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ManintheMiddle
Joined: 20 Oct 2008
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 Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2009 9:50 pm Post subject: IS THE ISRAELI NEWS BLACKOUT IN THEIR OWN BEST INTEREST? |
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This just in from TIME International:
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Is Israel Losing the Media War in Gaza?
Jan 14, 2009
With reporting by Jamil Hamad / Jerusalem
The arrival of Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, a.k.a. Joe the Plumber, at the Israeli border town of Sderot on Sunday caused a minor sensation among the members of the foreign press who were camped out there. Wurzelbacher, who got his first 15 minutes of fame as a prop for John McCain during last year's U.S. election campaign, has swapped his plunger for a reporter's notebook on a mission to cover the Gaza war for the conservative website Pajamas TV. Unable to see much of the fighting himself, Wurzelbacher - who during the election campaign warned that a vote for Barack Obama was a vote for the destruction of Israel - picked a fight of his own. Turning on his new colleagues in the foreign press corps, he groused, "You should be ashamed of yourself. You should be patriotic, protect your family and children, not report like you have been doing for the past two weeks since this war has started." His complaint, it seemed, was that he was seeing too many reports of civilian casualties inside Gaza.
But the reality is that Western reporters have done little reporting from the front lines of this latest phase of the world's most reported conflict. Barred by Israel from entering Gaza even before the firing started, most foreign reporters can only get near the war zone by chasing down the occasional rocket sent by Hamas into Israel. Still, the press has once again found itself caught in a different kind of cross fire: the propaganda battle, across all media platforms, between Israel and Hamas (and the supporters of each) for international sympathy. And the reason Joe the Plumber is angry is that, despite (and perhaps also because of) Israel's overwhelming military superiority, the Jewish state is losing on the propaganda front. (See pictures of 60 years of Israel.)
The Israeli government's media operations are the most sophisticated in the region, and its extensively planned hasbara campaign of public advocacy swung into high gear almost as soon as the current offensive began. Israel and its advocates are stressing a broad theme to frame the conflict - rocket fire from Gaza is an existential threat from which Israel has a right to defend itself, they argue - and they are seeking to limit reporting on civilian suffering in Gaza by challenging how much time or space media outlets devote to such images and by emphasizing the great care being taken by Israeli soldiers to avoid hurting the civilians behind whom Israel's enemies are hiding.
Meanwhile, Israeli politicians and pundits are constantly on the air painting Hamas as an implacable, genocidal foe. Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Fox News, "For us to be asked to have a cease-fire with Hamas is like asking you to have a cease-fire with al-Qaeda" - despite the fact that Israel and Hamas had, in fact, agreed via Egypt to a six-month cease-fire just last June. And Israeli military spokeswoman Major Avital Leibovitch is constantly reassuring TV audiences worldwide that Israeli troops are going the extra mile to avoid collateral damage in Gaza. However, some Israeli officers speak more bluntly when their audience is domestic. ("We are very violent," the commander of the Israeli army's �lite combat engineering unit, Yahalom, told the Israeli press. "We do not balk at any means to protect the lives of our soldiers.") When Israeli forces shelled a United Nations school that left more than 40 dead, the Israeli military initially did its best to back its claim (denied by local U.N. officials) that the school was being used by militants to fire at Israeli forces by releasing video footage from 2007 showing militants fighting from the compound.
Hamas' propaganda efforts are cruder and rely on the civilian casualties inflicted by the Israelis to win international sympathy. Hamas fighters have shed their uniforms and blended into the civilian population, hiding weapons and communications systems in houses and mosques. That may have contributed to a death toll so lopsided that it speaks louder than any Israeli press officer - and weakens Hamas' political rival, the moderate Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Israel's decision to keep the Western press out of Gaza may also have backfired, because it's given a monopoly of coverage to the more inflammatory reporting of Arab satellite television stations such as al-Jazeera and al-Arabiyya, which maintain bureaus in Gaza. And while there are many excellent Palestinian journalists working for the Western press in Gaza, there have been some examples of doctored photographs and suspicious-looking videos showing civilian suffering. Conservative blogs have singled out one video of doctors trying to resuscitate the brother of the CNN cameraman actually shooting the video, and suggested that it was really a re-enactment.
While media wars are par for the course when Israel and the Palestinians clash, this time they seem to be following the traditional media's migration to the Internet. The Israeli military spokesman's office has its own YouTube channel (it has recorded more than 1.5 million views), while Hamas is trying to counter with a website displaying its videos and images. Bloggers have joked that this is the first war to be covered by Twitter - the Israeli Foreign Ministry has in fact been conducting public debates on the social-messaging service - while hackers have been infiltrating Israeli websites and leaving anti-Israel slogans.
The more limited role of traditional media in covering this war hasn't protected it from criticism by Israelis. The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday published an article alleging world media bias against the Israeli operation in Gaza and accusing TIME magazine of leading the charge with its cover story this week.
Ultimately, of course, the perception of Israel's military campaign will be determined by events on the ground. Even then, images will play a vital role, which is why the fighters of both sides are well aware of the need to produce what they hope will be the defining picture or video clip of the war. For Israel, that might mean images of a recognizable Hamas leader killed or captured, while for Hamas, photographs of a burning tank or captured Israeli soldier would be a great prize.
As much as each side seeks to spin the war as advancing their overall vision, Israel has yet to articulate a clear, workable exit plan that will achieve the war's objectives without reoccupying Gaza. Meanwhile, Hamas can stack civilian bodies like cordwood for the cameras and proclaim the virtues of its "steadfast resistance," but it has offered the Palestinians no explanation of how this fight will advance their national goals. To many a foreign journalist, then, this war conjures an image with which Joe the Plumber will be familiar: the proverbial pig whose nature can't be disguised by any amount of lipstick. |
What's your reaction to this article? Are the Israelis indeed losing the propoganda advantage over Hamas?
Or are the Israelis stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place? That is, if they allow foreign reporters in as they did in 2006 against Hezbollah they run a big risk of compromising their operational integrity. But by not allowing them in, their view of the situation is appropriated. |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2009 11:36 pm Post subject: |
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I believe Al Jazeera is the only broadcast media source to have reporters in Gaza. Even the Israeli gov't has quoted AJ in gov't press releases. A bit ironic if you ask me.
So yes, I think it is back-firing on Israel. |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2009 11:39 pm Post subject: |
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An elaboration:
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In a conflict where the Western news media have been largely prevented from reporting from Gaza because of restrictions imposed by the Israeli military, Al Jazeera has had a distinct advantage. It was already there.
There are six reporters in Gaza, two working for Al Jazeera English and four working for the much larger and more popular Arabic version of the network, which was created in 1996 with a $150 million grant from the emir of Qatar, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani. Al Jazeera describes itself on the air as �the only international broadcaster with a presence there.� |
And I was wrong about the Israeli gov't. It is the Israeli media:
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| And in Israel, where news media commonly quote from material on Al Jazeera, the network is frequently criticized for inflaming the Arab public by running unfiltered and out-of-context videotape showing blood and gore in battle zones. |
Ny Times article |
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asylum seeker
Joined: 22 Jul 2007
Location: On your computer screen.
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| Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2009 6:57 am Post subject: |
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Joe's right. How dare those scumbag journalists report civilian casualties. Dirty, unpatriotic, anti-Semite, liberal-biased media elites. Don't they know, those kids with their legs blown off are just terrorists-to-be anyway?  |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2009 8:14 am Post subject: |
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Absolutely!
Gaza: US Press Elite Concealing Israel`s War Crimes
Posted: 2009/01/14
America`s dominant media suppress facts, sacrifice accuracy, and conceal the greater lie that all Israeli aggression is collaboratively planned months in advance with Washington...
by Stephen Lendman
In his January 8 article, "Gaza Under Fire," John Pilger quotes the Soviet dissident Yevgeny Yevtushenko saying: "When the truth is replaced by silence, the silence is a lie." America's dominant media suppress facts, sacrifice accuracy, and conceal the greater lie that:
-- all Israeli aggression is collaboratively planned months in advance with Washington;
-- American aid makes it possible - billions of dollars annually, the latest weapons and technology, and Security Council vetoes to assure no anti-Israeli resolutions with teeth are passed;
-- six months of preparation preceded Israel's terror bombings followed by invasion, occupation, and repeated war crimes on the ground;
-- Hamas "rockets" were pretext (not cause) to abet Israel's overall strategy - with initial measures planned years ago and implemented in steps; Gaza 2008 - 09 is the latest with much more to come unless stopped;
-- grievous international law violations are being willfully committed;
-- innocent men, women and children are slaughtered;
-- civilians and legitimate resistance are called "terrorists;"
-- basic infrastructure unrelated to defense is destroyed - government buildings, police stations, schools, mosques, private dwellings, TV stations, commercial structures, water mains, power facilities, fishing boats, vehicles, ambulances, medical facilities, UN relief ones, and visible civilian targets, even young children coming from and going to school;
-- refugee camps, women, doctors and journalists are attacked;
-- terror bombing and shelling continues round-the-clock; from 50 to 100 or more sorties a day but fire from naval vessels, tanks, and troops on the ground;
-- illegal terror weapons are used;
-- as of January 14, around 5500 have been killed or wounded; hundreds still alive are "clinically dead," according to medical officials; a handful of Israelis have died; small numbers have been injured as well unknown true numbers of military casualties since Israel controls the reporting; Hamas claims over 30;
-- Gaza remains under siege; beyond token amounts, no outside aid gets in; electricity, fuel, medical supplies and clean water are nearly exhausted; medical workers can't reach the wounded; foreign journalists can't report on the scene; volunteer doctors can't enter through Rafah; no remnants of normal life exist; Gaza is totally dysfunctional; and
-- world leaders, the White House, and both Houses of Congress sanction Israel's genocide; its "final solution" destruction as a legitimate society; its right to a sovereign state; a government of its choosing; normality for the people; and defense of their rights by a world community that cares - it doesn't.
Instead, Israel plans to remove a legitimate leadership; eliminate or neutralize the Hamas government; displace Palestinians from their land; confine them to isolated cantons, make them a hellish, ghoulish dystopia, and according to Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni on January 13 to an American Jewish Committee delegation:
"Israel's campaign against Hamas (is in the) interest of the 'moderate' Palestinian people." And, of course, "War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength," and Israel kills to save lives.
Media reports echo this, suppress truths, and maintain the lie of silence. None show pictures of vast destruction; dismembered bodies; children with lost arms and legs; head wounds so severe they'll die; blood, bones, and limbs everywhere; entire families wantonly massacred; human desperation and need so great it rivals anything in memory.
No brave reporters condemn these crimes and support the victims. None say Palestinians deserve the same rights as Jews; that laws of war and occupation protect everyone; that illegal acts must cease and perpetrators be punished.
None report the American Jewish Alliance for Justice & Peace (Brit Tzedek v'Shalom) condemning Israel's attack and demanding that Barack Obama "call for an immediate ceasefire (and assure the prompt) delivery of (urgently needed) humanitarian aid to Gaza."
None cite the rule of law. None report accurately, and on matters of truth, distortion and "silence" are their chosen options.
Samples of their work are below - daily in major broadsheets, publications, and on radio and TV. It's why America is the most ill-informed society anywhere in spite of every opportunity to know vital truths and react. Bread and circus distractions take precedence so wanton killing continues below the radar - and not just in Gaza.
Wall Street Journal Op-Ed Page Pro-Israeli Zealots
They appear daily in editorials and guest op-eds but never as easy reading. A January 5 editorial says "Israel can't afford to lose its second war in two years." It echoes poor Israel, surrounded "by enemies on all sides (so it) needs to maintain an aura of invincibility if it is to have any chance for peaceful co-existence."
Task one - "eliminat(ing) Hamas rule in Gaza (and) its military threat." Then on to "the broader Middle East issue....expansion of Iranian influence and terror. Hamas has become part of Tehran's bid for regional hegemony (like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Sadrist 'special groups' in Iraq)."
Bush is on board for their elimination. It's now up to Obama. He must show Israel and Iran "that the new president understands the US stake in the success of Israel's Gaza" offensive and assure no efforts are made to halt it.
more at link
Pro-Israeli Washington Post Columnists
Many appear, these two as regulars. On January 9, Charles Krauthammer contributed an "Endgame in Gaza" op-ed. In August 2006, Steve Benen said this about him in the Washington Monthly:
"About three years ago, I saw Krauthammer flip out in synagogue on Yom Kippur (the most solemn of Jewish high-holidays). The rabbi offered some timid endorsement of peace (on Israel's terms) but peace anyway. Krauthammer went nuts. He actually started bellowing at the rabbi from his wheel chair in the aisle. People tried to 'shush' him. (He) kept howling until the rabbi apologized. The man is as arrogant as he is thuggish. Who screams at the rabbi at services? For advocating peace? Those neocon hawks are such a charming bunch, aren't they?
Krauthammer contributes weekly to the Washington Post and is syndicated in 200 newspapers. He's also a Fox News regular where he's welcome among like-minded friends.
In his latest column, he's on the warpath against "an increasingly wobbly US State Department" and Ehud Olmert for "hinting that (he's) receptive to a French-Egyptian cease-fire plan....That would be a terrible mistake....It would have the same elements as the phony peace in Lebanon (abjuring the) use of force, a (weak) arms embargo (letting lots of them) flood in, and a cessation of hostilities until the terrorist side is rearmed and ready to initiate the next round of hostilities."
more at link
The New York Times "Incursion Into Gaza" Editorial
On January 5, The Times called Israel's "ground incursion (a gamble) that it can finally silence the Hamas rockets that have terrorized its people for years." No mention of:
-- unilateral Hamas ceasefires;
-- that Israel never observed them;
-- that the IDF killed over two dozen Gazans during the one ending November 4;
-- that no Israelis were killed or injured during the period;
-- that Israel, not Hamas, ended it; and
-- that Hamas responds only in self-defense as international law allows.
Instead The Times cites "no justification for Hamas' attacks or its virulent rejectionism." Of what? It repeatedly offers peace, is willing to recognize a Jewish state provided Israel reciprocates, stops killing Arabs, and grants Palestinians their own state inside pre-1967 borders - a mere 22% of their original homeland.
more at link
Alternative Voices for Sanity and Peace
On January 8, Jimmy Carter in a Washington Post op-ed headlined: "An Unnecessary War." A few quotes:
-- "Hamas wanted a comprehensive cease-fire in both the West Bank and Gaza, and the Israelis refused to discuss anything other than Gaza;"
-- "We knew that 1.5 million inhabitants of Gaza were being starved....acute malnutrition (is evident) on the same scale as in the poorest nations in southern Sahara, with more than half of all Palestinian families eating only one meal a day" - and a very inadequate one for proper nutrition;
-- "The top Hamas leaders in Damascus....agreed to a cease-fire, provided Israel would not attack Gaza and would permit normal humanitarian supplies to be delivered to Palestinian citizens;" they also agreed "to accept any peace agreement....provided....a majority vote of Palestinians" approved it; yet
-- Israel remains unwilling to negotiate with Hamas for peace or on other issues.
Comments like these from a former US president are important despite falling woefully short. The war isn't "unnecessary," it's illegal. Those responsible are war criminals. Justice demands they be punished. Israel should be isolated, embargoed, and boycotted until they are and hostilities and the Gaza siege end. Carter nonetheless deserves praise for going this far and refusing to be silent.
more at link |
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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| Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2009 5:58 pm Post subject: |
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[
None report the American Jewish Alliance for Justice & Peace (Brit Tzedek v'Shalom) condemning Israel's attack and demanding that Barack Obama "call for an immediate ceasefire (and assure the prompt) delivery of (urgently needed) humanitarian aid to Gaza."
more at link[/quote]
Obama is not the president yet. And as reported he has no plans to upstage Bush. Like he said there is only one president at any time. |
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caniff
Joined: 03 Feb 2004
Location: All over the map
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| Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2009 6:06 pm Post subject: |
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| TheUrbanMyth wrote: |
| demanding that Barack Obama.... |
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Jandar
Joined: 11 Jun 2008
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| Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2009 7:30 pm Post subject: |
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Obama made his policy statement July 23, 2008.
"America must always stand up for Israels right to defend itself"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFoj-PKJhck
"As a parent of two young daughters I can only imagine the terror that such rockets might inspire. It is intolerable."
"We are going to actively work with them to bring an end to these rocket attacks."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLLCdb9kwI0 |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2009 7:41 pm Post subject: |
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| bacasper wrote: |
Absolutely!
Gaza: US Press Elite Concealing Israel`s War Crimes
Posted: 2009/01/14
America`s dominant media suppress facts, sacrifice accuracy, and conceal the greater lie that all Israeli aggression is collaboratively planned months in advance with Washington...
by Stephen Lendman
In his January 8 article, "Gaza Under Fire," John Pilger quotes the Soviet dissident Yevgeny Yevtushenko saying: "When the truth is replaced by silence, the silence is a lie." America's dominant media suppress facts, sacrifice accuracy, and conceal the greater lie that:
--
more at link |
John Pilger is a left wing fascist. |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2009 8:56 pm Post subject: |
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| Joo Rip Gwa Rhee is a name-caller and messenger-attacker. |
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chickenpie
Joined: 24 Dec 2008
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| Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2009 9:04 pm Post subject: |
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| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
| bacasper wrote: |
Absolutely!
Gaza: US Press Elite Concealing Israel`s War Crimes
Posted: 2009/01/14
America`s dominant media suppress facts, sacrifice accuracy, and conceal the greater lie that all Israeli aggression is collaboratively planned months in advance with Washington...
by Stephen Lendman
In his January 8 article, "Gaza Under Fire," John Pilger quotes the Soviet dissident Yevgeny Yevtushenko saying: "When the truth is replaced by silence, the silence is a lie." America's dominant media suppress facts, sacrifice accuracy, and conceal the greater lie that:
--
more at link |
John Pilger is a left wing fascist. |
Looks like he is just calling it what it is.
Outside of the US's tainted eyes the world sees things as they really are. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2009 3:37 am Post subject: |
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| chickenpie wrote: |
| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
| bacasper wrote: |
Absolutely!
Gaza: US Press Elite Concealing Israel`s War Crimes
Posted: 2009/01/14
America`s dominant media suppress facts, sacrifice accuracy, and conceal the greater lie that all Israeli aggression is collaboratively planned months in advance with Washington...
by Stephen Lendman
In his January 8 article, "Gaza Under Fire," John Pilger quotes the Soviet dissident Yevgeny Yevtushenko saying: "When the truth is replaced by silence, the silence is a lie." America's dominant media suppress facts, sacrifice accuracy, and conceal the greater lie that:
--
more at link |
John Pilger is a left wing fascist. |
Looks like he is just calling it what it is.
Outside of the US's tainted eyes the world sees things as they really are. |
| Quote: |
The first casualty of Pilger...
John SweeneySaturday, 28th June 2003J John Sweeney says that John Pilger blames the Americans alone for birth defects in Iraq, and overlooks evidence that implicates Saddam Hussein
The Americans are making a hash of rebuilding Iraq, but one of the not so bad things they have done is to give Iraqis the freedom to scribble. On the wall outside the Baathist ministry of health the other day, a graffiti artist had scrawled in perfect English, 'We need a health ministry free of corruption.'
For years John Pilger � 'one of the world's most renowned investigative journalists', it says on the back of his latest book � has been insisting that the West, not Saddam, is to blame for the crisis in Iraq's public health; that 5,200 Iraqi children were dying every month; that Western depleted-uranium weapons were to blame for an epidemic of cancers; that sanctions crippled Iraq's doctors. Funnily enough, Pilger's journalism echoed what the Baathist regime wanted people to hear.
But very recently in Baghdad what some might call the Pilger�Baathist line was put to a very public test by yet another American blunder. They handpicked a new acting health minister, Dr Ali Shenan al-Janabi, who was number three at the health ministry under Saddam. According to virtually every Iraqi doctor I spoke to, he was an unacceptable choice. The Iraqi doctors were not keen to say so to the BBC on camera. To criticise the Baath party on the record is, even now, something that no Iraqi will do lightly. Then two surgeons at Al Kindi teaching hospital in Baghdad, Dr Rahim Ismael and Dlair Omar, mulled it over and said, 'OK, we'll do it.' They damned the health ministry under Saddam as a corrupt and brutal instrument of state oppression. They said that many medicines had been held back in warehouses. The ministry was trying to make healthcare worse in Iraq, the goal being to blacken the name of UN sanctions, which Saddam detested as a brake on his power. The fewer drugs, the worse the equipment and the more dead babies, the better it was for the regime. Any Iraqi doctors who didn't toe the line were punished.
At a press conference to launch the new acting health minister, Dr Ali Shenan replied that what his critics were really complaining about were Western-led United Nations sanctions against Iraq. As the words came out of his mouth, I thought to myself, 'He's talking John Pilger.' But Dr Ali Shenan was sacked, thanks to the doctors, while John Pilger is still in business.
In Victorian London the biggest killer was not the absence of medicines. It was unclean water, untreated sewage and uncollected rubbish. In Saddam's Iraq dirty water, untreated sewage and uncollected rubbish from the Shia slums of Baghdad and Basra were state policy for a regime that earned $12 billion in oil revenue every year. Yet Pilger makes no mention of Saddam's neglect of public health. Why?
And then there's the 'Hiroshima effect' of depleted uranium. Pilger wrote in the Daily Mirror just before the war, 'Depleted uranium [is] a sinister component of tank shells and airborne missiles. In truth, it is a form of nuclear warfare, and all the evidence suggests that its use in the Gulf war in 1991 has caused an epidemic in southern Iraq: what the doctors there call "the Hiroshima effect", especially among children.' That the cancer rates from 1991 onwards are the fault of the West's depleted-uranium weapons alone was one of Saddam's central messages.
In his television documentary film, Paying the Price, broadcast three years ago, Pilger did the rounds of a Basra hospital. He spoke to a paediatrician, Dr Ginan Ghalib Hassen. He wrote it all up in his book The New Rulers of the World: 'In the next bed, a child lay in his shrouded mother's arms. One side of his head was severely swollen. "This is neuroplastoma," said Dr Hassen. "It is a very unusual tumour. Before 1991, we saw only one case of this tumour in two years. Now we have many cases. I am a doctor; I am not supposed to cry, but I cry every day, because this is torture."' Pilger asked her, 'What do you say to those in the West who deny the connection between depleted uranium and the deformities of these children?' 'That is not true. How much proof do they want? There is every relation between congenital malformation and depleted uranium. Before 1991, we saw nothing like this at all.'
Felicity Arbuthnot, Pilger's senior researcher for the film, wrote in a magazine article published in September 1999, 'By early 1992, doctors in Iraq were bewildered by the rise in birth deformities � some so grotesque and unusual that they expected to see them only in textbooks and perhaps once or twice in a lifetime. They compared them to those recorded in the Pacific Islands after the nuclear testing in the 1950s. Cancers, too, were rising, especially among the young, the most susceptible to radiation.'
Hang on a minute. Cancers don't happen overnight. They develop after a latency period of at least four years. The Iraqis reported a rash of cancers in the south from 1992 onwards. The cancers that happened in 1992 cannot, scientifically, have been caused in 1992 � or 1991 when the depleted uranium was used � but at least four years before that. 'To say any different is ridiculous; it would deny the evidence from Hiroshima and Nagasaki,' Dr Nick Plowman, the head of oncology at Barts, told me.
In the mid-1980s Iranian human-wave offensives almost took Basra, but they were stopped by Saddam's chemical weapons. The UN found incontrovertible evidence that Saddam used mustard gas against the Iranians every year between 1984 and 1988. When the Iranians came close to Basra, the Iraqis dropped gas on their own people, too. Nearly all of the war was fought in Iraq, not Iran, so that's where Saddam dropped his chemical weapons.
Mustard gas � sulphur mustard � is carcinogenic and mutagenic. That is, sulphur mustard causes cancers, leukaemias and birth defects. The children of Iranian soldiers who were gassed by Saddam's men have developed terrible cancers and birth defects. No depleted-uranium weapons were used on them. The children of Halabja, the Kurdish town gassed by Saddam, have developed cancers and birth defects. Again, no depleted uranium was used on them.
Pilger knows all about chemical weapons. He wrote in the Mirror in January, 'I often came upon terribly deformed Vietnamese children in villages where American aircraft had sprayed a herbicide called Agent Orange. This terrible chemical weapon was dumped on almost half of South Vietnam. Today, as the poison continues to move through water and soil and food, children continue to be born without palates and chins and scrotums or are stillborn. Many have leukaemia.' If chemical weapons cause cancers in Vietnam, why don't they do the same in Iraq? The answer seems a simple one: chemical weapons cause cancer so long as they are dropped by the Americans.
Shortly after Pilger's programme was broadcast in 2000, Arbuthnot phoned Gwynne Roberts, the only journalist brave enough to go to Iraq in 1988 and dig up soil contaminated by Saddam's chemical weapons. Portland Down found mustard gas in Roberts's soil samples. Arbuthnot was puzzled: how could the cancers in Iraq have started in 1992? Roberts's view, like mine, is that � without letting the West off the hook on the question of depleted uranium � the contribution that Saddam's chemical weapons may have made to the Hiroshima Effect should be seriously investigated.
I emailed John Pilger, asking him, 'You know about Saddam's use of chemical weapons, so why didn't you raise the possibility of that being the cause of the cancers and birth defects?' He replied, 'You apparently think my film was made in 1991. It wasn't. It was made in 1999, eight years after the 1991 Gulf war, or twice the time it takes for deformities to develop, according to you. In the film I clearly put to one of the doctors the doubts that depleted uranium is the cause of the deformities. Her answer was a good one. Another specialist himself raises the doubts and addresses them. At no point in the film do I say that DU is, on its own, responsible for the extraordinary rise in cancers over, I repeat, a period of eight years up to when the film was made.'
This is artful. If Pilger and Arbuthnot accept that DU cannot have caused cancers observed in 1992, why haven't they made this clear? None of the cancers and birth defects that Pilger's researcher dates back to 1992 can be the fault of depleted uranium. To omit the possibility that some of the cancers were caused by Saddam's chemical weapons is to misrepresent the facts. To imply by that omission that depleted uranium is solely responsible for the cancers and birth defects in Iraq as he does in his book, his film and in the Daily Mirror is a disgrace to journalism.
I accuse John Pilger of cheating the public and favouring a dictator.
John Sweeney is special correspondent for the BBC.
The Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London, SW1H 9HP. All Articles and Content Copyright �2007 by The Spectator (1828) Ltd. All Rights Reserved |
http://www.spectator.co.uk/print/the-magazine/features/11261/the-first-casualty-of-pilger.thtml |
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Jandar
Joined: 11 Jun 2008
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| Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2009 4:37 am Post subject: |
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| chickenpie wrote: |
| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
| bacasper wrote: |
Absolutely!
Gaza: US Press Elite Concealing Israel`s War Crimes
Posted: 2009/01/14
America`s dominant media suppress facts, sacrifice accuracy, and conceal the greater lie that all Israeli aggression is collaboratively planned months in advance with Washington...
by Stephen Lendman
In his January 8 article, "Gaza Under Fire," John Pilger quotes the Soviet dissident Yevgeny Yevtushenko saying: "When the truth is replaced by silence, the silence is a lie." America's dominant media suppress facts, sacrifice accuracy, and conceal the greater lie that:
--
more at link |
John Pilger is a left wing fascist. |
Looks like he is just calling it what it is.
Outside of the US's tainted eyes the world sees things as they really are. |
Everyone has their own taint. |
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chickenpie
Joined: 24 Dec 2008
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| Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2009 8:16 am Post subject: |
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| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
| chickenpie wrote: |
| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
| bacasper wrote: |
Absolutely!
Gaza: US Press Elite Concealing Israel`s War Crimes
Posted: 2009/01/14
America`s dominant media suppress facts, sacrifice accuracy, and conceal the greater lie that all Israeli aggression is collaboratively planned months in advance with Washington...
by Stephen Lendman
In his January 8 article, "Gaza Under Fire," John Pilger quotes the Soviet dissident Yevgeny Yevtushenko saying: "When the truth is replaced by silence, the silence is a lie." America's dominant media suppress facts, sacrifice accuracy, and conceal the greater lie that:
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John Pilger is a left wing fascist. |
Looks like he is just calling it what it is.
Outside of the US's tainted eyes the world sees things as they really are. |
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The first casualty of Pilger...
John SweeneySaturday, 28th June 2003J John Sweeney says that John Pilger blames the Americans alone for birth defects in Iraq, and overlooks evidence that implicates Saddam Hussein
The Americans are making a hash of rebuilding Iraq, but one of the not so bad things they have done is to give Iraqis the freedom to scribble. On the wall outside the Baathist ministry of health the other day, a graffiti artist had scrawled in perfect English, 'We need a health ministry free of corruption.'
For years John Pilger � 'one of the world's most renowned investigative journalists', it says on the back of his latest book � has been insisting that the West, not Saddam, is to blame for the crisis in Iraq's public health; that 5,200 Iraqi children were dying every month; that Western depleted-uranium weapons were to blame for an epidemic of cancers; that sanctions crippled Iraq's doctors. Funnily enough, Pilger's journalism echoed what the Baathist regime wanted people to hear.
But very recently in Baghdad what some might call the Pilger�Baathist line was put to a very public test by yet another American blunder. They handpicked a new acting health minister, Dr Ali Shenan al-Janabi, who was number three at the health ministry under Saddam. According to virtually every Iraqi doctor I spoke to, he was an unacceptable choice. The Iraqi doctors were not keen to say so to the BBC on camera. To criticise the Baath party on the record is, even now, something that no Iraqi will do lightly. Then two surgeons at Al Kindi teaching hospital in Baghdad, Dr Rahim Ismael and Dlair Omar, mulled it over and said, 'OK, we'll do it.' They damned the health ministry under Saddam as a corrupt and brutal instrument of state oppression. They said that many medicines had been held back in warehouses. The ministry was trying to make healthcare worse in Iraq, the goal being to blacken the name of UN sanctions, which Saddam detested as a brake on his power. The fewer drugs, the worse the equipment and the more dead babies, the better it was for the regime. Any Iraqi doctors who didn't toe the line were punished.
At a press conference to launch the new acting health minister, Dr Ali Shenan replied that what his critics were really complaining about were Western-led United Nations sanctions against Iraq. As the words came out of his mouth, I thought to myself, 'He's talking John Pilger.' But Dr Ali Shenan was sacked, thanks to the doctors, while John Pilger is still in business.
In Victorian London the biggest killer was not the absence of medicines. It was unclean water, untreated sewage and uncollected rubbish. In Saddam's Iraq dirty water, untreated sewage and uncollected rubbish from the Shia slums of Baghdad and Basra were state policy for a regime that earned $12 billion in oil revenue every year. Yet Pilger makes no mention of Saddam's neglect of public health. Why?
And then there's the 'Hiroshima effect' of depleted uranium. Pilger wrote in the Daily Mirror just before the war, 'Depleted uranium [is] a sinister component of tank shells and airborne missiles. In truth, it is a form of nuclear warfare, and all the evidence suggests that its use in the Gulf war in 1991 has caused an epidemic in southern Iraq: what the doctors there call "the Hiroshima effect", especially among children.' That the cancer rates from 1991 onwards are the fault of the West's depleted-uranium weapons alone was one of Saddam's central messages.
In his television documentary film, Paying the Price, broadcast three years ago, Pilger did the rounds of a Basra hospital. He spoke to a paediatrician, Dr Ginan Ghalib Hassen. He wrote it all up in his book The New Rulers of the World: 'In the next bed, a child lay in his shrouded mother's arms. One side of his head was severely swollen. "This is neuroplastoma," said Dr Hassen. "It is a very unusual tumour. Before 1991, we saw only one case of this tumour in two years. Now we have many cases. I am a doctor; I am not supposed to cry, but I cry every day, because this is torture."' Pilger asked her, 'What do you say to those in the West who deny the connection between depleted uranium and the deformities of these children?' 'That is not true. How much proof do they want? There is every relation between congenital malformation and depleted uranium. Before 1991, we saw nothing like this at all.'
Felicity Arbuthnot, Pilger's senior researcher for the film, wrote in a magazine article published in September 1999, 'By early 1992, doctors in Iraq were bewildered by the rise in birth deformities � some so grotesque and unusual that they expected to see them only in textbooks and perhaps once or twice in a lifetime. They compared them to those recorded in the Pacific Islands after the nuclear testing in the 1950s. Cancers, too, were rising, especially among the young, the most susceptible to radiation.'
Hang on a minute. Cancers don't happen overnight. They develop after a latency period of at least four years. The Iraqis reported a rash of cancers in the south from 1992 onwards. The cancers that happened in 1992 cannot, scientifically, have been caused in 1992 � or 1991 when the depleted uranium was used � but at least four years before that. 'To say any different is ridiculous; it would deny the evidence from Hiroshima and Nagasaki,' Dr Nick Plowman, the head of oncology at Barts, told me.
In the mid-1980s Iranian human-wave offensives almost took Basra, but they were stopped by Saddam's chemical weapons. The UN found incontrovertible evidence that Saddam used mustard gas against the Iranians every year between 1984 and 1988. When the Iranians came close to Basra, the Iraqis dropped gas on their own people, too. Nearly all of the war was fought in Iraq, not Iran, so that's where Saddam dropped his chemical weapons.
Mustard gas � sulphur mustard � is carcinogenic and mutagenic. That is, sulphur mustard causes cancers, leukaemias and birth defects. The children of Iranian soldiers who were gassed by Saddam's men have developed terrible cancers and birth defects. No depleted-uranium weapons were used on them. The children of Halabja, the Kurdish town gassed by Saddam, have developed cancers and birth defects. Again, no depleted uranium was used on them.
Pilger knows all about chemical weapons. He wrote in the Mirror in January, 'I often came upon terribly deformed Vietnamese children in villages where American aircraft had sprayed a herbicide called Agent Orange. This terrible chemical weapon was dumped on almost half of South Vietnam. Today, as the poison continues to move through water and soil and food, children continue to be born without palates and chins and scrotums or are stillborn. Many have leukaemia.' If chemical weapons cause cancers in Vietnam, why don't they do the same in Iraq? The answer seems a simple one: chemical weapons cause cancer so long as they are dropped by the Americans.
Shortly after Pilger's programme was broadcast in 2000, Arbuthnot phoned Gwynne Roberts, the only journalist brave enough to go to Iraq in 1988 and dig up soil contaminated by Saddam's chemical weapons. Portland Down found mustard gas in Roberts's soil samples. Arbuthnot was puzzled: how could the cancers in Iraq have started in 1992? Roberts's view, like mine, is that � without letting the West off the hook on the question of depleted uranium � the contribution that Saddam's chemical weapons may have made to the Hiroshima Effect should be seriously investigated.
I emailed John Pilger, asking him, 'You know about Saddam's use of chemical weapons, so why didn't you raise the possibility of that being the cause of the cancers and birth defects?' He replied, 'You apparently think my film was made in 1991. It wasn't. It was made in 1999, eight years after the 1991 Gulf war, or twice the time it takes for deformities to develop, according to you. In the film I clearly put to one of the doctors the doubts that depleted uranium is the cause of the deformities. Her answer was a good one. Another specialist himself raises the doubts and addresses them. At no point in the film do I say that DU is, on its own, responsible for the extraordinary rise in cancers over, I repeat, a period of eight years up to when the film was made.'
This is artful. If Pilger and Arbuthnot accept that DU cannot have caused cancers observed in 1992, why haven't they made this clear? None of the cancers and birth defects that Pilger's researcher dates back to 1992 can be the fault of depleted uranium. To omit the possibility that some of the cancers were caused by Saddam's chemical weapons is to misrepresent the facts. To imply by that omission that depleted uranium is solely responsible for the cancers and birth defects in Iraq as he does in his book, his film and in the Daily Mirror is a disgrace to journalism.
I accuse John Pilger of cheating the public and favouring a dictator.
John Sweeney is special correspondent for the BBC.
The Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London, SW1H 9HP. All Articles and Content Copyright �2007 by The Spectator (1828) Ltd. All Rights Reserved |
http://www.spectator.co.uk/print/the-magazine/features/11261/the-first-casualty-of-pilger.thtml |
Wow, an article from a paper Ann Coulter would be proud of!!! From 2003!! Scraping the barrel as they say. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2009 1:07 pm Post subject: |
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="chickenpie"][
Wow, an article from a paper Ann Coulter would be proud of!!! From 2003!! Scraping the barrel as they say.[/quote]
I think the guy also did stuff for the BBC.
Anway he tells what Pilger and his ilk are about.
anyway here is more about that slime bag Pilger
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Pilger on the US and terrorism
Reporter:
TONY JONES: Now to the issue which has divided the political left and the Iraq anti-war movement.
Now that the die has been cast, the regime deposed and the coalition forces are occupying the country, how should they regard those who are still attacking the occupiers and targeting anyone they consider to be assisting the United States?
The veteran journalist John Pilger has no doubts.
He claims that, what he calls "the resistance" is "incredibly important" and that the world now "depends" on it to win.
"I think," he says, "if the US military machine" and the Bush administration can suffer something like a defeat "in Iraq, they can be stopped."
By which he means stopped from invading other countries.
Mr Pilger is in Australia at the moment speaking regularly at political rallies and at screenings of his film Breaking the Silence.
I spoke to him earlier this evening.
TONY JONES: John Pilger, do you still maintain that the world depends on what you call "the Iraqi resistance" to inflict a military defeat on the coalition forces?
JOHN PILGER: Well, certainly, historically, we've always depended on resistances to get rid of occupiers, to get rid of invaders.
And what we have in Iraq now is I suppose the equivalent of a kind of Vichy Government being set up.
And a resistance is always atrocious, it's always bloody.
It always involves terrorism.
You can imagine if Australia was occupied by the Japanese during the Second World War the kind of resistance there would have been, and so on.
We've seen that all over the world.
Now, I think the situation in Iraq is so dire that unless the United States is defeated there that we're likely to see an attack on Iran, we're likely to see an attack on North Korea and all the way down the road it could be even an attack on China within a decade, so I think what happens in Iraq now is incredibly important.
TONY JONES: You mean defeated militarily?
JOHN PILGER: Yes.
TONY JONES: What does that mean in terms of the resistance, and who is the resistance?
Are we talking about the remnants of the Baathist regime, or are we talking around foreign mujahadeen? Are we talking about anyone that's prepared to pick up a gun or set off a bomb?
JOHN PILGER: Why do we have a different standard of looking at what a resistance is in Iraq as it is anywhere else? |
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2004/s1063309.htm
Last edited by Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee on Fri Jan 16, 2009 2:30 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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