Independent
Media: Enemy Target
By Ghali Hassan
17 March, 2005
Countercurrents.org
Since
the start of the 2003 War on Iraq, there have been 13 incidents involving
the killing of journalists by US soldiers. All the journalists who have
been killed were "unembedded" journalists. No journalist employed
by mainstream media such as the BBC or CNN have been killed or abducted
in Iraq. Independent media worldwide are finding it difficult to exist
in a world controlled by few large corporations and government's controlled
public broadcasters.
Information provided
by independent media and honest journalists, is the most powerful weapon
in the War on Iraq since 1990. The lack of this journalistic credibility
and impartiality have contributed the unnecessary killing of more than
2 million Iraqis, a third of them children under the age of 5 years
old, as a result of 13-years of criminal sanctions and wars perpetuated
by the US and Britain.
To conduct their
war with minimum opposition, the US and British administration and military
have introduced new phenomenon in journalism. It is called "embedded"
journalism, which means journalists do what they are told, and report
what they have not witnessed. "Embedded" journalism is a form
of fake news operations broadcast as if it was genuine news in the homes
of Western TV viewers. The best description of this new phenomenon is
propaganda's journalism, an important tool of America's "war on
terror".
The first casualty
of this phenomenon has been the quality of the news and information
to the public. Giant corporations have now moved to own large parts
of the media. The US is leading the way in the concentration of media
in the hands of few large corporations. America's Online (AOL) owns
Netscape, Time magazine, Hollywood's Warner Bros and CNN. Rupert Murdoch's
News Corporation controls the best selling newspapers in Britain and
the US. In Australia, the Murdoch media have very negligence competition.
The Murdoch deceptive media coverage, led by Fox News, played an important
role in selling the war to the public and continues to provide very
deceptive and untruthful picture of Iraq under US Occupation.
Outside the parameter
of these giant media corporations and their "embedded" journalists
are the few journalists of independent media. Their independent reporting
during the War on Iraq has annoyed the US administration, including
Donald Rumsfeld and Collin Powell. The Guardian
http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,928144,00.html
of London reported on 02nd April 2003 that; "A hotel in Basra being
used as a base by al-Jazeera's team of correspondents in the city was
shelled this morning, the Arabic TV news channel has claimed. The Basra
Sheraton, whose only guests are al-Jazeera journalists, received four
direct hits this morning during a heavy artillery bombardment, according
to the Qatar-based broadcaster." The Guardian added that; "Al-Jazeera
had officially advised the Pentagon of all relevant details pertaining
to its reporters covering the war on Iraq, as stipulated by relevant
international practice and conventions governing reporting wars. The
details included official HQs of all its reporters in Basra, Mosul and
Baghdad". On 08th April 2003, Al-Jazeera
Television reporter Tariq Ayoub was killed by a rocket fired from US
plane on the roof of the Palestine Hotel, the most marked media centre
in Baghdad. Since the beginning of the war, at least 74 journalists
have died in Iraq. To date, there has been no satisfactory and impartial
investigation of these mysterious killings of journalists. Although,
there is no "evidence" of a systematic policy to kill journalists,
it seem that a policy of preventing independent media reporting from
the war is the US administration top priority.
The US role in preventing
independent news from reaching the public has been widely reported since
the invasion of Iraq. Independent journalists were nowhere to see in
Iraq, and most of them have been forced to leave the country. The killing
of the Italian intelligent agent Nicola Calipari and injuring of Giuliana
Sgrena, the award-winning war reporter with the progressive Italian
daily newspaper Il Manifesto, by US forces is a case in point.
As Jerry Fresia,
a former US Air Force Intelligence officer, writes, "It is reasonable
to assume that the US intercepted all phone communication between Italian
agents in Iraq and Rome. Are we to believe that in an area near the
airport, an area that is intensely hostile according to the US, that
they would not be monitoring cell phone signals? He added; "The
vehicle in which Nicola and Giuliana were riding wasn't simply a vehicle
carrying a hostage to freedom. [The vehicle] was considered a military
target". Before her release, Sgrena has admitted that her captors,
who have yet to prove of any link to the Iraqi Resistance, have warned
her that; "The Americans don't want you to go back" to Italy.
'It was an ambush', Sgrena's partner, Pierre Scolari said.
Giuliana Sgrena
is one of the very few endangered species still exist in a world where
militarised nations are addicted to violence and public deception. She
has eyewitnesses and detailed information regarding the US use of illegal
napalm and chemical weapons in the attacks on Fallujah, where thousands
of innocent Iraqi men, women and children were massacred and a vibrant
city of 300,000 people was completely destroyed. Fallujah was a no go
for independent journalists during the US assault on the city. It is
suggested that the US and Britain are in the process of using the Fallujah-style
destruction in other cities. In addition, Sgrena has documented evidence
of ongoing sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses, torture and
rape of Iraqi women by US forces in Iraq. Crimes without witnesses are
no crimes in the new US war.
Given the illegality
and immorality of the War on Iraq, independent journalists like Giuliana
Sgrena and Tariq Ayoub are considered enemy targets. By contrast "embedded"
journalists have enjoyed protection and were never in danger at any
time. They broadcast from their hotels or from the safety of US tanks.
Their jobs are to provide a distorted picture that fit the imperialist
propaganda. The victims of this criminal complicity are not only the
Iraqi people, but also the citizens of the imperial power. They have
to be misled and poorly informed about their government's wars and policy
abroad. Public silence is the support needed for legitimacy. It is worth
remembering that public broadcasters are accountable to the public only.
They are funded as independent media, not government's propaganda agents,
and are as such obliged to provide the public with impartial news and
information.
Independent media
coverage has awakened people moral consciousness against the war. In
the US, the Army's failure to recruit new soldiers has been attributed
to honest reporting by few independent journalists. Recently, The New
York Times reported on 04 March 2005 that; "Top Pentagon officials
acknowledge that the graphic images of casualties [dead and wounded
soldiers] from Iraq and the obvious danger of serving there had caused
many parents to advice their children to avoid joining the military
now". It is in the interest of the US and its allies to prevent
honest reporting from Iraq reaching their citizens at home. Without
honest reporting of the atrocities committed against the Iraqi people
by the Occupation forces, Iraq is doomed to continuing unreported atrocities.
In addition to free
speech, the public has a right to independent and impartial source of
information. Governments around the world are obliged to have special
laws offering protection to prevent the extinction of independent media
for the benefit of society as a whole . The media of giant corporations
is the cause to permanent extinction of democracy and freethinking.
Ghali Hassan lives
in Perth Western Australia. He can be reached at e-mail: [email protected]
Links
Giuliana Sgrena's
articles can be viewed here:
http://www.ilmanifesto.it/pag/sgrena/en