| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Sat May 14, 2005 11:20 pm Post subject: US MEDIA KEEPS IRAQ CARNAGE QUIET IRAQ ON BRINK OF CIVIL WAR |
| http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar%2FLayout%2FArticle_Type1&c=Article&cid=1116022218836
US MEDIA KEEPS IRAQ CARNAGE QUIET IRAQ ON BRINK OF CIVIL WAR
(http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/) NEWS YOU WON'T FIND ON CNN
Posted - Sat May 14, 2005 2:11 pm
May 14, 2005. 01:00 AM
BASSEM DAHAM/AP
Iraqis grieve outside a local hospital after a suicide car bomb exploded in a Tikrit market, north of Baghdad, this week. Most of those killed were Shiite workers from Nasiriya, southern Iraq, seeking jobs. Hundreds of Iraqis have been killed in attacks in the past two weeks.
`America kept in dark' as carnage escalates
U.S. TV accused of ignoring situation
Iraq on brink of civil war, analysts say
TIM HARPER
WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON—When the man in the white van slowed, the group of labourers from Kut, southeast of Baghdad, approached him in the hope they would be offered work.
Instead he offered death.
As the workers approached, the man blew up his van, killing himself and the men who had tentatively moved to him in trust, sending body parts hurtling through the sky and, according to witnesses, turning the nearest hospital into a blood-stained shrine of futility, overwhelmed by the number and severity of the casualties.
The scene was played out many times over in Iraq this week, where a spike in insurgent violence has placed the country on the precipice of civil war.
More than 450 Iraqis have been slaughtered in the past two weeks in a direct challenge to a new Iraqi government, making those heady days of the January election seem like something from the distant past. The euphoria of the purple thumb, the symbol of the bravery of voters, has given way to a river of blood-red in some of the worst violence in the post-Saddam era.
"We are on the edge of civil war," said Noah Feldman, a New York University professor and chief U.S. adviser to Iraq on the writing of the country's new constitution.
Yet, somehow this sharp surge in deadly bombings, assassinations and kidnappings in Iraq has occurred largely under the radar in the United States.
No public figures have risen this week to decry this most recent carnage, no one is breaking into regular programming on cable news shows.
Perhaps Americans have simply become numb to the background hum of Iraqi violence. Perhaps the lack of graphic images on television mean that medium doesn't know how to cover the story. Perhaps, more cynically, Iraqis killing Iraqis is not as compelling a story.
The left-leaning American Progress Action Fund said in a statement yesterdayAmerica's most important foreign policy venture is teetering on the edge of civil war, but it is being ignored by television networks.
"Television media — still the primary source of news for most Americans — is failing miserably," it said. "America is being kept in the dark."
While American TV viewers turn to runaway brides, fast-food fingers and the daily Michael Jackson aberration, they are missing the story of an increasingly massive foreign policy failure.
The number of car bomb attacks in Iraq jumped from 64 in February to 135 in April, a record, according to U.S. military statistics. Insurgents are reported to have stockpiled car bombs and the attacks are becoming more brazen as Sunni insurgents and foreign fighters try to provoke civil war with the Shiite majority.
"There is an apparent free flow of suicide bombers into Iraq," a Western diplomat told the London-based Guardian newspaper.
The U.S. death toll is at 1,611 and U.S. legislators this week approved funding which pushes the cost of the Iraq war beyond $250 billion (U.S.)
The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, called again this week for patience.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
`The only thing that can stop civil war is to bring this insurgency under control.'
Noah Feldman, U.S. adviser to Iraq
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"One thing we know about insurgencies is that they last from, you know, three, four years to nine years," he said. "These are tough fights. And in the end, it's going to have to be the Iraqis that win this.
"If there was a magic bullet, then Gen. (George) Casey and Gen. (John) Abizaid or I, or somebody on the staff more likely, would have found it."
While U.S. authorities say they believe most of the jihadists are foreign fighters — and have launched a major offensive near the Syria border to try to choke off the influx — J. Patrick Lang, a former chief of Middle East intelligence for the Defence Intelligence Agency, told National Public Radio this week that he believed the insurgents are 90 per cent home-grown.
He said they're a mix of former military, intelligence, police personnel and Baath party functionaries taking directions from a government-in-exile.
David Phillips of the non-partisan Council on Foreign Relations and author of Losing Iraq: Inside the Postwar Reconstruction Fiasco, said the spike in the insurgency can be blamed on three factors.
He said the delay of Iraqis in convening a new government to validate the January elections, the preponderance of Shiites and Kurds in the government plus the intensification of the de-Baathification process simply backed the Sunni view that there is no role for them in the new government.
But, Phillips also points to statements from the White House that U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had intervened to try to break the cabinet stalemate as another spark.
"It reinforced the view in Iraq that (Prime Minister Ibrahim) Jaafari was merely a proxy for those people in Washington," he said.
The damage done by a decision to give Sunnis a small representation in the cabinet unveiled last month seems to have been exacerbated with the decision to appoint only two Sunnis to the 55-member committee chosen to write Iraq's permanent constitution.
It will only play to the sense of despair and disenfranchisement among Sunnis, many analysts say.
Feldman said the Shiite population in Iraq has shown patience of historic proportion in not retaliating against the Sunni attacks.
"The reason I say we are on the edge of civil war is that you can't have one if only one side is attacking," he said. "But the truth is, Shiites are only human and they will run out of patience," he said. "The only thing that can stop civil war is to bring this insurgency under control."
But to do so, he said, Iraqi security forces have to convince Sunnis that violence will not work and they should join the political process.
Sunni fighters, however, are convinced they can hasten the departure of some 139,000 American troops by starting a civil war, Feldman wrote.
Conversely, he said, should U.S. troops depart, civil war is guaranteed.
Phillips is even more pessimistic. When asked about the chances that the brakes could be put on the insurgency in the short term, he answered: "None. This insurgency will go on for years and years, regardless of what the U.S. does."
The insurgency can never be defeated by military force, he said. Instead, Iraqis have to believe that their institutions are worth defending and that defence has to come from Iraqi troops.
Additional articles by Tim Harper | |  | | Alpha | | Posted: Sat May 14, 2005 11:28 pm Post subject: Re: US MEDIA KEEPS IRAQ CARNAGE QUIET IRAQ ON BRINK OF CIVIL |
| Israeli Origins of Bush II's Iraq War (Israel Shahak mentioned):
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/04/26/the-israeli-origins-of-bush-ii-s-war.php
A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties
by Oded Yinon (with a foreword by, and translated by Israel Shahak)
http://student.cs.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/articles/article0005345.html
----- Original Message -----
From: mimi
Sent: 5/14/2005 2:27:18 PM
Subject: RE: Fired AIPAC Official Foresees Indictment
appreciation for these excellent links...
BTW, I was re-reading a bit of Israel Shahak's excellent book called "Open Secrets: Isreali Nuclear and Foreign Policies" (Pluto press, 1997), published just ?2 years before his death....and in it he discussed in many locations the "horror scenarios" that the Israeli govt began spinning like mad, in early 1992...about the prospect for war with Iran and more---"they'd do it alone or persuade the West to do it..." i.e., a full-blown "indoctrination" effort to manipulate their population and the West...this is a MUST have/must read book....by a brilliant humanitarian professor and scientist. I only learned about him after his death...and had never even heard of him before this Intifadah (of course not...). there is much much more. It should be available and inexpensive....worth a thorough read....if you ever have time...
best
Mimi
Books: (Amazon and elsewhere....)
1. Jewish History, Jewish Religion : The Weight of Three Thousand Years (Pluto Middle Eastern Studies)
by Israel Shahak (Paperback - December 1, 1994)---used from $5.60
2. Jewish Fundamentalism In Israel : New Introduction by Norton Mezvinsky (Pluto Middle Eastern Studies S.)
by Israel Shahak, Norton Mezvinsky (Paperback - July 1, 2004) ---~ $12.95
3. Open Secrets : Israeli Foreign and Nuclear Policies
by Israel Shahak (Paperback - December 1, 1997) -- used from $15.05
Articles:
http://www.mepc.org/public_asp/journal_shahak/shahak29.asp (Interview with Shahak)
http://www.mepc.org/public_asp/journal_shahak/shahakmain.asp
http://www.theunjustmedia.com/the%20zionist_plan_for_the_middle_east.htm
http://home.comcast.net/~neoeugenics/Shahak.htm
http://www.kokhavivpublications.com/2002/forum/israel_fund_demo/shahak_letters.html
| Alpha wrote: | http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar%2FLayout%2FArticle_Type1&c=Article&cid=1116022218836
US MEDIA KEEPS IRAQ CARNAGE QUIET IRAQ ON BRINK OF CIVIL WAR
(http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/) NEWS YOU WON'T FIND ON CNN
Posted - Sat May 14, 2005 2:11 pm
May 14, 2005. 01:00 AM
BASSEM DAHAM/AP
Iraqis grieve outside a local hospital after a suicide car bomb exploded in a Tikrit market, north of Baghdad, this week. Most of those killed were Shiite workers from Nasiriya, southern Iraq, seeking jobs. Hundreds of Iraqis have been killed in attacks in the past two weeks.
`America kept in dark' as carnage escalates
U.S. TV accused of ignoring situation
Iraq on brink of civil war, analysts say
TIM HARPER
WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON—When the man in the white van slowed, the group of labourers from Kut, southeast of Baghdad, approached him in the hope they would be offered work.
Instead he offered death.
As the workers approached, the man blew up his van, killing himself and the men who had tentatively moved to him in trust, sending body parts hurtling through the sky and, according to witnesses, turning the nearest hospital into a blood-stained shrine of futility, overwhelmed by the number and severity of the casualties.
The scene was played out many times over in Iraq this week, where a spike in insurgent violence has placed the country on the precipice of civil war.
More than 450 Iraqis have been slaughtered in the past two weeks in a direct challenge to a new Iraqi government, making those heady days of the January election seem like something from the distant past. The euphoria of the purple thumb, the symbol of the bravery of voters, has given way to a river of blood-red in some of the worst violence in the post-Saddam era.
"We are on the edge of civil war," said Noah Feldman, a New York University professor and chief U.S. adviser to Iraq on the writing of the country's new constitution.
Yet, somehow this sharp surge in deadly bombings, assassinations and kidnappings in Iraq has occurred largely under the radar in the United States.
No public figures have risen this week to decry this most recent carnage, no one is breaking into regular programming on cable news shows.
Perhaps Americans have simply become numb to the background hum of Iraqi violence. Perhaps the lack of graphic images on television mean that medium doesn't know how to cover the story. Perhaps, more cynically, Iraqis killing Iraqis is not as compelling a story.
The left-leaning American Progress Action Fund said in a statement yesterdayAmerica's most important foreign policy venture is teetering on the edge of civil war, but it is being ignored by television networks.
"Television media — still the primary source of news for most Americans — is failing miserably," it said. "America is being kept in the dark."
While American TV viewers turn to runaway brides, fast-food fingers and the daily Michael Jackson aberration, they are missing the story of an increasingly massive foreign policy failure.
The number of car bomb attacks in Iraq jumped from 64 in February to 135 in April, a record, according to U.S. military statistics. Insurgents are reported to have stockpiled car bombs and the attacks are becoming more brazen as Sunni insurgents and foreign fighters try to provoke civil war with the Shiite majority.
"There is an apparent free flow of suicide bombers into Iraq," a Western diplomat told the London-based Guardian newspaper.
The U.S. death toll is at 1,611 and U.S. legislators this week approved funding which pushes the cost of the Iraq war beyond $250 billion (U.S.)
The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, called again this week for patience.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
`The only thing that can stop civil war is to bring this insurgency under control.'
Noah Feldman, U.S. adviser to Iraq
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"One thing we know about insurgencies is that they last from, you know, three, four years to nine years," he said. "These are tough fights. And in the end, it's going to have to be the Iraqis that win this.
"If there was a magic bullet, then Gen. (George) Casey and Gen. (John) Abizaid or I, or somebody on the staff more likely, would have found it."
While U.S. authorities say they believe most of the jihadists are foreign fighters — and have launched a major offensive near the Syria border to try to choke off the influx — J. Patrick Lang, a former chief of Middle East intelligence for the Defence Intelligence Agency, told National Public Radio this week that he believed the insurgents are 90 per cent home-grown.
He said they're a mix of former military, intelligence, police personnel and Baath party functionaries taking directions from a government-in-exile.
David Phillips of the non-partisan Council on Foreign Relations and author of Losing Iraq: Inside the Postwar Reconstruction Fiasco, said the spike in the insurgency can be blamed on three factors.
He said the delay of Iraqis in convening a new government to validate the January elections, the preponderance of Shiites and Kurds in the government plus the intensification of the de-Baathification process simply backed the Sunni view that there is no role for them in the new government.
But, Phillips also points to statements from the White House that U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had intervened to try to break the cabinet stalemate as another spark.
"It reinforced the view in Iraq that (Prime Minister Ibrahim) Jaafari was merely a proxy for those people in Washington," he said.
The damage done by a decision to give Sunnis a small representation in the cabinet unveiled last month seems to have been exacerbated with the decision to appoint only two Sunnis to the 55-member committee chosen to write Iraq's permanent constitution.
It will only play to the sense of despair and disenfranchisement among Sunnis, many analysts say.
Feldman said the Shiite population in Iraq has shown patience of historic proportion in not retaliating against the Sunni attacks.
"The reason I say we are on the edge of civil war is that you can't have one if only one side is attacking," he said. "But the truth is, Shiites are only human and they will run out of patience," he said. "The only thing that can stop civil war is to bring this insurgency under control."
But to do so, he said, Iraqi security forces have to convince Sunnis that violence will not work and they should join the political process.
Sunni fighters, however, are convinced they can hasten the departure of some 139,000 American troops by starting a civil war, Feldman wrote.
Conversely, he said, should U.S. troops depart, civil war is guaranteed.
Phillips is even more pessimistic. When asked about the chances that the brakes could be put on the insurgency in the short term, he answered: "None. This insurgency will go on for years and years, regardless of what the U.S. does."
The insurgency can never be defeated by military force, he said. Instead, Iraqis have to believe that their institutions are worth defending and that defence has to come from Iraqi troops.
Additional articles by Tim Harper | | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sun May 15, 2005 1:39 am Post subject: Lies in US Media |
| Montpelier, VT, May. 13 (UPI) -- A few months ago, the Pew Research Center conducted a survey of public attitudes about U.S. news coverage, asking people whether the media "usually get the facts straight." In past polls, 55 percent have said the media usually gets it right, an outcome considered shockingly low at the time.
This time, 36 percent said that coverage of major stories is accurate. And this isn't an isolated finding. Explaining the survey, Pew Research Center President Andrew Kohut added that various questions show "fewer people believing what they read, what they hear and what they see in the news media."
You can't blame them. The disconnect between "official" news and reality on the ground continues to grow. It doesn't help that the government openly pays journalists to plant stories and spin policy.
In that regard, the most recent revelation is the Agriculture Department's payment of a freelance writer to place stories about preservation of wetlands in hunting and fishing magazines. The writer, Dave Smith, received $9,375 for promoting the administration's line, a pittance compared to the $240,000 commentator Armstrong Williams was paid by the Education Department to promote the "no child left behind" program or the $40,000 two columnists received from the Health and Human Services Department for writing brochures and training its staff in how to manage the media.
But the problem goes even deeper. Sometimes the mainstream media simply ignore the news. Case in point: a British newspaper recently revealed clear evidence that U.S. intelligence was shaped to support the drive for war in Iraq. The evidence includes various documents, including the minutes of a July 23, 2002 meeting in the office of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, during which British support for the war was considered a given. "It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided," the minutes state.
As a result, 88 members of the House of Representatives are demanding an investigation. But this so-called "smoking gun" memo and the congressional response it has sparked have received little attention in the U.S. media.
According to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, a self-described progressive group offering criticism of media bias and censorship, the most widely circulated story came from the Knight-Ridder wire service, which mentioned a leaked memo that said "facts were being fixed around the policy." A columnist for the Cox News Service also mentioned the memos, as did Washington Post Ombudsman Michael Getler, who noted that Post readers were complaining about the lack of coverage. However, he didn't explain why the paper decided to ignore the story. The New York Times offered only a passing mention.
A CNN correspondent did report that the memos were receiving attention on various Web sites, where bloggers were "wondering why it's not getting more coverage in the U.S. media." But that apparently didn't impress the network's gatekeepers. When CNN covered the complaints coming from Congress, it failed to explain the alleged manipulation of intelligence.
Another recent example of how the media carries water for the administration and its friends comes from The New York Times, which recently was drawn into some historical revision work. According to a May 7 article in the newspaper, Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga wants an apology from Russia for the Soviet Union's decision in 1939 to join German forces in occupying Poland.
Vike-Freiberga's statement followed a letter sent by President George W. Bush to the presidents of several Baltic nations on the eve his trip to Moscow to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Nazi Germany's World War II defeat. In the letter, Bush called the end of the war the beginning of the unlawful Soviet annexation of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
Vike-Freiberga, a close U.S. ally, also told the Times about a "Soviet occupation" of the three Baltic nations. In 1940, however, after the German invasion of Poland, the three Baltic countries initially invited in Soviet troops for protection.
Soviet troops also never joined forces with Germany in attacking Poland. Rather, a week after Germany invaded, they moved into eastern regions of the country, taking back territory Poland had previously annexed from Soviet Ukraine.
Bush's letter provoked an angry response from Russia, which in turn prompted the Latvian president's retort. The Times printed the U.S.-Latvian version of history as if it was fact.
With coverage like this, it's no wonder people think the media often don't get it right. News consumers may be misinformed due to all the spin and omissions, but fortunately most aren't as gullible as the administration and its water-bearers in the national media corps think.
--
(Greg Guma edits the Vermont Guardian, a statewide weekly. Guma can be reached at Greg@vermontguardian.com.)
--
(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.) | | | | Alpha | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
