaos and the danger of clashes between Iraqis and their occupiers highlight the need to get a UN presence into Iraq fast. The UN should expand the oil-for-food system to head off the poverty crisis. It should appoint a UN administrator to start brokering intra-Iraqi talks and forestall US efforts to create an Iraqi government of US placemen.
One of the Pentagon's many failed predictions was that someone, if not Saddam Hussein, would surrender to US forces in the face of overwhelming US military might. Had that happened as in Japan and Nazi Germany, it could have given Washington the right of continuity which its failure to get UN backing before the attack had denied it. Instead, the postwar occupation runs counter to international law as much as the war itself. The UN has a moral obligation to take over and, hard though it will be to get it past Washington's veto, the EU states and Russia should draft a security council resolution to authorise a strong UN role as soon as possible.
j.steele (at) guardian.co.uk |
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Re: Why The Media, Including The News-Gazette, Is Not To Be Trusted |
by me
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: -1
22 Apr 2003
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grammar note, because it comes up often: media is a plural. example: the media are all liars, fascists, etc. a newspaper is one medium for news; a radio station is another; TV is another medium. collectively, they are media |
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Re: Why The Media, Including The News-Gazette, Is Not To Be Trusted |
by Jack Ryan
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: -5
22 Apr 2003
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Dear John Wayne,
Before I begin, may I offer you a cigarette? Your predictions for a future disaster in Iraq as a result of our recent liberation are based on what? Did you use the same cystal ball which forcasted that our troops would be slaughtered by the thousands? Did you use the same fortune teller to predict that the Iraqi people would rise up against us and the US would pump their oil?
In short John, your creditability and the creditability of your fellow flower children to predict the future has been shot to hell worse than Iraqi T-72 tank.
Tomorrow, try and wake up with a positive thought, like "today's the day I am finally going to quit smoking". Something like that. For Gods Sake, stop trying to predict future events in American Foreign Policy.
Thanks,
Jack Ryan |
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Re: Why The Media, Including The News-Gazette, Is Not To Be Trusted |
by Sister Mary
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 3
22 Apr 2003
Modified: 11:08:19 PM |
Dear Jack,
As grammar seems to be a subject, let me give you the following lessons:
1) It is crystal ball, not "cystal."
2) It is forecast, not "forcasted."
3) "Something like that" is a sentence fragment.
4) It is "For God's sake" not "For Gods Sake."
5) It is "American foreign policy" not "American Foreign Policy."
6) Don't add to your embarassing illiteracy by making claims you can't support. The Iraqi people are rising up, but it is not with open arms. If you can, you might try reading this article from the BBC titled "Baghdad protest takes US aback" at the following URL <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2965005.stm>.
Your statements about John Wayne's death from cancer are in extremely poor taste. You make me ashamed to call myself an American.
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Re: Why The Media, Including The News-Gazette, Is Not To Be Trusted |
by Jack Ryan
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
23 Apr 2003
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Dear Sister Mary,
I am sorry for the gramatical errors. When I am in a hurry, sometimes I make mistakes. Actually Sister, John Wayne struck first. I am sorry if I hurt his feelings, but, I am pretty certain that he is dead. Perhaps I should have turned the other cheek.
As for being ashamed of being an American, I thought most of you already were ashamed of this gift from God. Too Bad, it is the greatest country on the face of the earth.
I will work on the grammar.
Respectfully,
Jack Ryan |
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Re: Why The Media, Including The News-Gazette, Is Not To Be Trusted |
by pm
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 3
25 Apr 2003
Modified: 10:40:54 AM |
I'm still not persuaded by Bush or any of his advocates who claim that the US goal is to create a democracy in Iraq.
The chosen leader, Ahmed Chalabi, is a close friend of extreme conservatives in the US (like Oliver North and Paul Wolfowitz) and of some factions of the US secret police forces (though not all of them). He comes from the elite ruling class that the British installed after colonizing the middle east, and which was deposed through popular revolution. He's also a corporate crook--a perfect fit for the Bush administration! (The Swiss government raised new charges against his corporate empire just one week ago, on April 18.)
The US doesn't have a record of upholding democracy. It'll be a shame if so many well-intentioned US soldiers end up installing a new dictatorship that just happens to be friendly to US "national interests" . . . like oil companies. China's totalitarian rulers are OK with the US, why should we demand more from an Iraqi regime? Just because thousands of Iraqi civilians and hundreds of soldiers died, and the US sacrificed education, health care, and social security to pay for it?
The role of the mass media--including the AP, the major networks, and even the partisan outlets like the News Gazette--shouldn't be to promote the government's line. It should be a critical investigation of it so that Americans don't send our sons and daughters to fight unnecessary wars and if a war is truly needed, we can have confidence that our sacrifice upholds the values we hold dear, including democracy, freedom, and justice--not US-sponsored oppression and terror.
I'm willing to be wrong, but I'd like to see the evidence. (Bush's word doesn't count as evidence, incidentally.)
http://www.prospect.org/print/V13/21/dreyfuss-r.html
http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Ahmad_Chalabi |
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Re: Why The Media, Including The News-Gazette, Is Not To Be Trusted |
by Suzanne
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
28 Apr 2003
Modified: 01:52:52 PM |
Listen guys, I will agree with you that Bush's motives for going to war with Iraq were anything but noble, but do you honestly believe that France and Russia's opposition was?
All of the leaders have been doing anything they can to their hands on that oil.
And you can speculate all you want on what Iraq will be like in 10 years beause of this invasion but that is all it is, speculation. There is no way of knowing.
I think that instead of bickering over the little stuff we should focus on making sure that the people do have a better life, that this isn't only about oil, no matter what our leader thinks. Let's stop trying to prove GW wrong at the cost of the people of Irag and start making sure the democracy and higher standard of living they are being promised comes to pass. |
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Re: Why The Media, Including The News-Gazette, Is Not To Be Trusted |
by Jack Ryan
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: -1
29 Apr 2003
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Suzanne,
I could not agree more with your statement. It is foolish to continue to oppose a war which has already been won. Now you can hold our feet to the fire to deliver a democratic Iraq.
Jack |
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IMC Not To Be Trusted |
by John Rambo
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: -2
29 Apr 2003
Modified: 02:15:53 PM |
The IMC is not a good source of information. And what is so independent about it? This is the most biased ignorant site on the internet. Also, the picture of the Iraqi man circled in red and Chalabi's bodyguard are not the same person. Have you really looked at the facial features. The bodyguard clearly has a caucasian nasal features while the Iraqi man has a flat african nasal features. Chalabi's guard also has longer eyebrows, and a wider face. It is not the same person. But, I guess that dosen't matter it agrees with what you want to think; you closed minded thinkers.
John Rambo
"I am your worst nightmare" |
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Re: Why The Media, Including The News-Gazette, Is Not To Be Trusted |
by Anon
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 16
30 Apr 2003
Modified: 11:20:57 AM |
Hey John, I realize you've chosen to name yourself after a character played by an actor with as much talent and range as a block of wood, so you could perhaps be forgiven for your problems in recognizing what the expression of emotion can do to facial features. Try looking in a mirror as you switch between the two radically different emotional states the indivdual in the picture displays. Aside from the issues of angle and lighting, you might notice your face becomes distorted in similar ways. I'd try to explain independent to you but your choice of character leads me to think the effort might be wasted on you. Still, I'll give it a shot.
Perhaps if you gave a little thought to what the "org" in the URL means and how profit can affect motive you might understand. But then you probably think the NYT is an objective news outlet and the evening news on the TV an accurate depiction of the world, free of the bias that comes naturally when one decides where to point a camera or what to print/broadcast and what not to. Come to think of it, if you can't recognize bias in the world around you, I have to wonder just how closely you watched and understood the Rambo movies. I bet you didn't see the first one and so don't understand how your own people and government can betray you. Before he got wrapped up in doing the Russians one better, Stallone actually did an admirable job of dramatizing how our government was more interested in the politically expedient than the honorable when it came to our service men and women. Might want to check out the article about Tim Johnson on this site to see some of that bias in action. That's the real nightmare. So this may not be the best site on the net, but you can say what you think (within reasonable limits) and nobody tries to pretend that they don't have an agenda. Mainstream media would have you believe it was possible to be "objective" and that the camera can't lie. But somebody has to decide where to point that thing and how wide to make the focus. Sure, we try to instill some sort of ethics in them. But those Fox news guys who tried to smuggle stolen Iraqi art and currency into this country, not to mention little events like Iran/Contra or Watergate, make the impotence of ethics to ensure that objectivity and that ethical conduct obvious. Free speech, like freedom of assembly, helps to hold those who would violate such standards accountable. Blind belief is a help to no one. You should know that Rambo. |
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