Associated Press Removes Mention of US Helicopter Purposely Tearing Down Islamic Banner in Iraq
Posted Thursday, August 21, 2003 by symbolman

On 13 Aug 2003, 4:17 PM ET, the Associated Press newswire carried an article headlined "U.S. Soldiers Fire Into Crowd, Killing 1" by Tarek al-Issawi:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - US soldiers shot into a crowd in a Baghdad slum Wednesday, killing one civilian and wounding four, after being fired on with a rocket-propelled grenade, the military said.

US military spokesman Sgt. Danny Martin said it appeared rotor wash from a helicopter blew down the banner.

However, amateur video footage obtained by Associated Press Television News showed a Black Hawk helicopter hovering about three feet from the top of the tower and apparently trying to tear down the banner. The footage showed US Humvees driving by and the crowd throwing stones at them. Heavy gunfire broke out and the demonstrators hit the ground.>> Full Story

Pay special attention that fourth paragraph, which says that the AP has in its possession amateur footage showing that the US chopper was purposely tearing down the banner.

The next day, at 2:00 PM EST, the Associated Press released a follow-up article, "US Military Apologizes to Shiite Muslims" by Sameer N. Yacoub. Although it goes into detail about the incident, it completely leaves out mention of the video footage, which proves that the US position is a lie:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The US military apologized to the people of a Baghdad neighborhood Thursday for an incident in which a man was killed after a Black Hawk helicopter blew down an Islamic banner.

"Apparently, the helicopter blew down the flag or somehow the flag was taken down, and we are taking steps to ensure that doesn't happen again," he said, answering a barrage of reporters' questions about why the Black Hawk was hovering above the communications tower.

"There is no policy on our part to fly helicopters to communication towers to take down flags," Sanchez said, insisting the banner was mistakenly blown down by the force of the helicopter blades.>> Full Story

The AP has sent its own reporting down the memory hole. Here's the key paragraph, for posterity:

However, amateur video footage obtained by Associated Press Television News showed a Black Hawk helicopter hovering about three feet from the top of the tower and apparently trying to tear down the banner. The footage showed US Humvees driving by and the crowd throwing stones at them. Heavy gunfire broke out and the demonstrators hit the ground.

Veterans plan to exact action at polls as GOP-led House reneges on pledge to pass $3.2 billion for VA medical care
Posted Wednesday, August 20, 2003 by symbolman

WASHINGTON -- Veterans are condemning House Republicans' failure to deliver a $3.2 billion boost for the Veterans Affairs Department that would have shrunk the agency's waiting list for medical care.

"A shameless betrayal" is how AMVETS sums it up.

"A moral outrage," the American Legion said.

"Abominable" is the word from the Non Commissioned Officers Association.

"Veterans have been pushed to the limits," said Joe Violante, national legislative director for Disabled American Veterans. "They're being lied to, and they're not tolerating it."

The broken promise -- the second time in a year Congress has reneged on a pledge to veterans -- has veterans vowing to remember at the ballot box.

Last month, House Republican leadership, bowing to Bush administration pressure to curb spending and their own desire for hometown projects, cut the promised $1.8 billion.

"We got fooled, and we got whupped," said Richard F. Weidman, director of government relations for Vietnam Veterans of America. "We are not going to let individual members of this Congress forget this vote."

Congress' actions have many veterans talking about political consequences.

"Veterans more and more are beginning to sense a loss of faith and confidence in the administration," said Richard C. Schneider, director of veteran and state affairs for the Non Commissioned Officers Association. "They're no longer willing to be the quiet, accepting veterans that they have been in the past. I think they're actually going to hold some people accountable."

Veterans are talking about increasing turnout at the polls next year, veterans groups say.>> More

More Deregulation at Heart of Federal Energy Bill
Posted Wednesday, August 20, 2003 by symbolman

Repeal of FDR-era Consumer Protection Would Lead to More Disasters, Higher Electricity Rates, Group Says

A provision of the federal energy legislation that a congressional conference committee will consider next month would dramatically reduce the regulatory oversight of the nation's largest energy firms.

The section, which has received scant attention as lawmakers and environmental groups focus on issues of oil drilling, proposes to repeal the 1935 Public Utility Holding Companies Act, or PUHCA, which restrains and regulates utility companies.

Contained in Section 223 of the proposed energy bill, HR 6, is the repeal of the Public Utilities Holding Company Act of 1935 (PUHCA). According to consumer advocates, this is the energy industry's holy grail. The repeal of PUCHA would

-- Undercut regulators' ability to stop market abuses before they arise.

-- Allow big utilities to move ratepayer money away from projects needed to protect local customers.

-- Allow big utilities to engage in business ventures not related to their core utility business, using ratepayer money to subsidize corporate projects.

-- Allow greater consolidation in the electricity industry, creating fewer and larger utility monopolies, which have a wider reach of control over the energy system yet less regulatory oversight.

-- Lead to more complex utility corporations that are less accountable to the public.

"It would be obscene to throw out seventy years of consumer protections after everything that has gone wrong in the first decade of deregulation. The repeal of PUHCA would leave America with a few unrestrained power giants controlling our energy system, which would make California and the recent blackouts seem mild compared to the deregulated future politicians have in store for us if they repeal PUHCA," said Heller.>> More

PLEASE Contact: Doug Heller, 310-480-4170, or Jamie Court, 392-0522 ext. 327, both of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights - The Bush MisAdministration may well be saying after the Largest Blackout in History, "You ain't seen NOTHING yet!" A MUST READ.

Hollywood Isn't Holding Its Lines Against the Pentagon
Posted Wednesday, August 20, 2003 by symbolman

With the reality of entrenched opposition in Iraq resulting in increasing U.S. fatalities there, the opposition at home to the occupation is hardening by the day. The military appears to have come up with a solution: Change reality.

Though producer Bertram van Munster has denied that he is shooting a propaganda piece, it is clear that the Pentagon is gearing up to frame its own account — and history — of the Iraq war.

The Pentagon has a long history of propaganda efforts. Indeed, the Pentagon is hard at work participating in a number of movies that will deliver its message on the legitimacy of the war and its own conduct in Iraq.

Some of these efforts are already the subject of controversy. For example, military and intelligence sources framed an account of Pfc. Jessica Lynch that was almost entirely manufactured for public appeal.

The tale of her rescue was equally breathless and equally false — based on an edited Pentagon video showing Special Forces giving the appearance they were under fire as they whisked away the heroine.

It now appears that Lynch may not have engaged the enemy at all; she was not shot and stabbed; and there was no hostile fire (or any hostile forces) at the hospital.

Most Americans are unaware that the U.S. military routinely reviews scripts that might require Defense Department cooperation and that the Pentagon compels changes for television and movies to convey the government's message.

Although rarely publicly acknowledged, major films have been rewritten to remove negative but historically accurate facts to present a more positive military image. This work is done by a team of military reviewers "embedded" in Hollywood.

This work thrives in the shadow of the 1st Amendment.>> More

Republican party to rip apart Dems' old offices
Posted Wednesday, August 20, 2003 by symbolman

Republicans in Harris County have pounded their Democratic opponents time and time again at the ballot box during the past decade.

Harris County GOP Chairman Jared Woodfill is asking local Republicans to bring sledgehammers and other implements of destruction to help level the building the Democrats vacated three months ago.

"You bring the muscle, we'll bring the refreshments and we will have a party as we tear down the Harris County Democratic Party headquarters," Woodfill said in his invitation to party faithful.

Harris County Democratic Party Chairman Gerry Birnberg was quick with a metaphor. That's what Republicans do, he said, "tearing things down, destroying them."

"They did it to our economy, to our jobs market, to our voting rights, to our democracy, to civility in government, to civil rights, to health care for children, to fair pay for teachers -- they took out their sledgehammers and smashed them to smithereens.">> More

What the GOP Won’t Say About the Blackout: It's Deregulation, Stupid
Posted Wednesday, August 20, 2003 by vgdesign

Press Clips by Cynthia Cotts, Village Voice

... The blackout was not funny for New Yorkers, who have been hit with a billion-dollar price tag. But it did produce one amusing media spectacle, that of the Republicans caught with their pants down.

Bush's energy secretary, Spencer Abraham, first had no comment and then spoke out of both sides of his mouth. Bush was in California, and it took him four hours to get out the reassuring statement, "We don't know yet what went wrong but we will." Governor Pataki began charging around New York State and demanding answers from the feds. Bringing up the rear guard, the New York Post  accused anyone who blamed the blackout on deregulation of engaging in "demagoguery."

Although many Republicans deny it, some journalists have already decided that deregulation is the root cause of the blackout. It's convenient for Bush to say now that the interstate power grid "needs to be modernized," but where is the evidence that that will happen in a free market dominated by private energy companies? >>More

Alexander Cockburn: Judy Miller's War
Posted Wednesday, August 20, 2003 by vgdesign

Lay all Judith Miller's New York Times  stories end to end, from late 2001 to June 2003 and you get a desolate picture of a reporter with an agenda, both manipulating and being manipulated by US government officials, Iraqi exiles and defectors, an entire Noah's Ark of scam-artists.

And while Miller, either under her own single by-line or with NYT colleagues, was touting the bioterror threat, her book Germs, co-authored with Times-men Steven Engelberg and William Broad was in the bookstores and climbing the best seller lists. The same day that Miller opened an envelope of white powder (which turned out to be harmless) at her desk at the New York Times, her book was #6 on the New York Times  best seller list. The following week (October 21, 2001), it reached #2. By October 28, --at the height of her scare-mongering campaign--it was up to #1.
If we were cynical...

We don't have full 20/20 hindsight yet, but we do know for certain that all the sensational disclosures in Miller's major stories between late 2001 and early summer, 2003, promoted disingenuous lies. There were no secret biolabs under Saddam's palaces; no nuclear factories across Iraq secretly working at full tilt. A huge percentage of what Miller wrote was garbage, garbage that powered the Bush administration's propaganda drive towards invasion.

What does that make Miller? She was a witting cheer-leader for war. She knew what she was doing. >>More

A Bomb Of An Excuse: "They're Terrorists!"
Posted Wednesday, August 20, 2003 by vgdesign

Powerful bomb rips through the UN Headquarters in Iraq, Bush blames terrorists -- who will Americans blame? - By Stewart Nusbaumer, Intervention Magazine

When a truck packed with explosives blew its deadly force onto the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, shearing off a side of the Canal Hotel, the President of the United States was on the 12th hole of a Texas golf course, and the Secretary General of the United Nations was on vacation in Denmark. Evidently, they can’t read the writing on the wall: the war in Iraq is not going well for them.

The media's talking heads, however, were not on vacation. They sprang right into action explaining why this horror happened: there were not enough guards at the U.N. building, there was not a vehicle registration process, there was too little U.S. military firepower at the site, there was too little surveillance of the area, the perimeter was not extended far enough, truncated landscaping (concrete barriers, trenches) was missing, ….

Not a single security "expert," however, not a single talking head on CNN or Fox or MSNBC, had the simple thought that the bombing happened because Iraq is occupied by the U.S. military and the U.N. is an instrument of this occupation. This was off their thought screen, or possibly only off what they can say when on the television screen. >>More

ROBERT FISK: Who wants to go to Iraq now?
Posted Wednesday, August 20, 2003 by vgdesign

What United Nations nation would ever contemplate sending peacekeeping troops to Iraq now? The men who are attacking the United States' occupation army are ruthless, but they are not stupid. They know that President Bush is getting desperate, that he will do anything -- that he may even go to the dreaded Security Council for help -- to reduce U.S. military losses in Iraq.

But yesterday's attack on the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad has slammed shut the door to that escape route.

Within hours of the car bomb explosion, we were being told that this was an attack on a "soft target," a blow against the United Nations itself. True, it was a "soft" target, although the machine gun nest on the roof of the U.N. building might have suggested that even the international body was militarizing itself. True, too, it was a shattering assault on the United Nations as an institution.

But in reality, yesterday's attack was against the United States. >>More

Reuters Cameraman Killed For Filming U.S. Graves: Brother
Posted Wednesday, August 20, 2003 by vgdesign

By Awad al-Ragoub, IslamOnLine.net

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM - The brother of Reuters cameraman Mazen Dana said he was deliberately murdered for discovering mass graves of U.S. troops killed in Iraqi resistance attacks.

"The U.S. troops killed my brother in cold blood," Nazmi Dana told IslamOnline.net in exclusive statements.
...
"Mazen told me by phone few days before his death that he discovered a mass grave dug by U.S. troops to conceal the bodies of their fellow comrades killed in Iraqi resistance attacks," Nazmi said.

"He also told me that he found U.S. troops covered in plastic bags in remote desert areas and he filmed them for a TV program. We are pretty sure that the American forces had killed Mazen knowingly to prevent him from airing his findings." >>More

FCC Chairman Powell fears chill of regulation
Posted Tuesday, August 19, 2003 by vgdesign

By Anne C. Mulkern, Denver Post

ASPEN - The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission warned Monday that he senses "a mood swing in Washington" that could trigger more regulation and hurt the economy by stifling innovation.

Michael Powell said the backlash that erupted after the FCC's recent decision to loosen media ownership rules indicates a political shift that regulators and corporate leaders need to heed.

"I see a rise again of a regulatory ethos, a belief that regulators can do it better," Powell said in a speech at the Aspen Summit, a meeting of technology and telecommunications leaders sponsored by the Progress & Freedom Foundation, a Washington think tank that favors deregulatory policies. "I find that worrisome." >>More

Reagan Administration Retreads! >>Progress & Freedom Foundation

U.S. Taps Media Chief for Iraq
Posted Tuesday, August 19, 2003 by vgdesign

Regulation Attempted Without Appearing Heavy-Handed - By Daniel Williams, Washington Post

U.S. authorities have appointed a media commissioner to govern broadcasters and the press, establish training programs for journalists and plan for the establishment of a state-run radio and television network -- part of an effort to regulate Iraq's burgeoning news media while dodging allegations of heavy-handed control.

The standards and enforcement mechanisms are being "fleshed out," said a senior official of the governing Coalition Provisional Authority. A board to take complaints about media excesses was envisaged, but the official declined to specify the limits on news coverage.

In June, L. Paul Bremer, the civil administrator in Iraq, issued guidelines for all media outlets here, forbidding them from inciting violence, promoting "ethnic and religious hatred" or circulating false information "calculated to promote opposition" to the occupation authority.

Occasionally, U.S. soldiers have raided newspaper offices deemed to be in breach of the regulations, and they have closed at least two newspapers and one radio station. But the delicacy of sending heavily armed troops to enforce media rules has prompted the occupation officials to look for other ways to exercise their power to censor.
...
"When I see Bremer walking around shaking people's hands on the television, I think of Saddam," said Rima Kadri, a homemaker. "What has changed?" >>More

CPJ calls for full and public investigation into journalist's death
Posted Monday, August 18, 2003 by vgdesign

Dear Secretary Rumsfeld:

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is shocked by the death of Reuters television cameraman Mazen Dana, who was killed by machine gun fire from a U.S. tank near Baghdad yesterday. We demand a full, public investigation into this incident. According to several press accounts, Dana was struck in the chest while filming near Abu Ghraib Prison outside Baghdad, late in the afternoon on August 17. Dana had been reporting near the prison after a mortar attack had killed six Iraqis there the previous night. Eyewitnesses quoted by international media said that several journalists had been near the prison at the time of the incident and that a soldier in the tank fired on Dana as he filmed it approaching him from about 50 meters (55 yards).

Reuters quoted Dana's soundman Nael Shyioukhi as saying that prior to the incident both he and Dana had asked for and received permission from U.S. troops in the area to film the prison from a nearby bridge. "After we filmed we went into the car and prepared to go when a convoy led by a tank arrived and Mazen stepped out of the car to film," Shyioukhi told Reuters. "I followed him, and Mazen walked three to four meters. We were noted and clearly seen." He then said that a "soldier on the tank shot at us. I lay on the ground. I heard Mazen and I saw him scream and touch his chest."

U.S. officials have said that the troops mistook Dana's camera for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. Dana is the twelfth journalist killed in action in Iraq since the U.S.-led war began in March. Of that number, five were killed by U.S. fire. While we recognize the dangers faced by U.S. forces in Iraq, the preliminary accounts of yesterday's shooting raise serious questions about the conduct of U.S. troops and their rules of engagement. From the eyewitness accounts, it appears that Dana was fired on without warning. He was filming in an area where no hostilities were taking place, raising questions about whether U.S. troops acted recklessly in targeting him.

International humanitarian law requires military forces in conflict situations, including U.S. soldiers currently in Iraq, to take necessary steps to avoid harming journalists and other civilians. U.S. officials have called Dana's death a "terrible tragedy," and have said the incident is under investigation. Under the circumstances, this investigation must be carried out immediately, it must examine the incident thoroughly and impartially, and its findings must be made fully public.

Join CPJ in protesting this attack on the press

MAZEN DANA: Words and images are a public trust
Posted Monday, August 18, 2003 by vgdesign

Mazen Dana's Acceptance Remarks - CPJ's International Press Freedom Awards in 2001

Ladies and Gentlemen, colleagues,

I am happy to be here and proud to receive this prestigious award from the Committee to Protect Journalists. It is the result of 14 years of continuous sweat and toil.

It gives me strength to know that our colleagues around the world are supporting us in the quest for truth against those who seek to stifle it.

Working in the divided city of Hebron, attacks on press freedom take place daily at the hands of the Israeli army and the settlers, who live in the center of town.

To be a journalist and cameraman in a city of lost hope like Hebron requires great sacrifices.

Gunfire, humiliation, beatings, prison, rocks, and the destruction of journalists' equipment are just some of the hardships. And there is also the inability to move freely.

The sad thing is that I can travel anywhere in the world, but I am unable to travel to the Reuters bureau in Jerusalem which is just 25 kilometers away from Hebron.

Being here, I leave behind my colleagues of whom I am very proud and who are no less courageous and deserving of this award, especially my close Reuters colleague Nael Shyioukhi who has worked by my side for 8 years.

Words and images are a public trust and for this reason I will continue with my work regardless of the hardships and even if it costs me my life.

Yesterday, a tragedy befell four of our colleagues in Afghanistan. This tragedy illustrates just how costly uncovering the truth can be. The bitterness of this event is only alleviated by the knowledge that journalists around the world continue to strive for the truth. And your support for us on the front lines gives us hope. >>More

No 10 knew: Iraq no threat
Posted Monday, August 18, 2003 by vgdesign

By Richard Norton-Taylor and Nicholas Watt, The Guardian

One of the prime minister's closest advisers issued a private warning that it would be wrong for Tony Blair to claim Iraq's banned weapons programme showed Saddam Hussein presented an "imminent threat" to the west or even his Arab neighbours.

In a message that goes to the heart of the government's case for war, the Downing Street chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, raised serious doubts about the nature of September's Downing Street dossier on Iraq's banned weapons.

"We will need to make it clear in launching the document that we do not claim that we have evidence that he is an imminent threat," Mr Powell wrote a week before the document was finally published on September 24. >>More

Hutton Inquiry: Blair and Campbell involved
Posted Monday, August 18, 2003 by vgdesign

By Ciar Byrne, Media Guardian

Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell held crisis talks about David Kelly, the scientist they believed was the mole who gave the BBC the story about the Iraq intelligence dossier.

The prime minister and his director of communications were both actively involved in key meetings about the fate of Dr Kelly in the days before his name was made public.

And Mr Campbell took a "pro-active" role in the discussions the day before his name became public, deciding Dr Kelly should be named in a key letter to the BBC from the defence secretary, Geoff Hoon.

The sequence of high powered confidential meetings that included his chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, top civil servants and Mr Campbell, were today outlined for the first time in the Hutton inquiry. >>More

The Hutton Inquiry >>MediaGuardian: In-depth background, comment and analysis

U.S. Troops Shoot Dead Reuters Cameraman in Iraq
Posted Sunday, August 17, 2003 by vgdesign

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. troops shot dead an award-winning Reuters cameraman while he was filming on Sunday near a U.S.-run prison on the outskirts of Baghdad.

Eyewitnesses said soldiers on an American tank shot at Mazen Dana, 43, as he filmed outside Abu Ghraib prison in western Baghdad which had earlier come under a mortar attack.

Dana's last pictures show a U.S. tank driving toward him outside the prison walls. Several shots ring out from the tank, and Dana's camera falls to the ground.
...
"A soldier on the tank shot at us. I lay on the ground. I heard Mazen and I saw him scream and touching his chest.

"I cried at the soldier, telling him you killed a journalist. They shouted at me and asked me to step back and I said 'I will step back, but please help, please help and stop the bleed'.

"They tried to help him but Mazen bled heavily. Mazen took a last breath and died before my eyes." >>More

["Of course, American journalists are not investigating this. They should--because they will be next." - Robert Fisk]

A Private Windfall For Public Property
Posted Sunday, August 17, 2003 by vgdesign

By Norman Ornstein and Michael Calabrese, The Washington Post

We're no fans of the attempt by the Federal Communications Commission to relax ownership requirements for TV stations and newspapers, but it would be a shame if the battle between FCC Chairman Michael Powell and Congress on this issue distracted attention from another harmful move being contemplated by the commission.

We're talking about the privatization of the airwaves, a public resource worth hundreds of billions of dollars in both market value and future federal revenue. The contemplated FCC action could result in the biggest special interest windfall at the expense of American taxpayers in history.

The rapid trend toward wireless communication has made access to the prime frequencies that pass easily through walls, trees and weather an increasingly valuable right. A recent study estimated the market value of this spectrum at $770 billion. These airwaves are owned by the public. For more than 75 years broadcasters, cellular phone companies and other commercial service providers have acquired exclusive access to scarce spectrum space only under temporary, renewable licenses; in return, they serve the public interest.

But if the FCC has its way, that social contract will be voided. >>More

Aziz Ali Dad: Nexus for neo-imperialism
Posted Saturday, August 16, 2003 by vgdesign

...media has become the most effective medium to inject amnesia among masses

After taking stock of the media coverage of Iraq war one becomes convinced of the fact that media is an efficacious weapon in the armoury of neo-imperialism. Institutions, which purport to be free and objective, have long history of being a part and parcel of imperialism.
...
We have to take media hype with a grain of salt. There is no doubt the barbaric regime of Saddam Hussain, but it is interesting to notice how his image in media changed with the change of the United States' policies towards Iraq. Friends of cold war became terrorists and monstrous dictators. Though media mentions Saddam's use of chemical weapons against the innocent Iraqi civilians, it totally abstains from naming Saddam's predecessor Winston Churchill.

Churchill did not care about the morality of using poison gas and unleashed one of the first ever full-scale aerial gas bombardments on thousands of men, women and children. He was strongly 'in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes' of Iraqi and Kurds origin and gleefully declares that the gas had 'an excellent moral effect' on local population. The excellent moral effect was the death of thousands of innocent people.

Few decades later Churchill was conferred with the Nobel prize. Afterwards print and especially electronic media has manufactured a new Churchill by divesting cruelty, and investing love of freedom for humanity in his personality. Thus media has become the most effective medium to inject amnesia among masses. >>More