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