Standing With Iraqi Journalists
The "resistance" fighters that have taken almost 800 lives
in Iraq in just the past month also target journalists.
Three more Iraqi reporters were killed on
May 22 when they were among 13 people who had their throats cut when a mini-van
was stopped on the road by a group of unidentified gunmen.
I'm joining with
some British colleagues and the Labour Friends of Iraq in an initiative to defend Iraqi journalists
against abuses by all sides in the ongoing conflict. If you are a fellow
journalist or media worker join us in this campaign.
Or send in your name by email to LFIQ.
June 5th, 2005 at 7:47 pm
The initiative states: “These colleagues were savagely murdered. They had their throats cut in cold-blooded and ruthless executions…. …85 journalists and media staff have been killed in Iraq… The number also includes 14 deaths at the hands of US troops.”
Okay, is this really opposition to cold-blooded and unjust murders or is this actually veiled opposition to the U.S.–done with unfair and inflamatory linkage of accidental and collateral deaths under the U.S. versus pure murder by savages? This could have noble motives, but it seems to smell like Amnesty International’s use of the term gulag.
I think the two issues are separate and should be treated separately.
June 5th, 2005 at 8:02 pm
do you automatically assume that the deaths of journalists at the hands of american forces are accidental?
June 5th, 2005 at 8:18 pm
Yes. I tend to believe the better things about this country rather than the worse things. It’s more realistic.
June 5th, 2005 at 8:31 pm
Actually Woody, this comes from Tony Blair supporters who back the war in Iraq. Dont be paranoid like some lefties are. One can criticize one side without being blind to the faults of the other.
June 5th, 2005 at 9:07 pm
It’s just that I’ve seen too many similar patterns from those opposed to this country’s foreign policy. I would feel better if some people in G.B. mentioned both U.S. AND British troops, the latter which was not included.
June 5th, 2005 at 10:47 pm
why is it more realistic?
June 6th, 2005 at 11:41 am
Are actors media workers? For myself, I answered yes. Thank you for supporting this project
Patrick
June 6th, 2005 at 2:56 pm
The best way to save lives of Iraqi trade unionists and journalists is to get the hell out of Iraq. It is the occupation that is the greatest spur to violence. Too bad that the people circulating statements Marc urges us to support are prime backers of the war.
June 6th, 2005 at 3:19 pm
Sam’s comment is typical of the moral blindness that afflcits too much of the left. If we just pull out the US troops then there will no longer be masked men in Iraq who wantonly kill. I find this to be dumbfounding.
Mostof those who are circulating the statement in question are indeed liberal backers of the war. On this issue I do not hesitate to associate myselves with them. Kronenberg, for his part, associates himself with Ba’athist nazis who would prefer silence over protest when it comes to the atrocities they commit. Very sad and disheartening but not surprising.
June 6th, 2005 at 3:26 pm
The 14 journalists killed were not rounded up and their throats cut. They were in some cases embedded with the terrorists, and got shot along with the throat cutters. Others were the victims of friendly fire which yes sadly does happen to US troops as well as journalists. Part of the problem is that some “journalists” are merely terrorists with cameras; that seems to be the case with the stringers who took the shots of election workers being murdered on Haifa Street in Baghdad (celebrated as “resistance” by murdering election workers, the Iraqi equivalent of the murders of Cheney, Goodman, and Schwerner) and other similar incidents of disgusting and shocking terror attacks against innocent non-combatants.
Double standards and simply knee-jerk anti-Americanism does no one any good. It’s as stupid as Amnesty International bemoaning a few drops of pee accidentally landing on a Koran while ignoring rape and genocide in Darfur.
The Media has zero credibility among the American Public because it constantly spews conspiracy theories of “journalists murdered” with no proof whatsoever, while excusing throat cutting as “resistance” where it does not actually celebrate it. The Media hates GWB more than it loves decency and freedom.
What’s happening in Iraq is the struggle between a profoundly illiberal, hate-filled, anti-modern, Islamist and Baathist and gangster ridden set of groups and those whoever fitfully wish some semblance of modernity and decency however imperfect they are and however imperfect their allies may be. It’s not any different from Uganda and the Lord’s Army, or Charles Taylor in Liberia and elsewhere, or many other places where absolute horror is opposed by imperfect human beings.
It’s real simple; you can either back the equivalents of the Freikorps and Brownshirts, the KKK, Mussolini’s goons, and decide that hating GWB is more important than backing decency and modernity; or you can back people in Iraq who RISK THEIR LIVES fighting for some semblance of a decent society which is so sorely lacking. This includes journalists, trade unionists, aid workers, and others who would be the first murdered in vast purges should the bin Ladens, Zarqawis, and Baathists win.
But you have to decide which is more important? Hating GWB, or a decent society in Iraq. You sure as hell won’t get anything decent from the throat cutters and deliberate murders of journalists, election workers, aid workers (Margaret Hassan) and other innocent people.
Me, I’ll back those fighting for decency even though I have many issues where I part company from GWB (to put it mildly).
June 6th, 2005 at 3:32 pm
I’ll add that should there be ANY doubt, the murder of Samir Kassir by Syrian agents in Lebanon shows that Syria is an enemy of decency and modernity, and represents the ongoing threat against decency and modernity worldwide.
Today a car bomb in Beirut against a crusading journalist; tomorrow a plane crashing into a skyscraper or poison gas in the subways. It’s all the same struggle.
June 6th, 2005 at 8:27 pm
You know, I tried, I really tried to just air the facts in regard to this war - but it does not do any good with the likes of Jim, Woody, and now Marc(unfortunately)is sounding more like Joe Lieberman every day. Do you guys live in reality or what?
OK - here it goes, forget George Bush. If you voted for him your the reason he’s in office! So stop carping about decency and the good things in this country like brain washed lemmings - that is not the subject, period. Disent by all means if you must, and don’t support journalists in peril - be “decent” human beings and opt for their carnage! Or maybe we can put a camera in your hands and drop you off in the middle of this mess.
As for modernity Iraq was at the head of the pack in education, medicine, and women were making good progress - it was one of the most Western country’s in the Middle East. Than the US military brought them decency and modernity by destroying their progress with OUR decency and OUR modernity at the point of a gun! The war was based on lies by congenital liars, who massaged the truth to attack an all but defenseless country - and now we are introducing them to decency and modernity. I mean, what damn planet do you come from talking nonsense like that?
Bottom line, if you put us there by voting for this asshole, than try to restrain yourself while some people try to help others survive American “decency” and “modernity!” Than maybe, just maybe, we can increase the some of the “better things about this country.” OK?!
June 6th, 2005 at 8:32 pm
Excuse me. I will retract my solidarity with journalists being gunned down by George W. Bush’s Iraqi opponents. How foolish of me to have ever down otherwise.
(and then some wonder why the Left in America remains marginal. We can’t even express our outrage at innocents being slaughtered).
June 7th, 2005 at 4:51 pm
Cooper, if you are offering solidarity to innocent Iraqis through the auspices of a campaign run by British warhawks like Nick Cohen and Jonathan Hari, then you must have an Orwellian sense of the word solidarity. Making common cause with these bloodthirsty imperialist stooges is a step in the sad but inexorable process of you leading tours to England with David Horowitz and Christopher Hitchens.