The Abu Ghraib Scandal: Who’s Shame is it?

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

Stuka# 96

You mean Pakistanis are ever outraged? :)

#96 by stuka
//...Where is the outrage? The anger??? ...//

Precisely. Remember the dog that didn`t bark. The lack of ``bark`` means something - May be that mushy is now dispensable.

From Dawn: Ayaz Amir...

``In a different development, confirmation now comes from the president of what was known in ``informed`` quarters for some time: that some junior military personnel, mostly warrant officers and the like from the air force, are in custody in connection with the attempts late last year on his life.

It was suspected at the time that given the level of information seemingly available to the conspirators about the president`s movements, there was an inside dimension to those attempts. So it turns out to be.

If rumour is to be believed, these personnel have had a pretty rough time in detention. They haven`t been digitally photographed as at Abu Ghraib. But, according to the grapevine, their interrogations have been far from gentle. ...``


Where is the outrage? The anger???

Control Room: Behind the Scenes of the Arab News Station Al Jazeera
Tuesday, May 25th, 2004

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/25/1423202
Their offices have been bombed by the U.S. and shut down by Arab governments - they are Al Jazeera, the biggest Arab news channel. A new documentary takes a look at how the station covered the Iraq invasion and how the U.S. government responded to their unembedded form of reporting. [includes rush transcript]

---

Their offices were bombed twice in Afghanistan. Their Baghdad correspondent was killed In Iraq. Their reporter was arrested en route to a summit in Crawford. Their New York correspondents were thrown off the floors of the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ.
We’re talking about al-Jazeera, the Arabic satellite television station based in Qatar.

Al Jazeera`s programing has been seen as controversial by some in Washington ever since it began broadcasting seven years ago. The network has since grown into a CNN of the Arabic world reaching up to 55 million viewers.

A new documentary film called “Control Room” takes an inside look at Al-Jazeera


Jehane Noujaim, began work in photography and film maiking in Cairo, where she grew up, before moving to the United States in 1990. In 2001, she co-directed the documentary, ``Startup-Dot-Com`` which chronicles the rise and fall of Internet startups during the boom years of the New Economy.

Samir Khader, senior Producer with Al Jazeera, the Arab-language satellite TV news channel, based in Doha, Qatar.
Related Links:

``Control Room``

Al Jazeera English website

---

RUSH TRANSCRIPT
This transcript is available free of charge, however donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.
Donate - $25, $50, $100, more...

AMY GOODMAN: The filmmaker is Jehane Noujaim, who is co-director of other films like “Start-up.com”, which chronicles the rise and fall of internet start-ups. This is her film. Welcome to Democracy Now!

JEHANE NOUJAIM: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: It`s good to have you with us. Why did you decide to focus on Al-Jazeera?

JEHANE NOUJAIM: You just gave the list of everything that has happened to Al-Jazeera, how they have been criticized by the U.S. government, how they have been -- well, during the war their reporters were kicked out of the stock exchange, but the list goes on in terms of the amount of people on both sides, the Arab governments that have criticized them and kicked them out of many Arab countries, and following the American government was very critical of Al-Jazeera. Yet we have never been able to see inside them and have never been able to see who are the people that run in channel, what motivates them, what are they showing, and how are they seeing the Iraq war? I was curious to get inside the station that nobody in the states had really seen before.

AMY GOODMAN: At the same time you`re in the station you`re constantly showing what`s going on from cent com, from central command. That`s a key place-setter throughout the film. Let`s hear what Donald Rumsfeld has to say about Al-Jazeera, from the film Control Room: DONALD RUMSFELD: Al-Jazeera has a pattern of playing propaganda over and over and over again. What they do is when there`s a bomb goes down, they grab some children and women and pretend that the bomb hit the women and the children. It seems to me that it`s up to all of us to try to tell the truth, to say what we know, to say what we don`t know, and recognize that we`re dealing with people that are perfectly willing to lie to the world to attempt to further their case. And to the extent that people lie, ultimately, they are caught lying, and they lose their credibility. One would think that wouldn`t take very long for that to happen dealing with people like this.

AMY GOODMAN: People like this Samir Khader, senior producer with Al-Jazeera, your response?

SAMIR KHADER: Mr. Rumsfeld says we have a pattern of lies and repeating it over and over and over again. I have the feeling that he`s telling the world that we, Al-Jazeera are able everyday to fool more than 50 million of our viewers, 50 million Arabs and Arab-speaking people around the world. I don`t know how can this be done, but one thing that I can say is that Mr. Rumsfeld is no journalist. He doesn`t know what objectivity is, and if he wants to criticize he should use what we call constructive criticism.

AMY GOODMAN: Let`s talk about the history of Al-Jazeera, why was it founded, what is it`s connection to Qatar?

SAMIR KHADER: Al-Jazeera was founded in 1996. It started broadcasting on November 1, 1996. The objective of this channel was from the beginning -- is to bring something new to the Arab world. The Arabs were used to listen or to discover what happens around them in their countries by listening to the outside, the B.B.C., or Radio Monte Carlo broadcasting in Arabic, and sometimes to the Voice of America in Arabic. For the first time, Al- Jazeera came to say to the Arab audience, look, you no longer need to listen to the outside what`s happening in your country, we are here. We will bring you credible, professional information with no redlines, no taboos. We will uncover corruption and talk about your daily life without managing anybody. If you like this, go ahead and join us. I think that millions and millions have joined us.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to one of the more horrifying scenes in Control Room, that all of us remember well from a year ago, and that was the killing of the Al-Jazeera journalist. Let`s go to “Control Room.”

SAMIR KHADER: I received a phone call from our correspondents saying that they were -- there was a big fight in our office in Baghdad. So I put them on air live. We had everything, all of the fighting going on, but none of our correspondents was able to go in the room, so, it was live. When they said, if we can speak out, we can try to manage it. At 6:47, the camera that was filming had a picture of the correspondent. I shouted at them, telling them to move the camera out of the face of the guy that had nothing to do with anything, any of the fighting. We moved the camera. Ten minutes later, I was on the phone with the other correspondent, and they say there`s a plane coming over us, and now it`s coming towards us, and it`s taking down -- nose-down, which means formation of an attack. And an American plane came and launched the missiles against our office. Then we announced the deaths. When you announce that one of your staff has died, you expect some calls from the families of all of these reporters on the camera. We received only one phone call from the wife of that reporter, saying what happened to Tarik? We said we didn’t say it was Tarik. She said, I know, my heart tells me it’s Tarik, and something happened to him. What can you say to that?

AMY GOODMAN: And that is Samir Khader, the senior producer with Al-Jazeera speaking in the film, “Control Room” about the death of Tarik Ayoub, the Jordanian-Palestinian reporter who had just got to Baghdad, a week earlier, is that right?

SAMIR KHADER: A week earlier.

AMY GOODMAN: As he is sitting there on the roof behind some sandbags, you tell the cameraman who is up there with him – I want to ask what happened to him -- to pull away, don`t show him. Talk about that.

SAMIR KHADER: Yeah. Don`t show him because the camera was supposed to show us what was going around our office. American troops were positioned there, and American tanks were there. Iraqi soldiers were shooting at the Americans from their Presidential Palace, which was used to be behind our office, and the shooting was so intense that nobody -- none of our reporters dared go up to the roof. So they used to report what happened, and we used to take live, audio only -- and when Tarik managed to sneak out to the roof, the camera fell down. Instead of taking the scene of what`s happening around the office, it took only Tarik. I was shouting at the other reporter in Baghdad, please get this camera out of the face of this guy, because it`s not him they want, the event is elsewhere. And I thought it was something, because this was a really -- the last time that we had seen Tarik alive.

AMY GOODMAN: Did you know him personally?

SAMIR KHADER: I have never met him personally, no.

AMY GOODMAN: And what happened to the cameraman?

SAMIR KHADER: You know, when the missile was launched against the office, it exploded, and the office was destroyed. At that time there were 23 people -- 23 members -- staff members of Al-Jazeera present in the office, and they just ran away and the cameraman was hurt, injured, but --

AMY GOODMAN: He was up on the roof with Tarik.

SAMIR KHADER: On top of the roof, yes. But according to the people who were there, they said we saw this plane coming down to us, so we started running, and the last one to be up there was Tarik. He was unable to get toward the door, and come down.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, you had given Al-Jazeera`s coordinates to the Pentagon?

SAMIR KHADER: Yes. Not only Al-Jazeera office in Baghdad because weigh were the only channel present in several Arab cities broadcasting live from Baghdad in the center, Mosul and Irbil in the north and Basra in the south. We had given all of the coordinates to the Pentagon. We received an acknowledgement.

AMY GOODMAN: What about what happened at The Sherton?

SAMIR KHADER: The Sherton?

AMY GOODMAN: The hotel where only Al-Jazeera --

SAMIR KHADER: The Palestine hotel.

AMY GOODMAN: No, I mean in the city where only Al-Jazeera was there.

SAMIR KHADER: Yes.

JEHANE NOUJAIM: Yeah, this happened about a week earlier before the bombing, actually, and we -- I was sitting in a general manager`s meeting and nobody was killed, so it wasn`t taken obviously as seriously, but the journalists said, you know, this is a dangerous place to be right now. We want to be moving, because we need to move our locations, and the management meeting said at that point in time, we`ll, we need to give the new locations to the pentagon. So, they were being very sure to as their journalists moved from place to place to give the new coordinates.

AMY GOODMAN: So, you have the killing of Tarik Ayoub. You have the bombing of your offices in Kabul twice, is that right? In Afghanistan?

SAMIR KHADER: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: What is your dialogue with the Pentagon? Your offices were bombed twice.

SAMIR KHADER: Let`s say the following -- in both cases, we compacted -- contacted the American authorities and the pentagon to see if there is an investigation and we asked for an investigation. In both cases, to my knowledge, they have not been investigated. Even the death of Tarik Ayoub has not been investigated. So, I don`t understand. At least when there`s something happens, the Pentagon is ready to open an investigation, but -- in both cases in Kabul and in Baghdad, they didn`t do it. Why? You`ll have to ask them.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you think it`s a mistake to give the coordinates of the offices to the Pentagon?

SAMIR KHADER: No, absolutely not. Because really, we will scared because off our office in Kabul was targeted and deliberately, we think, we thought that the Americans could at any time target our office, and pretend that they didn`t know. So, we gave them the coordinates. So, giving them the coordinates or not giving the coordinates, they will know.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you feel that you have support from your colleagues, from other journalists around the world?

SAMIR KHADER: Yes. Yes. We have tremendous -- really huge movement of support within Al-Jazeera. We are very thankful to all journalists around the world.

AMY GOODMAN: We`re going to go to another clip of Control Room. Jehane Noujaim, you can set this clip up, having to do with central command, and the other key figure that you have throughout this film is a spokesperson for central command.

JEHANE NOUJAIM: Lieutenant Rushing intrigued me because he was somebody that seemed very open to trying to understand the other side, and to engage with the other side. And so, you know, he didn`t have to have long conversations with the Al-Jazeera reporter, yet they talked for hours on end. And I think that, you know, I think that it was difficult for him, because there wasn`t something -- even though it was his assignment to be dealing with the Arab reporter, it wasn`t always easy. He was often seen as kind of going over to the other side, in a way, I think, by the other people working with him.

AMY GOODMAN: This is U.S. Central command`s Josh Rushing, talking about the images of P.O.W.`s and civilians shown on Al-Jazeera.

JOSH RUSHING: The night they showed the P.O.W.`s and the dead soldiers -- Al-Jazeera showed them. It was powerful, because America doesn`t show those kind of images. Most of the time America doesn`t show those images. They showed the American soldiers on the tile floor. It was revolting. It made me sick to my stomach. What hit me that the night before there had been a bombing in Basra, and Al-Jazeera had shown images of the people, and they were equally, if not more horrifying images. I have never had seen it. I thought to myself, wow, that`s gross. That`s bad. Then I went away and was eating dinner or something, it didn`t affect me as much. The impact that it had on me, realizing I just saw people on the other side. And those are people in the Al-Jazeera office must have felt the way I was feeling that night and it upset me on a profound level that I wasn`t as bothered as much the night before. It makes me hate war. It doesn`t make me believe that we`re in a world that can live without war yet.

AMY GOODMAN: Samir Khader.

SAMIR KHADER: I`m really amazed, it makes me hate war, coming from the mouth of an American Marine in the central command. This -- for me, this means only one thing, that behind all the abstraction of war, of Al-Jazeera of American military, there are human beings. There are human faces, and these human beings could develop, could interact with the other, could have a dialogue, which gave me the feeling that maybe -- maybe -- with all of the problems of the world could be solved through dialogue, and discussion.

AMY GOODMAN: You want to ask Jehane, what you were most surprised by as you filmed Al-Jazeera? How long did you film? JIHAN NIZAM:I filmed for about six weeks, which isn`t very long. The last film I made, I spent a year-and-a-half filming. So, when I left, I felt like there`s a possibility that there is not a film here. It took going through 200 hours of footage to realize we had something. In terms of surprise, I was surprised that we had the level of experience and openness of Al-Jazeera reporters. The two people -- I mean, I`m biased towards the two people that I followed. I tend to follow people that I like and I`m inspired by, so I`m sure there are other Al-Jazeera reporters that I may not have liked so much, but the two people that I followed, Hassan and Samir, were people that have been in journalism for 25 years. Hassan has covered ten wars, went to college at University of Arizona, grew up in Saudi Arabia was in grade-school with Osama bin Laden. He has had a very -- he has visited the palaces of Saddam Hussein. I wanted to be around people with that level of experience to try to understand what was going on. Samir, again, has had a huge amount of experience in journalism, and has covered a number of wars, and I think that the interesting thing is that it`s not like just going down the street to get a job. In the Arab world, the access you have to being able to work at a network that is not run by the state is very difficult because there aren`t a lot of free stations available you to. I think that people who have a real dedication to working for the freedom speech in the Arab world will go to Al-Jazeera. You do end up finding kind of a high-level when you go there. That was surprising to me, after hearing the criticism in the Arab world and the United States about Al-Jazeera.

AMY GOODMAN: Samir, let`s talk about the images of POW’s and of casualties. In this country, in the U.S. networks, we hardly saw images of casualties. Reporters called them tasteless, but they were all over the rest of the world. Can you talk about Al-Jazeera’s decisions both around casualties and also showing POW’s?

SAMIR KHADER: Look, we are in the business of news. News means facts. Facts should prevail speculation. From -- right from the beginning the American’s announced and told the American people that this would be a very proper and clean surgical war, very quick. There are no -- very few casualties amongst the civilians and where they suffered no losses. So, when we had these pictures of soldiers killed or taking prisoners, we thought, okay, the American’s are saying and telling their people something, but these pictures show something else. If the Americans don`t want to show these pictures, it`s their decision, but our audience wants to see this -- these pictures. At least to see that the war is not as clean as the Americans used to pretend. So, we shot them, but I think that the American audience or the American public opinion was followed by the American media at that time by only talking about the Americans. They had all American soldiers, the patriotic war against terrorism, against weapons of mass destruction that they used to frighten America and to talk about the number of tanks and how was progress -- they used to progress towards Baghdad and showing pictures of satellite pictures of bombs exploding. Without telling the American people that what was the result of this explosion. So, we decided in Al-Jazeera to cover the same story as the American media, but from another perspective. It`s the perspective of the human cost. Any war has a human cost, whether it`s a human cost regarding the Iraqi population, the casualties among the Iraqi populations, or the human costs among the American soldiers.

JEHANE NOUJAIM: I like what Lieutenant Rushing actually said about this which is that, you know, these pictures are disgusting, they make me queasy, they give me a stomach ache, but war should give you a stomach ache and people should be seeing this, and Americans and Arabs should be seeing the casualties on both sides of the war: the Americans that are dying and the Iraqis that are dying. Because it`s not a clean war. I guess that`s what was also interesting about being at Al-Jazeera. We went through the footage of their library. They use about 10% of the footage that they had, you know. There was a lot more gruesome footage, in there, let`s say. So to see they the very, very strong reaction from the American administration based on the 5% of the footage they showed was actually -- was very surprising to me. Because you see it in the states. It`s very clean. It`s very -- you don`t see any of this stuff.

AMY GOODMAN: Haven`t the power of the pictures been proven by the photos that have gotten out now of the torture at Abu Ghraib. I think it`s interesting to see the response in this country. There`s often mentioned the Arab world is incensed. I don`t think it`s because Arabs have a particularly hypersensitive gene. I think the whole world is incensed. When they see the picture, you can hear -- that`s one thing, and then the government can always say it`s not true. But to see these pictures, I think it is really showing us the power of what an image has.

JEHANE NOUJAIM: It makes it into reality. When you just see it in print somehow it`s not a reality. A week before the prison photos, or two weeks before the prison photos were released, 600 civilians were killed in Fallujah. We didn`t see the pictures. I read ton the subway on -- in one of the newspapers, and I was like -- you know, oh, my goodness, and then Samir sent footage back of Fallujah and it hit me how terrible it was, but it didn`t hit the United States because you didn`t see it.

AMY GOODMAN: Don`t you share your footage with other networks? Doesn`t CNN, for example, use your footage of bombs over Baghdad, especially when they were kicked out and they couldn`t show it themselves?

SAMIR KHADER: Our footage is available to any station willing to take them. Many, many, many American stations took the pictures as to what did they do with the pictures, I don`t know.

AMY GOODMAN: General Powell, Secretary Of State, Colin Powell, just went to Qatar and word was he was putting pressure on the government there around Al-Jazeera. Is that true?

SAMIR KHADER: I don`t know. We have – I didn`t have the feelings that we were under pressure. I didn`t receive any phone call from any high manager. Maybe there are discussions with the Qatar government, but the fact is that when Al-Jazeera was created in 1996, the stated goal was that the Qatar government will finance the station, but will never, never, never interfere in the editorial line. Up until now, it was the case. I hope it will continue to be the case.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you both for being with us. I know you`re showing this film in many different places. I was just up in Vermont celebrating Independent Media throughout the state in Brattleboro and Montpelier and Burlington. They said June 1 at the Eclipse Theater in Stowe, Vermont, that they are going to be showing Control Room. And are you traveling around the country?

JEHANE NOUJAIM: We are. You can check out where it`s being released and when, at controlroommovie.com. That`s my plug for people who are checking out where it`s playing.

AMY GOODMAN: Well I want to thank you both for being with us, Samir Khader, senior producer with Al-Jazeera, and Jehane Noujaim, the filmmaker, who did this film in a six week period during the invasion of Iraq. of the film. Al-Jazeera means what?

SAMIR KHADER: It means the island of the peninsula. In both cases, it means the isolated place. We isolate ourselves from the environment of dictatorship and oppression. We want to expand and spread democracy, freedom and free speech and human rights.


www.democracynow.org

#83 by urstruly seems to get undeserved and unreasoned flak. Disagreement needs to be supported by reason. I think the newspaper print media in India is of poor quality, mostly it reprints agency reports. Additionally newspapers have a silly habit of printing stuff like ``miscreant members of one community allegedly performed acts which could have hurt sentiments of other community``, and the standard police log with describing its encouters with ali-baba of haroon-al-rashid gang etc.

However the magazines do often publish plenty of investigative reports. Among the english magazines are outlook, india today, sunday etc. and there is a very large and active vernacular press. Cant say much about urdu press (dont know how to read that foreign script ;-) )

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

urstruly: I have written a play in your honor. It is a short play with three scenes. I have more good news: I have chosen you to be yourself in that play. I fully expect to win the Cannes festival award next year as a result. Here is the play:

ACT I SCENE 1

Curtain rises. Urstruly is standing in line, application in hand, for visa to the US.

Urstruly: (to himself) ya khuda mujh nalaik per bhala kar. meri darkhast manzoor kra. mujhe amreeka jaana hai, meray khudda!! mujhe too amreeka pohancha day, meray khuda! KahiN arabyooN kay haath na charhnaN parhay, maeray khooda (tears of self-pity start to roll down urstruly`s cheeks).

Curtain falls.

ACT I SCENE 2

Urstruly is sitting before US consular officer.

Consular: Mr Urstruly, why do you wish to go to the US?
Urstruly: To recieve higher education, your sir....I mean your highness...I mean sir.
Consular: OK. (stamps the passport)

ACT II SCENE 1

Urstruly has graduated. Urstruly is sitting before prospective employer in US.

Employer: What made you decide to stay in the US, Mr. Urstruly?
Urstruly: Sir, it is a great country, sir. Lots and lots of opportunities for people like me, sir. Please sir dont forget to sponsor me for a green card sir. Thank you sir.

ACT II SCENE 2

Urstruly is sitting before terminal writing his profound thoughts on chowk about what an evil country the US is. Boss comes in...

Boss: Hey buddy! Where`s that report you promised me yesterday?
Urstruly (quickly changing windows): Right here sir. I have been working on it all night sir....please dont fire me sir...i may end up having to go to Saudi Arabia looking for a job sir.. and you know what they do to charsees like me sir - they chop off my head said. Please sir, have pity sir. Dont take away my green card sir.
Boss: Relax. Just get the damn report to me by this evening.
Urstruly: No problem sir.

Boss leaves. Urstruly switches back to chowk and starts cursing the US.

urstruly 83

where do u live? in a shithole?

your stink manages to travel through the net as well!!

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

Urstruly:

I thought as much. Nazi Germany must be heaven fpr you since they were baking Jwes and everyone knows killing a few thousand Muslims is so much worse then killing a few million Jews.

URS: You should not take it as a challenge! Take it easy, please. I thought it may be fresh in your mind and you may like to take a stab at it. No rush.

There is a great cartoon in an urdu newspaper today where bush is talking about the war crimes that US soldiers committed to Iraqi prisoners in Abu-Gharaib:

Bush: chand faujion ki harkat ne hamare mulk ko be izzat kar dia hay.

A man who is standing close by says ``Sarkar bay izzatti tau un ki hoti ha jin ki izzat ho``

Stuka #75

If you are trying to make comparison that US is worst than Nazi Germany, then I am in agreement with you.

Zahra

The documentary ``Bowling for Columbine`` is very inspirational. I watched it with almost jaw dropping awe. Writing a review is not impossible and I do not have any other pressing engagement either but writing something on demand is always death for me. I don`t know. Now it poses a challenge to me. But no promises.

harish_hyde

Ignorance is not a bliss but it is a curse. Everybody knows about the record of treatment of journalists under dictatorial regimes in Islamic countries but one must salute the courage of journalists there that they do not stop telling the truth.

However, you might find it enlightening to know that those who claim to bear the torch of morality and free speech are no different than their Islamic counterparts. For example, United States has killed about 29 journalists upto now in Iraq who were trying to bring the truth out to the world. Dozens have been harrassed and roughed up. International Federation of Journalists puts the blame squarely on United States for the cold blooded murder of these journalists

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1200911,00.html

On the home front two journalists, Dan Rather and Geraldo Rivera were harrassed into submission by their employers. Dan Rather lost his job and had to apologize on air. That set rest of the journalists to stay ``embeded`` and tell whatever military tells them to say or they are out.

The Hindu media overwhelmingly tows the government line and changes its tone with one swish of a wand from their government. Until recently Hindu media was the most efficient machinery in the hands of previous government of religious nuts feeding anti-Muslim and anti-Pakistani hatered into masses on 24/7 basis. And just overnight it was singing hymns of praise to their new Paksitani friends when their government gave them a nod and a wink. There is one, I repeat only one, exception though, when tehlka.com exposed the corruption of Generals of Indian Army and caught them on tape selling their country for a prostitute and a bottle of whisky and also when the exposed how politicians and generals made money from the coffins that were meant for the dead of Kargil war heroes. You must also know, how later on hindu religious nuts ruined the lives and businesses of the people of tehlka dot com. Now no one dares speak out the truth.

As compared to the above two examples the journalists is Muslim countries have suffered persecution at its worst. In Paksitan, for example, they were tortured and raped in Lahore Fort and Dalai Camp but they never stopped telling the truth. Except a minority in English media and very few in urdu media(and these journalists are well known to be on government payroll) most journalists answer the call from their conscience despite all adversity.

Is Al-Jazeera Muslim media?

Salaam Alaikum!

HP,

``It is not that Powell did not know from the beginning that the whole WMD thing was made up but he hung on to it. Now, he comes clean for the record, for prosperity. It was pure dishonesty on Powell’s part.``

Hence my earlier statement.

--Ibn

#79 by malik99 “Iraq was an impoverished country under the most brutal sanctions.”

True! the sanctions were brutal but I always wanted to find out why did Saddam in the long 13 years after the first Gulf war, never tried to use whatever money was coming in to help his people? Why did he never attempt to use that time to bring in Iraq into a democratic set up? Why he did not use that time to hold elections in Iraq? Why he never used that time to connect with Shia instead of killing and depriving them of their basic human rights? Why did Saddam not use all that time to elect a parliament to provide representation to his own people?

13 years is a long time. Saddam ruled Iraq with iron hands and allowed his family especially his sons to kill and dishonor poor people w/o any legitimate authority.

Any other ruler, who would have been under such brutal sanctions, at least would have tried to connect with his own and would have tried a little to alleviate their problems. But no! Our faaking beloved dictator was constructing new palaces and was blaming the sanctions for kids dying in the hospitals for lack of medicine.

In all those 13 years of sanctions, expenses on maintaining him, his family and his generals never went down. He would not spend money on his people but loved to import items of luxury for his personal and family’s consumption.

With him gone, at least Iraqi would have some hope. The US will leave Iraq sooner than later as the international pressure and the fighters in Iraq would force the US to leave.

Were Iraqi ever in a position to overthrow Saddam, while he was putting his statues all over Iraq? He thought he could fight off the sanctions, the US, the UK and the whole world w/o any help from his own people. In the end, he crawled from a sh!t hole and Iraqi people are becoming some stats to gloat over by our friends here.

May be Abu Ghraib was the lowest point of Iraq’s last 30 years of wretched history. May be, now, Iraqi could see some light at the end of the tunnel.

Saminasha #51

[When was the last time you saw Gore Vidal, Noam Chomsky, Susan Sontag, the journalists at Al Jazeera on mainstream tv?]

I`m not saying that the media in the US is free. It is the same everywhere, manipulated by a few rich and powerful. But then, you must thank the American system that you ever got to know or hear Chomsky, Vidal, or Sontag, even if it was not on mainstream TV. Just think what would have happened if it were an Islamic country. Simple. They would have been silenced long ago. Look at Shaheen Sehbai, who was forced into exile just because his views differed from the great General`s. Or Najam Sethi who a few years ago was beaten up and incarcerated by Nawaz Sharif. All this just because these gentlemen dared to air the alternative POV. Tell me how many media men/intellectuals in the US have ever been mistreated because they dissented? Chomsky is the harshest critic of America`s policies

Saminasha #70

{We should be thrilled that the full spectrum of viewpoints on the war is only represented in independent media, while the most mediocre minds-like Ben Stein`s third grader harangue (``US=GOOD! IRAQ=EVIL!``) get 24/7 access to television media}

No, you should instead be thrilled because you still get to know the truth. Is it mainstream only if it is on TV?

{oh yes, that sounds like right wing Indian democracy}

And your views sound so much like an Islamic apologist`s.

{The media is under no obligation to provide the full spectrum of opinion in America, but GOSH DARNIT isnt America`s diversity just grand}

And if it weren`t for this diversity, the truth would never have come out, as happens all the time in most Islamic states/dictatorships. You think something like the AQ Khan scandal could have ever been silenced so easily in the US as it happened in Pakistan? Even the playboy President Bill Clinton`s escapades with Monica Lewinsky were unforgivingly put under the scanner.

#74 by knowledge123 on May 25, 2004 2:12pm PT

”Recently, Colin Powell has recanted on his ``weapons mobile laboratory`` that he used as ``substantial`` evidence that Saddam had not only WMD, but also mobile WMD. I have yet to see ``mainstream`` media (excluding Meet the Press) ponder on it--much less mention it”

I don’t know how you want me to take this but by the time Powell came clean, the WMD and the non-existence of it, had already lost steam. It clearly was not newsworthy any more. Now the question is why Powell did not come clean when people still believed that Iraq had WMD? If he had said that right after the war that it was all fake and their were no labs the news would have spread over the world like a wildfire.

It is not that Powell did not know from the beginning that the whole WMD thing was made up but he hung on to it. Now, he comes clean for the record, for prosperity. It was pure dishonesty on Powell’s part.

The US media is in for money and to pursue its own goals and dominance. It is a commercial enterprise. Why should anybody be naïve enough to believe that it is there to provide just news. The new media makes and breaks the news based on the monetary value the news have.

Did you know that Fox news in the US is watched by more(almost) American than all news channel’s put together? Fox saw a niche. A conservative and redneck America that was being ignored by the CNN and ABC and CBS types. Fox is running wild with it. It is making more money than any other news network. Why should it give up its core market because some liberals are not happy with it? As the conservative America starts moving away from Bush, you will see changes in Fox too.

Dear Author
``The great thing about a democratic system is that citizens have the right to vote for a change when their government falls short of expectations.``

As an American you have a President who claims to have divine sanction to send the US Army to war. If you have a problem with this, you can vote him out of power.

As a Pakistani, you have a whole Army which claims to have divine sanction to do anything it pleases.. Do you have a problem with this and do you want them out of power?

Stuka # 75 - You wrote ``There was minimal crime and no law and order problem in Nazi Germany. I assume that is your ideal society??? ``

No two situations in history are always EXACTLY the same. Germany was a threat to other countries and had occupied most of europe. Iraq was an impoverished country under the most brutal sanctions.

If you are really bent on deriving a lesson from history, then consider the lesson of ``appeasement``. Just like europe seems to have learned that Nazis should never have been appeased when they occupied Checkoslovakia, I can argue that american regime should not be appeased either now that they have invaded and raped Iraq.

URS:

Would you care to share your observations from ``Bowling for Columbine``? It would be real nice if you can take out a few minutes on a daily basis to write a detailed overview of the movie and submit it to Chowk. How`s that? Doable or Impossible?

Malik/Urstruly:

There was minimal crime and no law and order problem in Nazi Germany. I assume that is your ideal society???

Salaam Alaikum!

HP,

Recently, Colin Powell has recanted on his ``weapons mobile laboratory`` that he used as ``substantial`` evidence that Saddam had not only WMD, but also mobile WMD. I have yet to see ``mainstream`` media (excluding Meet the Press) ponder on it--much less mention it.

--Ibn

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

Malik

A couple of days ago I saw Michael Moore`s `Bowling for Columbine` at the HBO. The HBO has been showing it for over a year now but I did not bother to see it before thinking that it will only highlite the tragedy at Columbine High and I did not want to see the gory details of the masacar. But watching this documentary proved to be a shocking surprise. It gives you a deep insight into the American culture and society and why it is so violence prone. It sytematically abolishes all the myths that we have about America as a gentle law abiding society and takes us deep into the mind of an American and how he is so violent demestically as well as internationally. The Oscar was well deserved and so was the first prize at Caans. I can hardly wait to see his `Fehrenheit 9-11`. I hope it is not banned is USA.

And would you like to explain which media monopolies exist in the US?

Harish,

So your argument is that:

1. We should be thrilled that the full spectrum of viewpoints on the war is only represented in independent media, while the most mediocre minds-like Ben Stein`s third grader harangue (``US=GOOD! IRAQ=EVIL!``) get 24/7 access to television media.

2. People like YOU decide which thinkers from this huge spectrum are worthy of this media time-oh yes, that sounds like right wing Indian democracy...

3. The media is under no obligation to provide the full spectrum of opinion in America, but GOSH DARNIT isnt America`s diversity just grand?!


Makes perfect sense...

Malik # 67

Even more so, we must scrutinize the role of Red Cross and other Human Rights organizations in the Abu Ghraib tragedy as well. We have to question them why they kept sweeping the truth under the rug for one whole year. We must question why and how they collaborated with homicidal maniacs, war criminals, and crusaders and hid the truth. These organizations have been at the forefront `preparing` a case against Iraq by brainwashing people in the Christiandom. We must question them why they have lowered themselves from the status of humanity to this level. We must question their credibility and claims.

The Western media, well that is the device of satan himself, that is hopeless - less said the better.

Stuka # 63 - Urstruly has posted a FACT. The FACT being: there were on average 14 murders per month in Baghdad. Now there are 357. Bronx may indeed be worse than Rawanda, but pre-invasion Baghdad was not !

As for your doubts about me being an American, I don`t need to convince you of that. But let me introduce you to a noble concept of citizenship. You have to stay vigilant and responsible and you have to keep a sharp eye on your government`s actions. This is more so when one is a citizen of a country which has the power to destroy the world. You have to make sure that when your government talks about ``freedom`` it is in fact not enslaving. You have to make sure that your country is not hijacked by the thugs and murderers who preach us the rights of unborn child and fetus, yet kill pregnant women and children with impunity.

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

#62 by Saminasha on May 25, 2004 9:57am PT

”Are you implying that the US`s mainsteam media provides a comprehensive forum for all of the viewpoints on the war?
When was the last time you saw Gore Vidal, Noam Chomsky, Susan Sontag, the journalists at Al Jazeera on mainstream tv?”

I have been hearing this or things similar to this from so many of terrorist apologist/Leftwing cuckoos that it is not even funny anymore! These people have no understanding and knowledge of how media works and most like have no clear definition of “Main Stream” media.

The media includes all print and electronic media and now Internet has become a major source of news too. In reality all current surveys find that people are relying more and more on Internet for news.

There are more than 10 big news and other channels in the US now along with many regional and big city media outlets so to define mainstream would be a pain in the butt.

The complaint is not against all main stream media channels, the complaint is against the TV/cable channels. As Chomsky, Susan and Gore Vidal are published in major newspapers, and on the Net regularly. Susan Sontag wrote a power full piece which has appeared in Guardian recently. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1223273,00.html.

But no! these fickle brain want her to appear on the TV otherwise the main stream media is not independent.

Cho-tia-msky has appeared in many newspapers and so has Gore Vidal. Gore Vidal is such a huge cultural icon that nobody can dare ignore him. But whenever he appears on the TV, all he is talking about is diehard leftwing propaganda. How much value that has for any TV outlet on a daily basis?

Cho-tia-msky wrote a popular book in the 1960s perhaps. He is just putting out the same book in different wrappers. Who long people are going to listen to the same old crap?

If Cho-tia-msky would like to be heard he can always go to the insane people’s corner in the Hyde park and there will be some to pay attention to him.

This main stream or whatever it is, is located in the US and it caters to people in the US not in the Middle East. It addresses to what the “most” people of the US would like to hear not what fickle brains would like to hear. To these lames, media is not independent, if it does not present their weird theories and these theories represent a microscopic minority.

Now what is media independence? People and Corporations buy media outlets to present their thoughts, viewpoints and to support their side of the story. If you don’t like what they are saying don’t listen to them or read them or do whatever the hell you wanna do. In the US, all you have to do is to be a citizen to start a media channel, why this moaning and bitching crowed, not go out and start their own something if they are not happy with what they hear?

”Are you implying that the US`s mainsteam media provides a comprehensive forum for all of the viewpoints on the war? “

Media is under no obligation to provide a comprehensive forum to all. Freedom of press is no legislation. Freedom of speech is protected and everybody is free to define how much and what form they would like to use.

Stuka

I am flattered but frankly I have no idea how I have manipulated the number of Iraqis murdered by Americans. The news source that I have put a link to is white man`s own news source. White man`s news media tell everyday that 30-40 Iraqi are being killed daily. Don`t you listen to CNN. In Falluja alone, according to CNN, 700+ Iraqis were masacared in last month alone.

Honestly, I think white man`s media is telling white lies again as it always has. I think the number of Iraqis masacarred by Americans is at least four fold of the AP figures.

Malik:

Urstruly has cleverly used percentages and limited parameters. One can take a city block in the Brnx and say that US is worse then Rwanda. I am not a fool, please do not take me for one.

I am having serious doubts on your claim to be American. If you are truly an American, the Patriot act seems to make so much more sense.

Harish,

Are you implying that the US`s mainsteam media provides a comprehensive forum for all of the viewpoints on the war?

When was the last time you saw Gore Vidal, Noam Chomsky, Susan Sontag, the journalists at Al Jazeera on mainstream tv?

god there`s so much anger and frustation among some of the people who come on chowk that they cant resist turning everything into a pakistan-india thing --

#51 by Saminasha on May 25, 2004 5:17am PT

Even though as you say everyone knows the answer, let me spell it out once more for you.

It is the A-M-E-R-I-C-A-N-S. It doesn`t matter if they are Indian-Americans or Paki-Americans.

While I do agree Americans by and large defended the invasion, there are many who opposed it. I`m not saying America doesn`t have it`s share of warmongers, but that there are others who think quite the opposite.

And that`s the beauty of multi-racial and multi-ethnic societies like America. Even though I`d like to think I`m the harshest critic of the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib (and the invasion too), equally, I appreciate the fact that there are concerned Americans who blew the lid off the whole sordid episode. And that is something every American can be genuinely proud of.

Here, I have a question. What is it that makes societies like America? Could it be something to do with democracy where alternative POVs are accommodated and anyone who has dissenting views can air them without fear of retribution as is common in most dictatorships/Islamic states?

I`d like to hear your take on that.

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

Stuka # 40 - You doubted my claim that Americans are doing far worse than Saddam. I was looking for the stats that came out the other day in AP News. Thankfuly, Urstruly has posted them in his post # 53. Please read them. It indeed is an eye opener. And interestingly, you will notice that these news are not from terrornews.com or any such source.

This american lie, repeated by the whores amongst us, that Iraqis are ``better off`` without Saddam is laughable if it were not so tragic.

By the way, did anyone notice that during last night`s speech, Mr. Bush stumbled several times on the word ``Abu Ghraib ? He called Abu Ghbor, Abu Ghrom a couple of times.

Now, here is a man who supposedly has apologized for the torture that occured in that prison and he can`t even pronounce it. I can bet you that he will NEVER mispronounce ``Aushwitz`` concentration camp. His handlers and advisors will make sure of that.

I agree with Urstruly..


After all Berg was wearing a dress like the one they prisnors at Guntama Bay

wear...

Anjum Niaz paints a full picture of abuse in DAWN MAGAZINE at:


http://www.dawn.com/weekly/dmag/dmag3.htm

AN EYE OPENER:

During one year of Iraqi occupation the number of Iraqis who fell victim to American Democracy is approx. 5,558. And that number is just for three provinces.

During Saddam Rule in 2002 the average homicide rate per month in Baghdad= 14

After Americans Democratization of Iraq the average Iraqis murdered in Baghdad by Americans = 357


Associated Press:

http://www.napanews.com/templates/index.cfm?template=story_full&id=ECC45ED7-5F88-45B5-B7E8-4B63ADABBAD6

If Iraqis can fake the wedding video as Americans allege then by the same token why can`t Americans fake the beheading video; after all it is Americans who have been lying all along on every matter.

Harish,

You bring up an excellent point. Now, here`s my question;

WHICH Americans want this transparency of the US military`s action in Iraq?

Is it the Americans, right wing Indian Americans esp., who attempt to tar Americans following alternative media as ``commies`` and ``america bashers``?

Is it the Americans who have defended the invasion time and time again with rationales that have been dismantled in the past months? Have THEY supported this transparency, this introspection of US policy?

Exactly WHO has exhibited this moral courage in the face of an administration and corrollary media that has continously lied to us and then called us traitors/Muslim fanatics/commies, etc.?

I think we all know the answer to that question.

Ralph,

I dont know anyone, Muslim or other who has not mourned Daniel Berg`s murder.

It would behoove the cheerleaders to reflect that when we talk about US transparency and accountability, we talk about a responsible and objective media free of govt interests or censorship. In all the excuses and spin we have heard from the mainstream media for the invasion of Iraq-and your belief in those justification, other narratives are finally beggining to be heard. The mainstream media is finally being forced to cover these narratives-please remember whose been bringing these issues up again and again from the very outset of this mess.

Mainstream media next ``new`` development:



Ex-U.S. Marine: I Killed Civilians in Iraq
Monday, May 24th, 2004

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/24/148212
Ex-Marine Staff Sergeant Jimmy Massey talks about his time in Iraq where he admitted the U.S. treatment of Iraqi civilians is fueling the Iraqi resistance. In a recent interview he said ``I felt like we were committing genocide in Iraq.`` [includes rush transcript]

---

The US Army is denying reports that the highest-ranking American officer in Iraq, Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez, was present during some of the interrogations and prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison outside of Baghdad. This follows a report in The Washington Post over the weekend about an April 2nd military hearing on the prisoner torture allegations. According to The Post, a lawyer representing one of the accused soldiers said that the commander of the U.S. military police company at the centre of the abuse scandal, Donald Reese, told him that General Sanchez was aware of what was taking place.
Tonight President Bush will deliver a prime time address on Iraq aimed in part at controlling the damage from the situation at Abu Ghraib. Meanwhile, Conscientious Objector Sgt. Camillo Mejia was sentenced to a year in prison for desertion from the Army. His application for CO status mentioned prisoner abuse in Iraq long before the current scandal.

Now another US soldier who participated in the Iraq invasion and occupation has begun speaking out. Twelve year Marine veteran Jimmy Massey joins us on the line from North Carolina.


Marine Staff Segt. Jimmy Massey (Ret.), former Marine staff sergeant who was honorably discharged in December after serving 12 years, most recently in Iraq. He is speaking to us from his home in Waynesville, North Carolina in the Smokey Mountains.

---

RUSH TRANSCRIPT
This transcript is available free of charge, however donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.
Donate - $25, $50, $100, more...

AMY GOODMAN: Welcome to Democracy Now!.

STAFF SERGEANT JIMMY MASSEY: Good morning. How you are doing?

AMY GOODMAN: Very good. Can you talk about when you were in Iraq?

STAFF SERGEANT JIMMY MASSEY: Yeah. I was part of the initial invading force. I was part of first marine division categorized into RCP-7. The battalion that I was with was third battalion seventh marines, weapons company cap 1. I was basically in the main invasion all the way up into Baghdad, and then once Baghdad fell, my battalion headed south towards the city of Karbala.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about your experience there?

STAFF SERGEANT JIMMY MASSEY: Really, what led up to my disgust with the war was the civilian casualties that we were inflicting. We were given intelligence reports -- the civilian casualties really started taking place after we left the town of Anu Mannia on the drive north towards Baghdad. We were getting intelligence reports from higher command saying that the Fedayeen and Republican Guards were trading in their uniforms for civilian clothes, and they were mounting terrorist attacks against U.S. soldiers and marines using guerrilla-style tactics, suicide bombings. They were using civilians as human shields. They were loading down stolen ambulances and police cars with explosives. So, as we progressed on towards Baghdad, our fears and anxieties were heightened, and also due to the lack of sleep, some of us had less than 48 hours of sleep getting into Baghdad. So, whenever we were placed into these situations where civilian vehicles were coming up to our checkpoints, and not heeding our warning shot, we were lighting them up. What I mean by lighting them up, we were discharging our weapons, 50 cals and M-16`s into the civilian vehicles. When we would do this, we were expecting secondary explosions, ammunition to be cooking off or actually have the occupants in the vehicle fire back at us. However, none of this ever happened. When we would go to search the vehicles, we would find no weapons, and nothing to link these individuals with -- these individuals with terrorists acts. And this happened continuously through the fall of Baghdad. I would say my platoon alone killed 30-plus innocent civilians.

AMY GOODMAN: How would you realize what you had done? Can you give us a specific example?

STAFF SERGEANT JIMMY MASSEY: Sure. Sure. A car would roll up to our checkpoint. And prior while we were still in Kuwait, we had actually made up Arabic road signs to place out in front of our checkpoint area warning the Iraqis to slow down. That didn`t help. We would verbally tell them stop and we would fire a warning shot. When we would light the cars up, you know, we would go through and search the dead occupants as well as the vehicles, and we would find nothing that directly linked them to any type of terrorists. They were just average civilians that were trying to flee out of Iraq -- or excuse me -- out of Baghdad, out of the city limits because of the invading American force. They were scared. But with the intelligence reports that we were given, it was very hard for us to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys. We ultimately started looking at everybody in Iraq as a potential suicide bomber or terrorist from women to children to old men. We didn`t know who the enemy was.

AMY GOODMAN: We`re talking to Jimmy Massey former marine staff sergeant, honorably discharged in December after serving 12 years, most recently in Iraq. He was in charge of a platoon that consisted of machine gunners and missile men describing, quote, lighting up cars, opening fire on Iraqi cars. When you would go up to the cars and see who was dead inside, what would you do with the bodies?

STAFF SERGEANT JIMMY MASSEY: We would take the bodies and search them to try to find any type of identification or anything like that. Generally, we found large quantities of cash, and that`s what led us to believe that the people were just fleeing out of Baghdad. They were trying to secure what valuables that they had. Some of them had their valuables in the car, but you know, there was basically nothing that we could do with the bodies other than toss them in the ditch and off the road. So, that`s what we would do, and then hopefully wait for the Iraqi medics, civilian medics to come in and take care of the bodies.

AMY GOODMAN: How many children would you estimate you killed?

STAFF SERGEANT JIMMY MASSEY: With unknown gunfire, the potential is unlimited, and what I mean by unknown gunfire, whenever you fire a machine gun especially a 50 caliber and any type of lightweight machine gun, you don`t know where the bullets are going to go. So bullets could indiscriminately hit a child. The architecture – some of these villages that we went into were very shady construction. Our weapons could easily punch through. The reason I say that or use that as an example. I had a young child die in my arms. The father came up to us at the checkpoint with a child, and began to say, the bombs -- the bombs killed his child. I called the corpsman. The corpsman came over to assist the child and said the child probably had internal damage from the concussion, from the bombs. So, as his child died in my arms you know, I began to think, you know, wow, here`s an innocent child that was just sleeping or doing things that children do, and the -- the response that I got from my command was, well, better them than us, and, you know, it`s -- he`s just a casualty of war. Sorry. However, that father that was standing there as his child was dying in my arms, and, you know, the doc was resuscitating, doing CPR, this father was looking at me like, why did you do this? You know, and -- you know, why does my son have to die? Almost just like a hatred look towards me. He knew I was obviously in command. Another incident it was on the outskirts of Baghdad near the Baghdad stadium, we had pulled into an area, and shortly after we had pulled in, it was on a major highway like a superhighway going in towards Baghdad. We had just lit up a vehicle, a red KIA, the Korean-made passenger vehicle, and we had just lit it up. They failed to stop at our checkpoint. Three of the men were fatally wounded that were in the vehicle and one -- the driver, had survived without any damage. As we were pulling the bodies out of the vehicle, of course, we`re searching and we find nothing, and these were young -- these were young men. They were in their mid 20`s. The one that was unscathed, he looked up at me and he goes, you know, why did you kill my brother? We didn`t do anything to you. We`re not terrorists. So, I have three dying men with bullet holes from our weapons, and this gentleman asking me why I killed his brother. That`s a tough pill to swallow, and that continuously happened the entire time that we were in Iraq. After we left the city of Anu Mannia, it just became utter chaos. It sickened me so that I had actually brought it up to my lieutenant, and I told him, I said, you know, sir, we`re not going to have to worry about the Iraq -- you know, we`re basically committing genocide over here, mass extermination of thousands of Iraqis, and with the depleted uranium that we`re leaving around on the battlefield, we`re setting up genocide for future generations within Iraq. He didn`t like that. He immediately went to my commanding officer, Captain Schmitt and proceeded to tell him about how I felt about Iraq. Word spread pretty quickly and I knew that my Marine Corps career was over. I knew that the statement that I had just made was going to bring about the blackball pretty quickly. So, I was scurried out of Iraq quickly, and ordered to report back stateside to receive psychological therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder and major depression. When I got back stateside, that`s when things really became ugly. I felt like the staff sergeant that just received the prison sentence for a year. I had to hire a lawyer because they were trying to pin me with conscientious objector, and basically, they were doing everything in their power to threaten me and to intimidate me so that I would go U.A. Unfortunately, with the staff sergeant, he fell into their trap, and he went U.A.

AMY GOODMAN: What does U.A. mean?

STAFF SERGEANT JIMMY MASSEY: Unauthorized absence. That means that he left without authorization. That`s basically -- you know, that`s what they charged him with. Then they later on pinned on the conscientious objector. However, the Marine Corps told me they were going to bring legal repercussions against me and I decided to hire a lawyer. The lawyer that I hired was actually -- he was involved with the My Lai trials. I got really lucky, a man by the name of Gary Myers in Washington D.C. Their main concern was whether or not I was a conscientious objector. I told them that I believed in war and some wars in our history have been helpful for humanity and society as a whole, however, I do not believe in killing innocent civilians. So, I told them if they wanted to label me as a conscientious objector for disagreeing with, you know, killing innocent civilians, then I`ll see them in court.

AMY GOODMAN: We`re talking to Jimmy Massey former staff sergeant Marine, honorably discharged in December after serving 12 years. We`re speaking to him from his home in Waynesville, North Carolina, in the Smoky Mountains. We`ll come back to him if a minute.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! The War and Peace Report. Democracynow.org. I`m Amy Goodman, as we continue with Marine Staff Sergeant Jimmy Massey, honorably discharged in December, talking about his experiences in Iraq. You talk about opening fire on a group of protesters.

STAFF SERGEANT JIMMY MASSEY: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you describe it?

STAFF SERGEANT JIMMY MASSEY: Sure, we had just rolled up -- it was probably about 20 miles north of the Saddam International Airport. We had rolled up into this military compound area, and to try to give you -- it`s a little bit important that you understand the architecture. This military compound was heavily fortified with about 13-foot-tall concrete fences going all the way around the compound. This particular road that we went into, these walls were on the left and right, and the road itself was about 1,000 meters long. So, it made a very difficult -- it was a prime area for an ambush. When we pulled up, there was already an Abrams tank that was parked into one of the entrances at the military compound. At the end of the street about 200 meters a way from the tank there was a group of demonstrators. They were holding a peaceful demonstration. They were holding up signs that looked like a Muslim cleric as well as Saddam Hussein. The intelligence that we had received was these demonstrators -- there was about four of them and there was ten in the background. They were standing next to a highway overpass. The intelligence that we had gotten, these people were probably members of the Iraqi military that had slipped back into the community, and they were going to be waging all of these terrorist attacks against us. We rolled up, and about two minutes later, we had heard a stray gunfire. My men were already on the edge, you know, with anxiety, and the lack of sleep, and with the constant reports that we were given. When the gunshot was fired, my marines opened up on the demonstrators. I turned around just in time because I was walking the lines inspecting my marines to make sure that they had food and water and they were in the right position in case of an ambush. I turned around to the front of the convoy, and I saw the -- I saw my marines opening up. I swung my rifle around. I didn`t know what was going on, and I started discharging my weapon as well into the demonstrators. After that, the lieutenant decided to go on a reconnaissance up onto the overpass area. We -- as we were driving towards the demonstrator, I didn`t see any weapons. It just horrified me at the thought that we just opened up on a group of peaceful demonstrators, however, we heard gunshots coming from that direction towards us. So, as we rolled up onto the highway overpass, I looked down and below the highway it looked like the Iraqis had set up some sort of makeshift military compound, but it had been abandoned. I saw some R.P.G.`s lining up against the wall underneath this highway, and it was about -- they were about 200 meters away from the Iraqi demonstrators. This really disturbed me, because the demonstrators if they wanted to fire on us, they had the ability. They had the ability before we even got there to destroy this tank, because the way that we were jammed into this area, it was almost impossible for us to turn around quickly. Nearly -- or double almost impossible for this tank to fire or use its main battle gun. It left this tank defenseless. These Iraqis had a clear shot of the tank before we even got there, but they didn`t. I just quickly- put two and two together and said, oh, my God - we just opened up on a group of peaceful demonstrators.

AMY GOODMAN: We`re talking to former marine staff sergeant Jimmy Massey, what about the use of cluster bombs?

STAFF SERGEANT JIMMY MASSEY: I had a staff sergeant at the very beginning of the war. He was our supply staff sergeant. He lost his leg because of cluster bombs. Cluster bombs were everywhere, and I believe that he was the first marine to be awarded the Purple Heart in ``Operation Iraq.`` because it happened in Safwan, the town of Safwan, the first city as your heading into Iraq from Kuwait. They were everywhere. The long-term casualties of these cluster bombs with children and -- you know, older people working in the fields is going to go on for years.

AMY GOODMAN: Where were they from?

STAFF SERGEANT JIMMY MASSEY: From Marine Artillery and from air.

AMY GOODMAN: In the case of the protests, when you realized that you had open fire on defenseless civilians, what was the he reaction of your troops? How many people felt the way you did?

STAFF SERGEANT JIMMY MASSEY: The reaction of the troops was they were joyous. You know it`s not their job to play politics. That`s the job of the staff sergeant and the lieutenant, to make determinations on whether or not we were in the right or we were in the wrong. I didn`t tell my troops. My job was to keep them motivated so they go home alive, and in one piece, and left with some sort of sanity after the war. However, I did have several of my younger troops come up to me in private and say, you know, staff sergeant, can I talk you to? And then they would go on to tell me, you know, that some of the incidents were affecting them. So, I told them, I said, listen double dog, we`re here to do a job and provide democracy for the Iraqis, and you questioning and you playing politician is not helping them. So, I want you to get back out there on the gun line and do your job as a marine, and let the politicians do their job. But deep down, it was seriously affecting me, because it was so evident. Marines are trained from day one that you go in -- when you go in to boot camp you learn what the Geneva Convention is, what the rules of the Geneva Convention are, what the rules of engagement. However, Iraq violated every rule of engagement that I have ever been taught - violated every rule of the Geneva Convention that I have been taught. If you have young marines coming up you to and asking you, staff sergeant, what`s going on? You know, we have got a problem.

AMY GOODMAN: What are you doing right now? How are you living with yourself? How are you dealing with what happened in Iraq with you and what you and your soldiers did in Iraq?

STAFF SERGEANT JIMMY MASSEY: I`ll be honest with you, there isn`t a waking moment of the day that I don`t think about it and think about what we have done over there. A lot of people ask me, you know why you are speaking out? Why are you -- you know, are you just trying to do this for money fame, fortune. What are you doing? I have been called a traitor, a disloyal s.o.b. You name it. The reason that I`m doing this is to heal myself. To possibly heal other marines that are not in the position for them to come out and say something from fear of retaliation from the marine corps. I`m doing this not only to heal myself about to help other marines that feel the same way that I do.

AMY GOODMAN: Are others talking to you now here?

STAFF SERGEANT JIMMY MASSEY: No. Let me explain you to -- I was also a recruiter for three years in the Marine Corps. Whenever you sign up for the military, army, navy, air force, marines, coast guard, have a four-year commitment. At the end of that four-year commitment, you still have another four-year commitment in what`s called an I.R.R., Individual Ready Reserve. That means in the time of national emergency or crisis, the president of the United States can call these members back to active duty. So, these marines that have been discharged, you know, after the fall of Iraq, they`re living back in their civilian community but they`re still fearful to come out and say anything because the Marine Corps can call them back to active duty. And then they`re worried about what happened to the staff sergeant. The staff sergeant is being used as a patsy. He`s being used as: see, this is what will happen to you to if you speak out. However, I spent 12 years in. There`s nothing that they can do to me as far as calling me back to active duty. So, I feel it`s my responsibility to let the civilian public know. You know, the boards that we put into those -- the bullets that we put into the civilians were paid for by the U.S. Tax dollar. I believe that the U.S. Taxpayers have a rate to know what`s going on over there. When we pulled into that military compound, they had makeshift morgues. They had tractor-trailer beds full of bodies. It was so bad -- this is because of the bombing that we did -- some of them had Iraqi flags on them, representing that they were a soldier, but 80% of them didn`t. We would find tractor-trailers literally full of stocked bodies. It was so bad that the plasma from the body and the skin was decomposing and literally oozing out of the crevices of the tractor-trailer bed. We asked -- we asked some of the Iraqis that -- the locals that were basically homeless and they were living in the compound, we asked them, like, what is this? How come, you know, the bodies are in there, and he told us it was from the bombing, and when they lost the power, they didn`t have any other place to put them. So, they put them in there to bury them later on.

AMY GOODMAN: Jimmy Massey, I want to thank you very much for being with us, former marine Staff Sergeant, honorably discharged in December after serving 12 years, speaking to us from his home in Waynesville, North Carolina, in the smoky mountains. Any last thoughts?

STAFF SERGEANT JIMMY MASSEY: Yeah. I`d just like to say to the Marines, you did a great job. You did what your country asked you to do. Unfortunately, the rules of engagement and the Geneva Convention weren`t used. But it`s up to you to look within your heart and do the right thing. You know who you are. Don`t be scared. Come out. The American public, they need to know. You`re not the only one. There are other people out there that can help you to heal. There are other people out there that can help you to get on with your life. Don`t feel ashamed. Don`t feel embarrassed. Did you a great job, however, you know, the Command -- they didn`t give you the right tools for you to carry on with your mission. Just do the right thing, marines.

AMY GOODMAN: Who do you hold most responsible for this?

STAFF SERGEANT JIMMY MASSEY: The president of the United States. He`s the win that authorized it. He`s the one that said there were weapons of mass destruction. He`s the one that gave the case to us for going to war. We went to war backing him, however, the intelligence reports that we were getting hindered our ability to make Iraq a free democracy. You know, it`s hard to tell a middle aged or middle -- you know, young man in his 20`s -- say 20 to 28 years old that just watched his brother die by the hands of Americans. It`s hard to tell him, you know, what, hey, we`re sorry. All right. He`s just a casualty of war. Now, this young man has taken revenge or is acting in revenge against the United States in Fallujah, in Karbala. He`s picking up that R.P.G. because he`s mad. He`s mad at the Americans. We were supposed to go in there and set up a democracy. All we did was cause chaos and have a genocidal mindset. So, they`re mad. They have every right to be mad. I know if somebody killed my brother, you know, indiscriminately and laughed about it and said, well, sorry, wrong place, wrong time, I would be mad, too.

AMY GOODMAN: Jimmy Massey, thank you for being with us, former Marine staff sergeant, speaking to us from North Carolina.

STAFF SERGEANT JIMMY MASSEY: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!.


www.democracynow.org

At least the Americans had the moral courage to expose the wrongdoings by their fellow Americans at Abu Ghraib. Even though worse conditions prevail inside prisons in much of the Muslim world (for example, the same Abu Ghraib prison where Saddam tortured and/or executed scores of his political opponents), there`s never been even a whimper of protest.

Which reminds me of a saying, ``He maybe a ba$tard, but he is our ba$tard``.

Hypocrisy and self-righteousness are the greatest bane of the Muslim world.

Just on the side...


Best comments heard on Bush Maharaj`s speech tonite. I hope urstruly likes them...

``I`ll pull out before I come, I promise.``

``LAWTMFS (listened and watched the Mother Faaking Speech)``

The crow croaked today.

Salaam Alaikum!

To further add, there have been no recognition, discussion or apologies from the Middle East (or Pakistan) on some of its treacherous actions. To this day, some of the most pernicious and barbaric actions go unmentioned and unabated without a howl from the west. If anything, Pakistan, and much of the Middle East, can learn from the Abu Gharib atrocity and take the time to clean up their submarine perfidiousness.

–Ibn

tahmed32 #35 - You wrote: ``What?? No personal insults? No wild claims? And arguments that one can even consider seriously? ``

FYI - I am on Prozaic today and hence no amount of stupidity can boil my blood here. Still your arguments managed to irk me enough that I was going to take my sword out to cut you clean. But then I noticed how you had shot yourself in the foot with your own arguments and I backed off. I still can`t figure out how you manage to shoot yourself in the foot while holding a sword.

I need another Prozaic pill.

#31 by malik99

From a blog…

“General Anthony Zinni lists the ten biggest mistakes the US made in Iraq:

1. The first mistake [was] the belief that containment as a policy doesn`t work....
2. The second mistake I think history will record is that the strategy was flawed....
3. The third mistake, I think was one we repeated from Vietnam, we had to create a false rationale for going in to get public support....
4. We failed in number four, to internationalize the effort....
5. I think the fifth mistake was that we underestimated the task....
6. The sixth mistake, and maybe the biggest one, was propping up and trusting the exiles....
7. The seventh problem has been the lack of planning....
8. The eighth problem was the insufficiency of military forces on the ground....
9. The ninth problem has been the ad hoc organization we threw in there....
10. The tenth mistake [has been] a series of bad decisions on the ground....”

Now Gen. Zinni is NOT advocating withdrawal of US forces, he is calling for more forces in Iraq. This is just one “US pov” that I talked about in my previous post. You can very well see that how far apart it is with your “Muslim pov” about the war.
Again the point is that your opposition to war is different than American opposition to the war. Which clearly points out to the fact that Muslims/Pak/Arabs are not aligned with American in the US and therefore need to adjust their attitude.


#41 by stuka
``I can assure you that us Iindians are far more kameeney then Americans. ``

Your (Indian)Kameen-gi is more like lovers playing games :)
Still got to sleep in close proximity....

Americans just stick it in....Who would you hate more?

malik #29 OK, I am back.

First: You say that (a) nothing better was expected from Saddam Hussein and (b) it is wrong to point fingers at others rather than yourself (i.e. the US).

I am afraid that reasoning wont work in your case for the simple reason that you wear two hats, one as Pakistani and the other as American. So ``yourself`` means both Pakistan and the US. And at this point in time, the abuses at abu ghraib have obviously ended - revised rules of engagement at the prison have been issued by Sanchez which disallow the kinds of punishments that took place; prison command has changed; red cross invited to set up a permanent office inside the prison to keep an eye on prisoner treatment;newspapers in the US are keeping abu ghraib abuses in the front pages; new pictures are being released;
prisoners are being rapidly released with the aim of bringing prison population down to the capacity of the prison; guilty individuals are being punished.

In other words, THE PROBLEM HAS ALREADY BEEN FIXED AT ABU GHRAIB. HOWEVER, I PAKISTAN, similary problems have NOT BEEN FIXED. While a few brave souls continue to try and raise public consciousness about them, the abuses continue. Musharaff - far from apologizing to the inmates and doing the kinds of things the US has done - simply calls for a ``debate`` on the issue. As he did last year. And the rich dont care - after all, it is only the poor man`s daughters who get raped and put in those jails under ``Islamic laws``.

SO: Your grand claim that in criticizing the US on abu ghraib you are merely pointing fingers at yourself rings hollow.


As for other instances that you point out as US perfidy, lets take a look:

1. Japanese internments in WWII: The problem has been fixed. If it had not been fixed, you and I would have been in an internment camp after 9/11.

2. Vietnam: The entire country was divided on Vietnam. In at least one major case - the My Lai massacre - courts martial took place. Compare this, e.g. to the lack of fuss in Pakistan over Bangladesh. Compare this to the Pakistani My Lai (the killing of bengali intellectuals at Dhaka University): no courts martials, no fuss. The problem has not been recognized.

3. Pinochet/Iran: Again, there is no shortage of US comentators on this. Compare this to the lack of fuss in Pakistan over our puppet - Mullah Omar and his band of merry taliban whom the Pakistani generals foisted on Afghanistan.

I am not saying the US is perfect, and am well aware of history. All I am saying is that the US public and institutions are a million miles ahead of where we in Pakistan are. If you are really sincere in your concerns, start with the place you were born - Pakistan.

HP:

``So which media do you get your news/facts from? What are your sources to get the “Right” news/facts from? Guerrillanews.com, the terroristnews.com,the Jang Urdu international.com or the nawaiwaqt.com ``

Man, I would hate to be on the wrong side of an argument with you!!!

BTW, can you enlighten me on the reason that Pakistanis seem to be more anti-American then Anti-Indian?? I can assure you that us Iindians are far more kameeney then Americans. But we get hospitality when we visit and the poor goras only get gaalis????

Malik99:

``Aside from the fact that we are NOT doing better than Saddam,``

Erm, yes ``w``e are. You are factually incorrect when you say the Americans are not doing better then Saddam. It took Saddam all of three months to crush the Shia rebellion in 1992. You think the American armed forces are so incomptetent that they cannot do the job? If they were as ``bad`` as Saddam it would take the US less then 72 hours to reduce the insurrection to near zero. And I am talking conventional weapons only. For an American, you surely seem to underestimate your own country`s defence capabilities.

BTW, I am not American...hence my question of ``we``.




``the point that seems to have been `lost in translation` is this: now that EVERY SINGLE rationale for us being there has been proven false, why are we still there?``

Hey, I agree with you on that. I don`t think the US is responsible for building every country after going to war with it. The Iraqis have oil, they can build their own damn country. Now that Saddam is caught, his sons are dead, declare victory and get out. I am not for building an American empire more then you.

Oh, and regarding Yugoslavia, I commend you on your consistency. As you are probably aware, you might be an exception since the Kosovo war was damn near supported by everyone in the liberal spectrum. The point was not US gov`t motives in Yugoslavia, it was the reaction of the American and European left.

Stuka # 33 - You wrote ``Who is ``we``?? It is not a matter of patting on backs. Iif Saddam was not being criticized with the same vehemence that the Americans are being criticized, then your criticism loses all moral value. You might as well be peeing in the wind.``

I admit that when I was a kid I once experimented with peeing in the wind. Did not