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February 15, 2005
Vigilant Resolve
Quare siletis juristae in munere vestro?
(Why are you jurists silent about that which concerns you?)
—Giorgio Agamben
Remembering the first siege of Fallujah: excerpts from testimony submitted to the World Tribunal on Iraq, Session on Media Wrongs against Humanity, University of Rome (III), February 10-13, 2005.
Background: a firefight
The armed forces of the United States of America laid siege to the Iraqi city of Fallujah in April and later in November of 2004. In order to better understand the role of US news media relative to these assaults, we must begin with an undeniable if rarely repeated reality: US assaults on Fallujah did not begin in April 2004. Let us avoid the unpleasant reminder that during the first Gulf War, Fallujah was among the cities with the highest numbers of civilian casualties—a distinction indebted to precision laser-guided bombs that struck crowded markets in the city center. We can then date assaults on Fallujah to Iraqi Freedom—which, for those who forget, began with the American invasion so named. A Human Rights Watch Report provides background.
Al-Falluja had generally benefited economically under the previous government. Local residents told Human Rights Watch that many of them had worked for the military, police or intelligence. However, Human Rights Watch did not find overwhelming sympathy for Saddam Hussein following the collapse of his government. Many al-Falluja residents told Human Rights Watch that they considered themselves victims and opponents of his repressive rule.1
Before US forces arrived on April 23, 2003, the report continues,
tribal and religious leaders in al-Falluja had already selected a Civil Management Council, including a city manager and mayor. The quickly-formed local government was having success in minimizing the looting and other crimes rampant in other parts of Iraq. Different tribes took responsibility for the city's assets, such as banks and government offices. In one noted case, the tribe responsible for al-Falluja's hospital quickly organized a gang of armed men to protect the grounds from an imminent attack. Local imams urged the public to respect law and order. The strategy worked, in part due to cohesive family ties among the population. Al-Falluja showed no signs of the looting and destruction visible, for example, in Baghdad.
However, according to the same report, the community became somewhat “agitated and concerned” when US forces took positions in central Fallujah, including in an elementary school. “Worried local leaders met with US commanders on April 24, explaining that al-Falluja was a religious city and requesting sensitivity from US troops.” Aggressive street patrols continued, however, and on April, 28, the day before city schools were scheduled to open, a demonstration was held outside of the elementary school where US troops were stationed. In what was described by military accounts as a “firefight” and by the leaders in American journalism as a perhaps excessive response to an attack,2 US soldiers applied continuous machine gun fire for near ten minutes on the crowd, killing seventeen injuring more than seventy. A ballistics report conducted thereafter could find “no compelling evidence” that a shot had been fired on US forces.3
Some safekeeping
But to return to the “aggressive street patrols” that began in Fallujah in April of 2003, one might ask why such safekeeping of a city would antagonize its citizens. But this issue needs no return; in Iraq such patrols and their accompanying detentions and collective punishments are ongoing. To ask why they are bothersome to a city’s citizens is furthermore presumptive; these patrols, after all, strip men and women of their rights as citizens. For to the extent that Fallujah was safely kept by US authorities, equally so was the citizenship of Fallujans. A January 2004 trip to Fallujah to speak with a law professor eight months after the arrival of occupation forces addressed these issues in an unexpected way.
The man we went to see in Falluja is Sheikh Haji Barakat, who is a law professor. The problem was that the Sheikh was detained by US soldiers three months ago, and remains in Abu Ghraib prison to this day. This, despite the fact that the US Commander of Falluja has already told his family that the Sheikh is innocent. Each time the family has asked for his release, they get the same promise: tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.
“Sheikh Haji Baraket,” explains his cousin Khamis, “is a great, honorable man. The Americans accused him of financing the resistance. But even the Sheikh told the Americans his seven sons are involved in the resistance. This doesn’t mean that their father is guilty. But they have detained him illegally anyway.”
Omar is the 20 year old nephew of the Sheikh, who was detained as well. He tells us of being interrogated. The Americans asked him if he was Sunni, when he had last seen his mother, and other odd questions, then released him. He also tells us that when the Americans came to detain him, the door to the house was smashed, papers and passports were taken, the manifest for the family car, and all the money in the house.
Omar states that while in prison the Americans who questioned him wore civilian clothing, and threatened to release German Shepherd dogs on him.4
The images are by now well known. Since April 2003, to Fallujans and other Iraqis Colonial India must seem an idyllic dream; Mohandas Gandhi’s once forceful rejoinder to arrest—on what charge?—would in today’s Iraq elicit only the force of laughter from authorities and their torturers (if Haji Baraket becomes at some point enfeebled enough to blurt it out). For the sake of Iraqi Freedom, in Fallujah—as elsewhere in the country—it is first the law that has been put away for safekeeping.
For slaughtered sheep
Nonetheless, in the weeks prior to the first siege of Fallujah, US news media could reasonably consider resistance to the US occupation of Iraq as opposition to “free-market capitalism, sexual freedom, and the importing of Hollywood movies.”5 Despite such objections, a New York Times survey of Iraqis found “an upbeat sense among most” that their lives were getting better: “Iraqis are starting to express satisfaction with how things are going.”6 Unsurprising, then, that in the New York Times one read that Spain’s decision to withdraw troops from Iraq—perhaps linked to the recent bombings in Madrid—“constitutes the most dangerous moment we’ve faced since 9/11.”7
On March 31st, a US vehicle traveling through Fallujah was ambushed and its four passengers killed. Who were the passengers? According to US national media, they were “consultants” or “contractors” or “security contractors.” What were they doing in Fallujah? On April 1, the San Francisco Chronicle wrote, “food deliveries around Fallujah”; the Washington Post wrote, “helped protect food convoys”; the New York Times wrote, “providing security for food delivery in the Falluja area”; while a Chicago Chronicle headline called the passengers simply, “civilians.” We found only two articles in the deluge that offered any variation at all from this account. One, published in the Washington Post, introduced the slain men as “among the most elite commandos working in Iraq.” The same article explained this fact, however, with a statement from their employer.
Coalition forces and civilian contractors and administrators work side by side every day with the Iraqi people. Our tasks are dangerous and while we feel sadness for our fallen colleagues, we also feel pride and satisfaction that we are making a difference for the people of Iraq.8
An article in the Chicago Tribune wrote that the slain passengers worked for a “security company” that issues military-style ranks, uses attack helicopters to train their personnel, deploys for months on end, trains at military installations, and works daily with US commanders in any given war zone.9 Nonetheless, as the same article concluded, such personnel “are not mercenaries” since they perform “defensive security-related work.” And this is an obvious conclusion to draw, when one remembers that the proper owners of Iraqi land and resources are US companies; accordingly any attempt to guard them is a defensive one, as is any attempt to police the Iraqis ordained to serve these interests. At any rate, such coverage was exceptional; indeed, the men killed on March 31, 2004 in Fallujah who had security clearance (meaning they were above the law to which every Iraqi, if he is lucky, is subject), who were heavily armed, and who even wore military dog tags were ubiquitously to referred in terms that could equally well have described teachers, gardeners, janitors, or aid workers. In the three days which immediately followed their deaths and which immediately preceded the siege of Fallujah—April 1st, 2nd, and 3rd—the men were referred to even as “civilians” with banal regularity: 10 times in the Los Angeles Times, 9 times in the San Francisco Chronicle, 20 times in the Washington Post, 16 times in the Chicago Tribune, and 25 times in the New York Times. During only these few hours that the US military had time to build support for a retaliatory siege, then, and in only 5 of the most respected national newspapers, readers read 80 times of the death and mutilation of American civilians in Fallujah.
A natural question to ask might be: how were civilians in Fallujah depicted during this time? Seven of the most circulated newspapers in the United States ran front page photos of Fallujans either congregating in front of the bodies of the dead Americans as they hung from a bridge or of Fallujans beating those bodies while on the ground.10 The major US news media found themselves reflecting on their respective portrayals of the event. Typical of these reflections were those offered by New York Times, which fell under the heading, “Issues of Taste.” The question was “how to show what happened without offending viewers and readers?” to which the article concluded, “showing kids celebrating while dragging bodies through the street was essential to the report.”11 For the concern centered not on the people of Fallujah but on the resemblence to Mogadishu a decade earlier—since “that moment shifted public opinion and eventually led to American pullout.” But the New York Times could not have put it better than the marine it quoted: “the insurgents in Falluja are testing us. They’re testing our resolve. But it’s not like we’re going to leave. We just got here.” In the national press, this resolve was more than ample: it was overwhelming. What the New York Times called a “brutal outburst of anti-American rage”12 was not only a “Saddamist Insurgency” to quote the Chicago Tribune, but also a “celebration” of “cheering, dancing”;13 in the Washington Post, “townspeople went on a rampage”;14 in the Washington Times, “cheering crowds reveled in a barbaric orgy.”15 As the San Francisco Chronicle reported, what occurred was “an act of savagery shocking even by the blood-stained standards of Iraq’s worst trouble spot”—“sheer bestial violence” that doubled as “a town fete.”16 These were “just random killings of any westerner” with “no rhyme or reason to [them] whatsoever.” An eyewitness account that circulated nationally recorded that “‘The people of Fallujah hanged some of the bodies on the old bridge like slaughtered sheep,’ resident Abdul Aziz Mohammed said gleefully.” Though in the context that was provided it was hardly necessary, a Fallujan taxidriver assured readers of the New York Times that “everyone here is happy with this. There is no question.”17
The question of how to respond was handled with equal resolve. As the New York Times reported, the event had brought to a halt the “American progress toward the establishment of a western-style democratic state.”18 By April 2nd, concerns were being raised in all corners that the lack of a swift military response may be disquieting evidence that Americans have indeed become “tolerant of violence.”19 The means available for such a response were implied, perhaps, by statements such as, “whoever did this were less than animals,” as a family member of one of the dead Americans was quoted in the New York Times.20 Other newspapers were less oblique; an unsigned op-ed in the Washington Post questioned whether “this country can be demoralized and defeated by acts of savagery.” It went on to state that “it is critical that the US commanders respond forcefully to Fallujah and step up the counteroffensive against the Sunni insurgency.”21 We should recall, then, that beside the lives of four American soldiers of fortune killed last April—or, in the language of the time, slaughtered sheep—were the residents of Fallujah, not quite citizens, not quite sheep for slaughter; they, a city’s mothers, fathers, babies, and grandmothers were but “jubilant locals” who, beasts that they had shown themselves to be, would “need to be defanged.”22 As one newspaper put it, in response to a Fallujan’s words that “‘we wish that they would try to enter Fallujah so we’d let hell break loose’”: “The man will get his wish...only the when and how had yet to be decided.”23
Heavier weapons and tougher tactics
When and how came hours later, in what even the handpicked members of the Iraqi Governing Council would condemn as collective punishment, and what their Washington benefactors would call Operation Vigilant Resolve. The purpose, tirelessly repeated, was to “regain control of the restive city”24—Fallujah, which, remember, had begun post-Saddam Iraq according to Human Rights Watch as a self-governing city of relative “law and order.” Remember too that the same Human Rights Watch report “did not find overwhelming sympathy for Saddam Hussein” but instead many who “considered themselves victims and opponents of his repressive rule.” Truth, however, posed little obstacle; the US news media ably presented its readers with an entirely different city, one that was not only “restive” but “lawless” and a “hotspot” and “flash point” for violence, as well as a “volatile center of support for [Saddam Hussein].”25 Later in the month, rumors would become findings, New York Times reports straight from the Pentagon’s mouth that Saddam Hussein’s former officers “are responsible for the majority of attacks today” in Fallujah.26
In the New York Times, fighting on the ground was introduced with the announcement that marines “fought block by block to flush out insurgents” and “were setting up checkpoints and seeking out suspected insurgents” in the city, its readers were reminded, where “American security contractors were killed and their bodies mutilated.”27 This reminder became obligatory both to explain US military presence in Fallujah and to suggest what another New York Times article made explicit: that as a result, the US marines were forced to abandon “a friendlier side of the American military” in exchange for “heavier weapons and tougher tactics.”28
While such “tougher tactics” were unfit to print in the national press, they were apparent to anyone present in Fallujah. While the New York Times reported an April 9th a US pause in fighting “to allow residents to bury scores of dead, and to open routes into the beleaguered city for food and urgently needed medical equipment,” in fact only three of the sixty trucks with relief supplies that arrived at Falluja were permitted entry into the city; probably not worth mentioning is that several of these trucks were fired upon before being denied entry and dispatched.29 The report two days later, from the New York Times, that “troops hold fire for negotiations,”30 was again flatly untrue:
three of my friends agreed to ride out on the one functioning ambulance for the clinic to retrieve the wounded. Although the ambulance already had three bullet holes from a U.S. sniper through the front windshield on the driver’s side, the fact that two of them are westerners was the only hope that soldiers would allow them to retrieve more wounded Iraqis. The previous driver was wounded when one of the snipers shots grazed his head.
What I can report from Falluja is that there is no ceasefire, and apparently never was. Iraqi women and children are being shot by American snipers. Over 600 Iraqis have been killed by American aggression, and the residents have turned two football fields into graveyards. Ambulances are being shot by the Americans. And now they are preparing to launch a full scale invasion of the city.31
This is difficult for me to see, particularly after being there yesterday and seeing an ambulance with 3 bullet holes in the driver’s side of the windshield. Seeing slain women and children, elderly, unarmed people. All killed and/or wounded by American snipers. In the last week there have been over 600 Iraqis slain in Falluja alone, with thousands more wounded.32
The targeting of ambulances by the US military was practiced with enough vigilance in Fallujah that the Iraqi Minister of Health on April 17 publicly pressed Paul Bremer to account for it. Bremer explained that the US authorities believed ambulances to have been used by fighters—offering, as a response, the very definition of collective punishment.33 Obstructing medical care, however, in some cases may have required more vigilance, as the following two medical accounts demonstrate:
The Americans shot out the lights in the front of our hospital, they prevented doctors from reaching the emergency unit at the hospital, and we quickly began to run out of supplies and much needed medications.34
One of my doctors in Falluja asked the Americans there if he could remove a wounded patient from the city. The soldier wouldn’t let him move the victim, and said, “We have dead soldiers here too. This is a war zone.” The doctor wasn’t allowed to remove the wounded man, and he died. So many doctors and ambulances have been turned back from checkpoints there.35
Such vigilance, too, is substitutable with the right hardware, if used illegally. A widely understood US military practice among the residents of Fallujah was the use of cluster bombs and flechettes.36 At Fallujah General Hospital, two orthopedic surgeons, Dr. Abdul Jabbar and Dr. Rashid spoke testified to this. Dr. Abdul Jabbar reported that “Many people were injured and killed by cluster bombs. Of course they used cluster bombs-we heard them, as well as treated people who had been hit by them.” Dr. Rashid agreed, saying, “I saw the cluster bombs with my own eyes. We don’t need any evidence. Most of these bombs fell on the families. The fighters—they know how to escape. But not the civilians.”37
He added that of the 800-1200 estimated Iraqi deaths in Fallujah, “not less than 60%...were women and children. You can go see the graves for yourself.” At Noman Hospital in Al-Adhamiya, a doctor there too said of the people who came in from Fallujah from ten days earlier, that “most…were children, women and elderly.”38 At Yarmouk Hospital, a lead doctor reported that he saw American soldiers killing women and children, calling the situation in Fallujah “a massacre.” The New York Times preferred the designation “tremendously precise.”39 And it was an apt one, according to one Fallujah resident, who after having escaped to Baghdad testified that US warplanes were bombing the city heavily prior to his departure, and that Marine snipers continued to secure residents of the besieged city, shot by shot. “There were so many snipers, anyone leaving their house was killed.”40 In the New York Times, this was called “an acute willingness among insurgents to die.”41
A doctor working in a temporary emergency clinic in Fallujah during April’s siege posed a question on Democracy Now!, which he repeated:
When you see a child five years old with no head what can you say? When you see a child with no brain just an open cavity what can you say? When you see a mother just hold her infant with no head and the shells are all over her
body?42
The doctor’s question is a good one: in April of 2004, as a city was invaded and its residents were fleeing, hiding, or being massacred, there was considerable public awareness in the United States of human beings whose bodies had been mutilated in Iraq, thanks to our news media. But among thousands of references to mutilation in that month alone, we have yet to find one related to anything that happened after March 31st. Feckless, such a search denies that mutilation is something that happens to Blackwater-hired mercs and other professional, American killers, not to Iraqi babies with misplaced heads. So, today, we pose the Iraqi doctor’s question once again, this time looking backward: when you saw an Iraqi baby feeling for her shell-splattered head, what did you say? If you’re the New York Times, you said, well, nothing;43 if you’re Paul Bremer, you said vigilant resolve.
(1) “Violent Response: the US army in al-Falluja,” Human Rights Watch, June 2003.
(2) See front page accounts in the New York Times et. al. on April 30, 2003.
(3) Ibid; see section 5, “Ballistic Evidence at the School.”
(4) “Iraq Diary-Baghdad Street Sweepers; Collective Punishment and Kabobs in Falluja,” Dahr Jamail, January 12, 2004.
(5) “Killing Iraq with Kindness,” New York Times, Ian Buruma, March 17, 2004.
(6) “One Year Later,” New York Times, Unsigned editorial, March 19, 2004.
(7) “Axis of Appeasement,” New York Times, Thomas Friedman, March 18, 2004.
(8) "Slain Contractors Were in Iraq Working Security Detail," the Washington Post, Dana Priest and Mary Pat Flaherty, April 2, 2004.
(9) “Iraq violence drives thriving business,” Chicago Tribune, Kristen Schanberg, Mike Dorning, April 2, 2004.
(10) “7 of Top 20 Papers Published Front-Page Fallujah Body Photos,” E&P News, Charles Geraci, April 1, 2004.
(11) “To Portray the Horrors, News Media Agonize,” New York Times, Bill Carter and Jacques Steinberg, April 1, 2004.
(12) “4 From US Killed in Ambush in Iraq; Mob Drags Bodies,” New York Times, Jeffrey Gettleman, April 1, 2004.
(13) “Iraqi Mob Mutilates 4 American Civilians,” Chicago Tribune, Colin McMahon, April 1, 2004.
(14) “Descent into Carnage in a Hostile City,” Washington Post, Sewall Chan, April 1, 2004.
(15) “Four Americans Mutilated,” Washington Times, April 1, 2004.
(16) “Horror at Fallujah,” San Francisco Chronicle, Colin Freeman, April 1, 2004.
(17) “4 From US Killed in Ambush in Iraq; Mob Drags Bodies,” New York Times, Jeffrey Gettleman, April 1, 2004.
(18) “Acts of Hatred, Hints of Doubt,” John Burns, New York Times, April 1, 2004.
(19) “General Vows to Hunt Killers, Retake Fallujah,” Chicago Tribune, April 2, 2004.
(20) “Families of Men Slain by Mob Focus on Their Lives, Not How They Died,” New York Times, Abby Goodnough, Michael Luo, April 3, 2004.
(21) “A Response to Fallujah,” Washington Post, unsigned op-ed, April 1, 2004.
(22) “Why America Won’t Cut and Run,” Chicago Tribune, unsigned op-ed, April 1, 2004.
(23) “General Vows to Hunt Killers, Retake Fallujah,” Chicago Tribune, April 2, 2004.
(24) “Marines Battle guerrillas in streets of Falluja,” New York Times, Eric Schmitt, April 9, 2004.
(25) “Acts of Hatred, Hints of Doubt,” John Burns, New York Times, April 1, 2004.
(26) “Hussein’s Agents Behind Attacks, Pentagon Finds,” Thom Shanker, New York Times, April 29, 2004. Although no evidence is provided to substantiate the claim, even if there had been, one might ask all the same why alleged crimes of the former regime against Fallujans or anyone else justify crimes (incidentally, much greater crimes) on the part of US-led forces against those Fallujans.
(27) “Up to 12 Marines Die in Raid on Their Base AS Fierce Fighting Spreads to 6 Iraqi cities,” New York Times, Jeffrey Gettleman and Douglass Jehl, April 7, 2004.
(28) “Marines Battle guerrillas in streets of Falluja,” New York Times, Eric Schmitt, April 9, 2004.
(29) “When do we begin calling this a War again?” Dahr Jamail, April 9, 2004.
(30) “Troops Hold Fire for Negotiations at 3 Iraqi Cities, “ New York Times, John Burns, April 12, 2004.
(31) “Slaughtering Civilians in Falluja,” Dahr Jamail, April 11, 2004.
(32) “No respite from the Violence,” Dahr Jamail, April 12, 2004.
(33) “Iraqi Minister of Health presses Bremer and IGC to explain U.S. Targeting of Ambulances in Falluja,” Dahr Jamail, April 17, 2004.
(34) “Fallujah Doctors Report U.S. Forces Obstructed Medical Care in April,” News Standard, Dahr Jamail, May 21, 2004
(35) “Cluster Bombs in Falluja, Harassment of Patients by Soldiers,” Dahr Jamail, April 19, 2004.
(36) “Their wide ‘kill radius’ renders flechettes particularly deadly. Their use in heavily populated areas contravenes two basic principles of the laws of war. The first is the prohibition against indiscriminate attacks, which means that forces cannot use weapons or mount attacks that do not or cannot distinguish between civilians and military objectives. The second is the requirement to take all feasible precautions to avoid or minimize harm to civilians when choosing method and means of attack,” from “Israel: Stop Using Flechettes in Gaza,” Human Rights Watch, April 29, 2003.
(37) “Atrocities Continue to Emerge from the rubble of Fallujah,” Dahr Jamail, May 11, 2004.
(38) “Cluster Bombs in Falluja, Harrassment of Patients by Soldiers,” Dahr Jamail, April 19, 2004.
(39) “Troops Hold Fire for Negotiations at 3 Iraqi Cities, “ New York Times, John Burns, April 12, 2004.
(40) Abu Muher, quoted in “Fallujah Residents Report U.S. Forces Engaged in Collective Punishment,” News Standard, Dahr Jamaril, Apr 23, 2004.
(41) “Marines Use Low-Tech Skill to Kill 100 in Urban Battle,” New York Times, Jeffrey Gettleman, April 15, 2004.
(42) “US Marines Shoot Ambulances in Fallujah,” Democracy Now! April 13, 2004.
(43) This would be incomplete without elaboration. Of the 55 articles in the New York Times covering Fallujah between April 1 and May 11, 2004, there was a lone article devoted to the matter of the US attack on a civilian population. In that article—“War Reports from Civilians Stir Up Iraqis Against US,” written by Christine Hauser and published on April 14, 2004—a truism from Human Rights Watch (“one needs to verify the information directly”) is used to make the point that “the chaos of battle complicates the task of those seeking the truth.” The complication wasn’t one that the article or even the newspaper thereafter cared much to deal with. In the article, General John Abizaid was summoned as an expert witness: “the Arab press, in particular Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, are portraying [our] actions as purposely targeting civilians and we absolutely do not do that. I think everyone knows that.” As the title of the article perhaps indicates, the news was not so much that atrocities were occurring as it was that alleged atrocities may impede the war effort. “[Such] accounts of the American offensive on Falluja, mounted after the ambush and mutilation of American security contractors here, are the ones many Arabs in the region are hearing.” It cannot be said, however, the language of international law was lost on the New York Times. On April 7th, Marlise Simons reported that “Iraqis meet with War Crimes Trial Experts.” But there she discussed prospects for bringing Saddam to trial, rather than his (disappointed) US masters, who at that moment were embarking on the earliest stage of a massacre. On April 8th, the Geneva Conventions were cited, but so to explain their inapplicability to the situation at hand. On the 9th, US generals used the New York Times to assure readers that US forces in Fallujah have been “judicious in the use of force.” In case these messages did not get through, the New York Times reported that Fallujans “have changed the landscape of the war dramatically since the ambush and killing last week of four security guards in Falluja,” suggesting that there is no longer a clear distinction to be drawn between fighters and civilians in Fallujah: “you never know which are going to come up and kill you” (“Under Falluja Sun, Gun Fire and a GrimTask: Wait it out,” John Kifner, Apil 19, 2004) and “the big problem now is that friendlies, civilians and bad guys are all mixed together” (“A Full Range of Technology is Appled to Bomb Falluja,” Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker, April 30, 2004). Indeed, if the same standards are applied to Fallujans as were applied to the four North Carolina men who died in Fallujah on March 31st, not some, but every Fallujan subject to vigilante resolve was civilian.
Posted by at February 15, 2005 02:33 AM
I write with information about the trials of Rwanda media people for aiding and abetting the genocide because it relates to Dahr's latest article on the Media Complicity of the Iraq War.
Last year i wrote a book on The Gujarat Genocide: A Case Study in Fundamentalist Cleansing. in that book i write about the crimes of the media in aiding and abetting that genocide. in that connection i had come across some court cases that took place re the Rwanda genocide where some prominent media persons were judged guilty of genocide. I am copying that part from my book here.....
"On December 3, 2003, three members of the mass media in Rwanda were convicted for “incitement to genocide, conspiracy, and crimes against humanity, extermination and persecution” by the International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda (ICTR), which was held in Arusha, Tanzania. Ferdinand Nahimana, founder of Radio Television des Mille Collines, was sentenced to life in prison. Hassan Ngeze, chief editor of the ‘Kanguara’ newspaper was also sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in the 1994 Rwanda genocide which left nearly one million people dead. Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza, another member of Radio Television des Mille Collines, was sentenced to 35 years in prison. All three were found to have played a major role in preparing the people for genocide.
On April 25, 1994, Nahimana said in a radio interview that the “war of media, words, newspapers and radio stations” were a complement to bullets. The judge, when sentencing him, said: “You were fully aware of the power of words, and you used the radio –- the medium of communication with the widest public reach –- to disseminate hatred and violence …. Without a firearm, machete or any physical weapon, you caused the death of thousands of innocent civilians.” The judge further told Nahimana: “You were a known academic, a professor of history at the national university of Rwanda and you used the radio to disseminate hatred and violence…. Instead of using the media to promote human rights, you used it to attack and destroy human rights.”
"In sentencing the editor, Mr. Ngeze, to life imprisonment, the judge told him that while he agreed Ngeze had rescued several Tutsi, he told him, “Your power to save was more than matched by your power to kill. You poisoned the minds of your readers, and by words and deeds caused the death of thousands of innocent civilians.” Ngeze used his magazine, Kangura, “to instill hatred, promote fear and incite genocide.”
"To Barayagwiza, the assistant editor at RTML, the judge said that he “violated the most fundamental human right, the right to life.”
"ICTR Prosecutor Hassan Bubacar Jallow, from Gambia, said in reaction to the verdict:
"The tribunal has established an international precedent that those who use [the] media to target a racial or ethnic group for destruction will face justice…. Much remains to be done, but this tribunal is well on its way to completing its mission of trailing those who bear the greatest responsibility for genocide.
"Similarly in India, the persons who urged people to kill –including journalists, broadcasters, publishers of pamphlets, booklets and leaflets --- must be brought to trial by an international tribunal. As of this writing, there remains no justice in India. The Shrikrsna Commission convicted Bal Thackaray for deliberately inciting violence in Mumbai. To this day, he remains at liberty and continues to foment hatred of Muslims. We can no longer trust national governments to protect their minorities. National governments must be held responsible by international courts for genocide against their minorities. This is the immediate challenge facing the international community in the 21st century. If this challenge is not met, once again, genocide will occur in India. We must organize grassroots people’s courts and people’s tribunals, and ..." end of quote from book
Dahr, it is possible that you and the others in Rome already knew about the Rwanda cases. If not, then I hope this information can somehow be useful to you. The mainstream media is also responsible/guilty for perpetuating these war crimes, aren't they. I consider this like a new era in the media world - where media must also be held accountable - for aiding and betting the crimes, for participating by inflaming the inciting the readers.
best wishes,
garda - editor
www.worldproutassembly.org
Posted by: Garda at February 15, 2005 12:53 AM
There is no doubt that the corporate owned & run news will not be running these stories because it is not in their best interest.
Look at who owns the media:
GE: NBC, MSNBC, CNBC;
Time Warner: CNN AOL;
Walt Disney: ABC, ESPN;
Viacom: CBS & UPN;
News Corporation: CEO Rupert Murdoch owns: Fox;
The aforementioned are just cable & TV -- it does not include print, magazines, news papers, radio etc. They control our entertainment, literature, sports, et al. And they still lobby for more de-regulation. And meanwhile GE (general electric) also owns a weapons manufacturing company. Theretofore you can see why there is no reason to bite the hand that feeds them by reporting the atrocities that have and are occurring in Iraq.
Of course unthinkable things happen in wartime, yet if more people knew what was being done in our name then perhaps, just perhaps the general public would not be so eager to embrace war as noble nor as willing to support it.
The American people were sold a bill of goods via the media. The media's hip-hip-hooray for the administration's agenda with neither question nor scrutiny has brought this nation shame & to Iraq destruction, chaos & death.
If the Am. public knew what was really happening I doubt they would put up with it. But without media integrity to report the real story the mainstream public will believe what they are told! Even when (if ever) the truth is revealed it will be hard for them to accept it.
Posted by: serena at February 15, 2005 05:27 AM
Fascinating concept....that the powers that be who were actively censoring US news could one day be held responsible for aiding and the war crimes that the US commits. I look forward to that time!
But in the meanwhile, shouldn't us in the US look at our own role as a people in aiding US war crimes? We are all responsible. What are the psychological roots of our hesitation to fully investigate and divulge the terrible things that our country has done?
We must find a way to feel simultaneously proud to be American, patriotic and supportive of our troops, yet absolutely insistent, precise and fierce in our criticism and efforts to expose the crimes our government and our military commits.
A delicate balance, indeed, but an absolutely necessary balance!
Posted by: James at February 15, 2005 06:32 PM
Who had the invidious job of collecting the bodies of the dead after US forces finished their destruction of Fallujah?
How many died?
Does anyone have any idea of the extent of the crime?
Will anyone ever be held accountable?
People the world over, I hope, will have the guts to speak out against this horrendous crime against decency and the human race!
Posted by: James at February 19, 2005 04:59 AM
Most Americans seem content to live in the fantasy world as portrayed by mainstream media. That way, they don't have to feel any guilt or remorse over any possible wrong doings of the US against Iraq. They can continue to live in a bubble of self-righteousness and patriotism, completely oblivious to reality. This is a crime greater than any committed by Saddam!
Posted by: Laura McCarthy at February 20, 2005 07:37 PM
If the US reinstates the draft I'll bet that patriotic/fantasy world bubble would break in an instant. I can see why Rummy is so opposed to the draft.... there might be some American "insurgance" drafted into that madness who wouldn't go along with the crap they are asked to do over there.
Posted by: bonlu at February 20, 2005 08:54 PM
No mention here of the failure of the corporate media to report on the illegal use of napalm and other phosphorus weapons as has been previously reported by independant media. Has it not yet been established that these weapons and other unknown "secret weapons" are indeed being used by coalition forces against the people of Fallujah and elsewhere in Iraq?
Posted by: Will James at February 20, 2005 10:14 PM
Wouldn't it be nice if GOD/ALLAH/JEHOVAH woke up?
Posted by: Joseph W. Schultz at February 20, 2005 10:34 PM
Grim. Machiavellian. Barbaric. We get it...not surprised. Thanks for sharing and for the good sourcing and footnotes.
Posted by: jackl at February 20, 2005 11:18 PM
When will the sheeple of America wake up? Thanks to the internet, we have access to news online from all over the world. Just a little surfing will show how most US media distorts the truth, not only about Iraq, but about many other international issues.
Posted by: Mary Ann at February 20, 2005 11:38 PM
Does anyone know if the exemptions granted (extorted) from various other nations, agreeing not to prosecute - also include the press?
It may take the global community to hold the U.S. responsible. Actions from those in Washington D.C. have proved that there isn't a national body or law that has any authority over them.
Posted by: aikanae at February 21, 2005 04:33 AM
Quare siletis juristae in munere vestro?
(Why are you jurists silent about that which concerns you?)
This is a very good question that is being asked of all of us jurists, the people, why are you silent? You have the evidence, you know the truth, so why are you silent?
The apathy of the majority of the American people is an indecent crime being committed in this country. If a person is not actively fighting the atrocities our government is committing with the help of the media, then they are guilty of the same atrocities.
I wonder what it will take to motivate the American people, another Kent State? Another depression? World War III? Someone mentioned the draft, will the young people and college campuses finally get involved in the peace and justice movement when they are personally threatened with the draft? What will it take?
There are many, many organizations that are fighting the murderous rampage our government is on and they all need and welcome participants. I highly recommend everyone pick one and revolt against what is being done in your names without your support or permission.
Being an activist is not easy, but living with yourself knowing that you did nothing but complain is much harder.
Now is not the time for apathy...GET INVOLVED!
Posted by: jamie at February 21, 2005 06:33 AM
Mr Jamail,
I attended your Olympia and Kirkland talks and though informative, I noticed
a slight difference: your first talk seemed to be one of presenting facts and
impressions from a newsworthy perspective; the latter talk with the same
facts and also a view of video with highlighted dangers had a different tone.
Ritter is a powerful, organized, and to the point speaker. Reminded me, as he
said on a few occasions, of a military mind: very confident, correct in his
facts, etc. Some points might be disputed, but his appeal to 'the highest
sources' left me a bit cold. Seymour Hersch does the same and I like both
their talks, but I have to ask myself do I believe what they are asking me
to 'Trust', namely their inside knowlege? Is this not the same game the neo-
cons use with their spokesmen? In fact, I wasn't sure if Ritter was not
running for office, or just missed having some troops to command.
Please do not get me wrong, I like what the Ritters and Monbiots and Moyer,
Tariq Ali, Goodman, Hersch, Said, etc, say; but I also read the Strauss,
Rosen, Pangle, Bloom and their students (Perle, Wolfowitz, Abraham Skulsky,
Fukayama) and know, I think, where they are coming and going. They all have
an agenda; they are selling something in one form or another. The most
difficult thing is trying to figure out exactly what it is. Probably why the
mild spoken Chomsky appeals to me-sort of, 'take it or leave it', quietness
with an edge.
It is why I enjoyed your first talk: you were selling me facts not telling me
to act. If I have the knowledge, that should be sufficient. I think we
have enough vendors in the market. Intelligent people will use what you tell
them and know it for its value without being advised to act. The rest can
listen to the Ritters of the world and take to the streets.
I admire the guttsiness of what you are doing and want to know firsthand what
you are about, taking I hope care, not to come afoul of ALL the 'bad guys'.
Please continue your work of presenting a clear picture and by all means
watch your back: that video episode was a bit chilling. Those bastards are
either crazy or just damn bullies, but not necessarily smart.
I guess this is advice. But then it is from really nobody: just someone who
has an interest in what is going on. I hope to make your Winslow and WWU
talks...I like to see what the reaction is of the crowd.
Regards,
George Diehl
Bothell, WA
Posted by: George Diehl at February 21, 2005 07:05 PM
I live for the day when the criminals are held ACCOUNTABLE and so I have one question: What is being done about it ?
All like-minded people all over the world should be able to come together in some kind of umbrella
organization and DO something to increase the possibility of making the criminals accountable.
Posted by: Tony at February 23, 2005 05:53 AM
I've read through your blog and some of the entries in the forum--I can see why someone asked that your 'news' not be printed.
I've now been in Iraq for just over 11 months and I am in the unique position to have personal contact with thousands of troops, contractors, and security forces from all over the country. Your worst 'news' items come from 2nd hand sources that are obviously in error.
American media getting it right? Not even close...on that we agree. Just look at the current FOX coverage of some 17 year-old girl in Aruba that went off partying with some locals--who gives a damn.
However--this mess about US troops retaliating and laying seige to a town--try going there--there's not a single troop present. Massecre of Falluja? Give me a break...how long did they make it 100% clear that all non-combatants should have gotten out of town? Gave them enough time that they could have packed their entire households up conviently if they so chose.
Everyone left in that city was fully aware that they were going to be considered targets---rightly so considering that most of the remaining people were armed and already geared towards anti-American sentiment.
Every time I see blogs and 'news' with a spin like this on the net--I cringe. Look at the other posts above--these people actually believe that everything you report is accurate and without 'spin'. You don't seem to see a promlem with a society based largly on tribal instinct and run with a flea-market mentality rather than haveing and educated populace.
These same people that parroted the chard corpses of US troops and mutilated them are the same ones that are protesting common interrogation practices such as humiliation.
You claim to be here in Iraq but I know people all over this theater and over 50 of them are longtime friends working in all aspects--military, contractor, engineering, government, and yes--private security. No matter what some anonomyous e-mail you may get says, these are people in the places you 'report' on that invite me along when my job takes me nearby. My eyes never see these great atrocities that you describe.
Answer this: You dont want the US here so what would you do? Let the people rule themselves instantly? They still hate each other and have the political maturity of a lima bean.
Everyone wants to complain but no one wants to do--or even offer a detailed course of action. The phrase "I don't know but, really, somethings got to change" is the cry of the armchair warrior.
Posted by: J.D. at June 24, 2005 04:06 AM
The comments by Tony above just shows the minds of how these White imperialists work. They still beleive that these Whites are needed to teach people of Asia, Africa and other continents lessons of how to live.
These White imperialist stooges need to be reminded that people in Iraq or for the matter other countries where these imperialists interfered have been left in tatters primarily because of the Satanic manipulations of EVIL CIA and its stooges in the Corporate, wile, evil American media and its traitors who rule the country with the backing of the most barbaric and beastly but most cowardly and impotent forces in the world. Well see Vietnam and people are living in peace after the liars and traitors were wiped out the "mightiest Army" in the world fled like frigtened mice running for cover in a haystack. Iraqis were living in peace until the White Corporate corporate looters started eyeing the oil of Iraq to fill their coffers.
All the mayhem that we see today is due to the CIA policy of divide and rule. It is not the nationalist insurgents but the CIA imperialist and Ku Klux Klan stooges, like FOX, BBC, CNN and who are creating a divide between Shias and Sunnis for their unsatiable greed.
If US is so worried about democracy let it dare try to get Tibet released by China, or even try attacking North Korea. Let these cow boys, Bush and team and their keep Blair even dream of it, the CHINESE will teach them such a lresson that 100 generations of Americans would regret being Born, LET THEM DARE
'
Posted by: Ajay Kishlay at July 17, 2005 10:43 AM
I have looked at many of these articles of violence in Iraq and have come to the singular conclusion that this site, as many others, are being used to promote a vitriolic propagandist campaign. I can not believe that you people reading these articles can call others sheep for following "main stream" media sources when you do not even question the "news" being presented to you on this site. Your basic response is "oh, of course the US military is doing these awful things." Where is the proof?!
Case in point, related to this Fallujah article, the February 08, 2005 Stories from Fallujah article. It is an entire article of a supposed conversation with a supposed doctor from Fallujah who supposedly witnessed atrocities done to everyone (except him somehow) and supposedly has video and picture evidence of said atrocity. Why isn't there even a single picture available for download? Why haven't the videos and pictures been shown far and wide of these evils? You know if they exist you all would be posting them left and right so don't tell me they've been suppressed.
I believe that there are bad things happening in Iraq, some of it by the US military, but to purposefully amplify the bad and promote those who, most likely, lie to further their cause presents no better, just more half-truths and lies.
Posted by: Matthew Dovrosky at July 27, 2005 09:28 PM
About AM Al Zarqawi.
First to say that I'm very happy to read, at lats, something about him which is documented, and not the usual propaganda. Still we don't know much about him...But it was worth trying, since no other media did so.
As for an alleged fight in Afghanistan in 1990. Even if the soviets left the country officially in 1989, your witness could be right in saying he was still figthing against soviets in 1990. The Najibullah regime was held, funded and helped by the soviets up until its collapse in 1992.
Numerous testimonies established the presence of russians soldiers, notably in Kabul, to man the scud launchers for instance.
In 1989, a huge battle raged for Jalalabad, between some "mudjahidin" forces (but essentially arabs trained and helped by Pakistan, see the book the "bear's trap")and governmental forces. The arabs showed there huge brutality, when government used one ton explosives charges on scud missiles. Scores of civilians were killed, but Jalalabad wasn't caught by the resistance.
It is the most notable operation of arabs, and for sure they showed there more brutality than strategic or tactical sense. Nothing in common with other afghan resistance forces.
Was Zarqawi in this arab force? That is a big question!
Posted by: bert Bertrand at August 1, 2005 10:37 AM
The comment made by George Diehl is right. We all need to come togethor, stand up and be counted.
And show that we are against our vile Governments.
Our Media here in the Uk and the US are telling blatent lies to the people. And we have become so brain dead, the people dont care. They'd rather know who won Big Brother.
Tony BLAIR along with Bush need to be held responsible for war crimes.
People need to be more like Brian Haw - the lone Peace Protestor who has camped out side the British Houses of Parliment for 4 years shouting over to Blair reminding him he will not get away with these WAR CRIMES.
We need to constantly remind people of the atrocities that are occuring every day in Iraq.
(And people wonder why we are getting BOMBED ON THE TRAINS IN LONDON?) Give me a break.
Lets get togethor and fight these war criminals.
Not by murder, but by world movement.
Let it start now.
Posted by: Rob Hardy at August 13, 2005 09:26 AM
Tony the typical mercinary fascist is a good example of The Ugly American.Is it any wonder that the majority of Iraqis hate the Americans in their country.These racist,uneducated,obnoxious Americans can't even learn to speak the language.They have no respect for the Iraqis and treat them like crap.Just like in Vietnam the Americans turned the Vietnamese against them.Where ever the American military goes they are hated.They turn the foreign countries they occupy into wastelands of crime and despair.The local women and girls become prostitutes and the boys become drug dealers and pimps for the American troops.From Vietnam,the Philippines,South Korea,etc.the US military spreads it's corruption and disease.
Posted by: Dave Cutler at October 28, 2005 11:11 AM
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