What Do You Make of This?

[Sayonara]

This morning, just after 10.00 GMT, the Beeb posted an article entitled "US forces begin battering Falluja" [google record]

 

The article that link points to has now changed to "US Forces Under Fire in Falluja" and has been de-indexed from the Beeb's Middle-East section.

 

Replacing it are two newer articles, entitled "Iraqi Face on Falluja Operation" and "Iraqi PM orders Falluja Invasion".

 

 

Updated information, or diplomatic fudging?

[Ophiolite]

The change of emphasis between the first two appears quite natural. The Americans began the initial stages of the attack through artillery, mortar and air attack. As their troops moved into position they came under counter bombardment from the insurgents.

 

The second suite of changes is either the BBC reacting to a UK government request that they emphasise the Iraqi component of the attack, or laziness on the part of the journalists, who are simply picking up on press releases from the Iraqui government and US forces. Given the antipathy of the BBC for the government (UK) and having known a couple of journalists, I vote for explanation two.

[YT2095]

well worded!

 

I get the feeling that it was reprted too fast initialy, and the Iraqi side of things didn`t even get a look in, I don`t know if it was .Gov doings or an "Oooops, I think we forgot something with regards to the `Image` we want to portray".

 

or maybe events we`re worse than reported and it was a lame attempt to take the "Heat off" or Blame?

 

"Well it wasn`t OUR IDEA, the Iraqi Gov told us to do it"

[Pangloss]

To quote Dennis Miller, "sounds like somebody's forgotten he's the head of a puppet regime!" (grin)

[Douglas]

Updated information' date=' or diplomatic fudging?[/quote']

A little of both, I suspect.

[Daymare17]

I find it fascinating that almost everyone here clutches onto the conventional lies like straws. The human mind is conservative indeed. Let's remember that the only crime the inhabitants of Fallujah committed, was to disobey the American occupation authority.

 

One of the pretexts for the assault was to get it 'secured' in time for the election in January. Imagine if only 'secure' areas like Texas or Oklahoma were allowed to vote...

 

The fact is that the US army is the boss in Iraq and kills anyone who doesn't bend over to their demands. Its aim is not democracy, but military dictatorship. By a foreign conqueror, at that. A year ago Bremer passed a law that allowed for 100% foreign ownership, except in the oil industry, as well as for 100% repatriation of profits. I wonder why this provokes resistance? Anyone going on about how the US is trying to build democracy is a dupe. It's nothing but a lie.

 

The other fact is that the so-called 'free media' is a farce. In those cases where the media is not under the direct dictatorship of capitalist individuals, as with the BBC, it is under the constant pressure of the government and of 'public opinion', which mostly consists of lies spouted by the private media. Censorship goes on all the time, as in this case.

[blike]

Let's remember that the only crime the inhabitants of Fallujah committed, was to disobey the American occupation authority.

Let's also remember that the goal of the Fallujah operation is to exterminate the terrorists which reside in the town, not to exterminate the inhabitants of Fallujah. I'm not sure whether or not you realize that, but from the wording of your post it seems that you have not.

 

One of the pretexts for the assault was to get it 'secured' in time for the election in January. Imagine if only 'secure' areas like Texas or Oklahoma were allowed to vote...

What? Fallujah isn't the only place that is voting. Fallujah needed to be secured because it seemed to be central command for the militants. Leaving Fallujah as it was would have been like leaving a bee hive in a baby's crib.

[Artorius]

havent the military just found stockpiles of arms/torture rooms in almost all the mosques in fallujah,were the terrorists are based.

[Daymare17]

Let's also remember that the goal of the Fallujah operation is to exterminate the terrorists which reside in the town, not to exterminate the inhabitants of Fallujah. I'm not sure whether or not you realize that, but from the wording of your post it seems that you have not.

 

War crimes are committed on a daily basis in the name of freedom and democracy, and it is nonsense to portray the attacks as a product of terrorists alone. The resistance are not only small groups of Islamic fanatics or supporters of Saddam Hussein. What we see in Iraq is a resistance movement with a real mass basis. True, tragically enough the leadership of the movement tends to be in the hands of the Islamists, but that is only because no genuine alternative is available at the moment. The Communist Party and parts of the trade union movement are openly collaborating with the occupier. Thus, it is no wonder ordinary Iraqi people orient themselves towards the clergy, which they see as the only voice speaking against imperialism.

 

It is easy to see why the resistance is growing. When you see your relatives and friends being killed on a regular basis, you are likely to seek revenge. And as the deadly bombs are dropped from American planes, the anger of the Iraqi people will inevitably be directed against the occupying troops. The fact that some terrorist groupings are able to hijack this enormous amount of rage and frustration and use it for their own reactionary purposes is no excuse for the crushing of Fallujah and other rebel cities. It will only exacerbate the tensions and make the spiral of violence worse.

 

Fadhil Badrani, a journalist in Fallujah reporting for the BBC World Service reported:

 

“For people in the city, life has become even more extreme. Food is in short supply and the shops are all closed ... Electricity is cut off because of damage to the main power station from the bombardment. The water supply has been cut off too. The roads are now heavily cratered. People, particularly children and women, tend to stay at home, fearing being mistaken for a military target.

 

“Doctors say medical supplies at the main hospital, which has been in American hands since Sunday, are low. Most of the city’s population has left, some for other parts of Iraq, others, I hear have left the country altogether for neighbouring Arab counties.”

 

Interestingly, the Washington Post, one of the most right-wing US papers and one that openly backed the illegal aggression of one and a half years ago, stated that in Fallujah some artillery guns fired white phosphorous rounds that create a screen of fire that cannot be extinguished with water. The Post quoted Kamal Hadeethi, a physician at a regional hospital: “The corpses of the mujahedeen which we received were burned, and some corpses were melted.” The Post went on: “The Jolan and Askali neighborhoods seemed particularly hard hit, with more than half of the houses destroyed. Dead bodies were scattered on the streets and narrow alleys of Jolan, one of Fallujah’s oldest neighborhoods. Blood and flesh were splattered on the walls of some of the houses, witnesses said, and the streets were full of holes.” If this entered the multi-billion dollar corporate press, one can only imagine what kind of butchery really went on and goes on in Fallujah.

 

river of the Baghdad Burning blog, shrewdly defined al-Zarqawi as "WMDs with legs". He was the main pretext the US used to assault Fallujah, although there was not a single shred of evidence for him being in the city. Predictably, after they raped the city ("in order to save it") they suddenly found out that he has fled. He can be expected to show up wherever the US army needs him to.

 

The state of the much-vaunted "Iraqi Army" should leave no doubt about what the Iraqis think of the occupiers. If they were popular then the population would not hesitate to join the army to "fight the terrorists". Fallujah was supposed to be the testing ground of the new Iraqi Army. Let Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector in Iraq, speak for himself:

 

“The reality is there is no Iraqi Army. Of the tens of thousands recruited into its ranks, there is today only one effective unit, the 36th Battalion.

 

“This unit has fought side by side with the Americans in Falluja, Najaf, and Samara. By all accounts, it has performed well. But this unit can only prevail when it operates alongside overwhelming American military support. Left to fend for itself, it would be slaughtered by the resistance fighters. Worse, this unit which stands as a symbol of the ideal for the new Iraqi Army is actually the antithesis of what the new Iraqi Army should be.

 

“While the Bush administration has suppressed the formation of militia units organized along ethnic and religious lines, the 36th Battalion should be recognized for what it really is – a Kurdish militia, retained by the US military because the rest of the Iraqi Army is unwilling or unable to carry the fight to the Iraqi resistance fighters.” (Aljazeera.net, November 11, 2004)

 

Members of the Iraqi police and army are rightfully seen as collaborators with the occupiers. They are seen as traitors by the majority of the population. That explains why in Fallujah no Iraqi army or national guard unit fought. Stratfor reported that Iraqi National Guard units have refused to attack guerrilla positions; their commanders had been unable to make soldiers move forward and some officers were siding with the troops. “Only the Iraqi army’s special forces unit, which is mostly Kurdish, helped search for hidden guerrillas behind U.S. Marine lines outside the city. Hundreds of Iraqi soldiers have deserted bases around Al Fallujah, the sources added.”

 

Iraqi interim President Ghazi al-Yawar criticised the plan to attack Fallujah. “I completely disagree with those who see a need to decide the [Fallujah] matter through military action,” Yawar told Reuters. “The coalition’s handling of this crisis is wrong. It’s like someone who fired bullets at his horse’s head just because a fly landed on it; the horse died and the fly went away.” Remember that this president is a pure Quisling, hand-picked by the illegal occupation, like Allawi himself who is a CIA agent and a terrorist. It is as if a ventriloquist's dummy suddenly developed a mind of its own and started arguing with its master. This striking example should underline the unexampled barbarity of the US imperialists, who are even alienating their own stooges.

 

The Lancet, a medical journal not particularly known for its radicalism, puts the number of civilian dead since the start of the war at no less than 100,000. That in itself is a shocking condemnation of this filthy war. Even if this number is exaggerated (but then it could also be more, as The Lancet considers its findings conservative), that does not change by one iota the nature of this war. How much “collateral damage” do they want? Twenty thousand people? Fifty thousand people or 200,000? Whatever the number of innocent people dying in Iraq, it is already clear enough how monstrous “Operation Iraqi Freedom” is.

 

BTW, have you heard about the Nüremberg trials? What do you know of them?

[Ophiolite]

Let me ask you, Daymire17, what conventional lie did I clutch like a straw?

 

Let's do a quick recap:

Sayonara points out a change in emphasis in BBC reports on the Fallujah assault. [uS attacks; US is attacked; Iraqui face of the attack]

Ophiolite rules out government pressure and favours sloppy journalism as the explanation.

YT more or less agrees.

Pangloss provides a quote from someone nobody in Europe has heard of.

Douglas thinks its both.

 

Then you produce the memorable

"I find it fascinating that almost everyone here clutches onto the conventional lies like straws. The human mind is conservative indeed. Let's remember that the only crime the inhabitants of Fallujah committed, was to disobey the American occupation authority."

Surely the most memborable non sequitor of the month, if not the year.

 

This thread is discussing the character of a newsreport - not the contents. Did you even bother to read the thread? If your answer is 'Yes', then you need to brush up on your reading comprehension. We were not discussing the rights and wrongs of the US action in Iraq. I estimate that at least half of the posters to this thread are actually opposed to the US actions.

 

So I ask again what conventional lie did I clutch like a straw? Condemn me, even unto damnation, for opinions I hold and actions I take. Do not do so falsely.

[Skye]

The fact is that the US army is the boss in Iraq and kills anyone who doesn't bend over to their demands. Its aim is not democracy, but military dictatorship. By a foreign conqueror, at that. A year ago Bremer passed a law that allowed for 100% foreign ownership, except in the oil industry, as well as for 100% repatriation of profits. I wonder why this provokes resistance? Anyone going on about how the US is trying to build democracy is a dupe. It's nothing but a lie.

What does foreign ownership have to do with democracy?

[Daymare17]

Let me ask you, Daymire17, what conventional lie did I clutch like a straw?

 

Originally posted by me

The other fact is that the so-called 'free media' is a farce. In those cases where the media is not under the direct dictatorship of capitalist individuals, as with the BBC, it is under the constant pressure of the government and of 'public opinion', which mostly consists of lies spouted by the private media. Censorship goes on all the time, as in this case.

 

You seem to think that there's not widespread censorship and that the big-business media is somehow interested in telling the truth, explaining cases like this with 'sloppy journalism'. That's a conventional social lie. Just like explaining the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse, or any abuse by US soldiers really, with a few 'bad apples'.

 

The BBC is one of the more respectable capitalist outlets. Like the Guardian, for instance, it tells the truth on all insignificant issues just so it can lie more convincingly when it really matters.

[Daymare17]

What does foreign ownership have to do with democracy?

 

Well, you're right in the sense that democracy is incompatible with private ownership of the means of production, period. We are supposed to live in one, but what it boils down to is that everyone can say largely what they please, so long as the banks and the boards of the multinationals decide what happens.

 

Primarily, this law gives the lie to the occupiers (as if they weren't exposed enough already). It's proof that what they really care about is the profits of the US corporations, not democracy.

 

One might also consider how simple it is to build a democracy when 100,000 foreign troops are stationed in your country with pretty much a carte blanche to detain or even shoot anyone at will.

[blike]

The Iraq war discussions have been played out to no end on this forum, and I really have no motivation to repeat myself indefinitely.

 

One thing I do find particularly interesting is the British constantly patting themselves on the back; be it with their 'more subtle' approach to the war, or the homage they pay to their untouchable news service, the BBC. Sometimes I wonder if they are somehow immune to the mob mentality of which we Americans are accused of daily. I question whether or not their worldview is any more accurate than the average American worldview. Surely, they would attest that they are more enlightened, afterall, they have the BBC--all we have are state-run propaganda machines. Indeed, if an American newspaper dare say a positive thing about Iraq it is almost instantaneously branded right-wing propaganda. I am almost forced to arrive at the conclusion that the British do not believe that the words 'liberal bias' exist. Ironically, it is synonymous with the 'us vs. them' mentality you so vehemently despise. There is only black and white; only the correct view and right-wing trash. I see it all the time. No matter how left-wing the source you embrace it, or at the very least you refrain from speaking out against the source (you did, afterall, quote Al Jezeera). But I digress. You, as a British, are as susceptible to manipulation as I am. Indeed, if I were to make assumptions about your culture based on what I see on TV (as you do ours), then I would conclude that your culture is intensily more susceptible to mob mentality than ours. Just look at your soccer games. Nonetheless, I do try and maintain some objectivity and rational thinking in my assessments. You obviously do not afford us the same courtesy. The American military, according to you, is comprised mainly of war criminals.

 

I am comforted daily when I wake up and venture out into the American society and see what Americans are really like. I am comforted by the fact that most Americans know someone in the military. I am comforted by the fact that our media is liberally biased. And while I might decry them for this position, it reaffirms my belief that the government can pressure and the media will defy. I am comforted by the fact that the world really doesn't seem to have a good grip on what Americans are like. And when I read the trash daily that spews from your countries about us as people, I understand that it is your ignorance, not your intolerance, that allows you to make such claims in good conscience.

 

Furthermore, I do not appreciate you labelling our military as barbaric imperialists. Perhaps you do not fully comprehend the painstaking efforts our military has taken to avoid civilian casualties. Indeed, much of this is in vain. But do not be deliberately ignorant of these things. We could have easily crushed Iraq without ever stepping foot on the ground. Why do you think there was a major ground assault in Fallujah? Were the generals up for some fun and games? Surely the blood of US soldiers could have been spared. Afterall, we don't care who we kill. We could have levelled the city without the shedding of an ounce of American blood.

 

Where is your denouncement of those who blow up women and children in public Iraqi streets? Where is your abhorment of Abu al-Zarqawi? I find it interesting that you are relatively silent on these things. And while you may not have had sufficient time to express yourself in this manner, it is obvious who you are primarily concerned with criticizing. Is this a testament to British objectivity?

 

Also, do not forget, your military and your government are invovled as well. I fully expect a ravaging critique of them as well. Afterall, you're British, and you're enlightened.

 

Edit: I must apologize for assuming you're British.

[Drug addict]

 

The BBC is one of the more respectable capitalist outlets. Like the Guardian' date=' for instance, it tells the truth on all insignificant issues just so it can lie more convincingly when it really matters.[/quote']

 

I'd like to some examples of the Guardian lying (or the BBC for that matter). While I won't deny some of their campaigns may be misguided, (such as the letter writing campaign to Clark County, Ohio), to accuse them of lying is quite something really.

 

 

I am almost forced to arrive at the conclusion that the British do not believe that the words 'liberal bias' exist.

 

For some reason, the best selling newspapers in the UK are the hate-filled bile spewing right wing press such as The Daily Mail, The Daily Express and The Sun. I wish there was a liberal bias in the UK press, but we are in the ridiculous postition of the BBC assesing whether it has a pro-European bias despite the fact that most of the Eurosceptic arguements rely on half truths and lies. As to whether there is a liberal bias in the US, I am not in a position to comment and so won't.

[atinymonkey]

One thing I do find particularly interesting is the British constantly patting themselves on the back; be it with their 'more subtle' approach to the war' date=' or the homage they pay to their untouchable news service, the BBC. [/quote']

 

Well, we are pretty great. Thanks for noticing, tell your friends.

 

 

I am almost forced to arrive at the conclusion that the British do not believe that the words 'liberal bias' exist.

 

We have a different meaning behind the word liberal, so your probably right. In the UK, liberal means open-minded. The idea of open-minded bias doesn't really exist.

 

But we are great. Super great.

[blike]

We have a different meaning behind the word liberal, so your probably right.

Indeed, I should have said "left-wing bias in the american media".

[Tetrahedrite]

"Let us never demonize or give up on those who disagree with us. We don't want to become like the right-wing talk-show hosts, hammering our adversaries into cartoon characters and denying their humanity."

Bill Clinton

 

"Why is it that right-wing bastards always stand shoulder to shoulder in solidarity, while liberals fall out among themselves?"

Yevgeny Yevtushenko

[Sayonara]

The BBC is one of the more respectable capitalist outlets. Like the Guardian, for instance, it tells the truth on all insignificant issues just so it can lie more convincingly when it really matters.

Calling the BBC capitalist is the kiss of death to that argument.

[Aardvark]

Calling the BBC capitalist is the kiss of death to that argument.

 

No, it's all true, the BBC and the Guardian are leading a vast Neo imperialist, capitalist, plutocratic global conspiracy to enslave the world for Haliburton.

 

Those cunning fascist running dogs will stop at nothing to establish the Zionist, freemason, neo colonial, bourgeouis, monopolistic subjugation of the workers.

 

The imperialists are everywhere! Hide, Hide, they're coming to get us all!!!

[Sayonara]

What's funny is not the fact that some people believe that, but that they believe such a power-hungry contingent would pursue its goals by pissing about with the headlines on a web site.