The media are minimising US and British war crimes in Iraq

Originally posted by Riwka
your link is wrong. it is just a .gif ...

The report is 58 pages (pdf):

• Germany: 86
  
• UK: 18
  
• U.S.: 18
  
• Austria: 17
  
• France: 16
  

Originally posted by Riwka
Well,

then maybe you should read the report?

Especially up from page 17/18 - The German Contibutors


page 46: "Companies supplier Iraq's unconventional weapons programs"

Companies Total: 207 - TOP 5:

• Germany: 86
  
• UK: 18
  
• U.S.: 18
  
• Austria: 17
  
• France: 16
  

Originally posted by devilwasp
And so we move far away from the topic of media....

Common Dreams: Bush and Iraq: Mass Media, Mass Ignorance

That half or more Americans think Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attack -- perhaps the most media-covered event in our history -- stands as a horrific indictment of U.S. media today. Such levels of ignorance can't be found in other countries.

News outlets ideologically allied with Bush have been happy to assist in confusing the public about who had attacked us on 9/11 and in morphing our enemy from Al-Qaeda to Iraq. The Fox News Channel runs its "War on Terror" banner whether discussing Afghanistan or Iraq. Other outlets promoted the Saddam/911 confusion less out of ideology than ineptitude -- during a live, pre-war news conference at which the chief of Homeland Security described new terrorist threats from Al-Qaeda, MSNBC ran its banner: "Showdown with Saddam."

While most of us who pay attention know who was and who wasn't behind 9/11, others get their news on the fly -- basically headlines and banners. But even Americans who say they're paying attention, at least to TV, are highly misinformed. A massive University of Maryland study found that most who get their news from commercial TV held at least one of three fundamental "misperceptions": that Iraq had been directly linked to 9/11, that WMDs had been found in Iraq or that world opinion supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Not unexpectedly, Fox News viewers were the most misled. But strong majorities of CBS, ABC, NBC and CNN viewers were also confused on at least one of these points. Among those informed on all three questions, only 23 percent supported Bush's war.

The media problem, of course, goes way beyond Fox to a broader timidity and fear of offending conservatives. In February, with the Iraq war approaching, MSNBC terminated Phil Donahue's primetime show after an internal NBC report complained that Donahue offered a "difficult public face for NBC in a time of war.... He seems to delight in presenting guests who are antiwar, anti-Bush and skeptical of the administration's motives." The report, which was never supposed to go public, described a nightmare scenario in which the show becomes "a home for the liberal antiwar agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity."


Please visit the link provided for the complete story.

US media covers up American war crimes in Iraq

The US media—owned and controlled by a handful of huge corporate conglomerates—play an indispensable role in the mass murder of Iraqi men, women and children. Together with the Bush administration and the two major parties of US imperialism—the Democratic Party and its presidential candidate John Kerry, no less than their Republican rivals—the media are complicit in a crime against humanity of immense proportions, one that dwarfs any crimes committed by the various political leaders who have been targeted for destruction by the American ruling elite in recent years: from Panama’s Noriega, to Serbia’s Milosevic, to Saddam Hussein himself.

The Guardian newspaper, for example, on Tuesday carried an eyewitness account on its front page of the American helicopter attack on unarmed Iraqis that occurred Sunday in central Baghdad. Thirteen Iraqis were killed and dozens were wounded when US copters repeatedly fired rockets into a crowd that had gathered around a disabled American armored vehicle on Haifa Street, near the Green Zone that houses the US and British embassies and the offices of Washington’s puppet government.

It is hardly necessary to point out that no major US media outlet has taken note of the Guardian’s damning account of Sunday’s bloodletting in the center of Baghdad. Most US newspapers on Tuesday relegated to their inside pages news reports of yet another round of US air and artillery attacks on Fallujah, carried out Monday.

The Washington Post, in a page-19 article, noted the attacks on Fallujah neighborhoods and the ambulance fatalities, but reported without comment the official US line that the attacks were directed against a “suspected hideout” of associates of Abu Musab Zarqawi. It printed the Goebbels-like handout from the US military: “Based on the analysis of these [intelligence] reports, Iraqi Security Forces and multi-national forces effectively and accurately targeted these terrorists while protecting the lives of innocent civilians.”


Please visit the link provided for the complete story.

Survey: U.S. media censors Iraq reporting

Many reporters and editors chose less-graphic images and explicit details, or made them less noticeable, according to an online, anonymous survey conducted between September and October 2004 by two American University professors. The study was released March 17.

Findings also included how journalists were using the Internet to enhance coverage of events in Iraq. One-third said they published material -- such as photographic essays, extended interviews and behind-the-scenes reporters' accounts - that was not used in their reports on their news organization's Web site.

A print journalist embedded with the U.S. military said that on some occasions the reports he sent were subtly edited to make them less negative and more in line with official views, though it was not a systematic practice.


Please visit the link provided for the complete story.

The Invasion of Falluja: A Study in the Subversion of Truth

It's hard to get past the US Administration's rhetoric that the siege of Falluja was an operation of pacification to ensure the Iraqi population's participation in free and democratic elections planned for late January. Is it not Orwellian that annihilation and occupation have been redefined to represent pacification and liberation? One wonders if the entire nation of Iraq isn't being destroyed in the name of saving it.

Falluja should go down in history as a case study on how truth is subverted, co-opted, buried, and ignored. The first US-led siege of Falluja, a city of 300,000 people, resulted in a defeat for Coalition forces. Prior to the second siege in November, its citizens were given two choices: leave the city or risk dying as enemy insurgents. The people of Falluja remembered the siege of April all too well. They remembered being trapped when Coalition forces surrounded and blockaded the city and seized the main hospital, leaving the population cut off from food, water, and medical supplies. Families remembered the fighting in the streets and the snipers on the rooftops, which prevented movement by civilians. They remembered burying more than 600 neighbors - women, children, and men - in makeshift graves in schoolyards and soccer fields.

Under threat of a new siege, an estimated 50,000 families or 250,000 people fled Falluja. They fled with the knowledge that they would live as refugees with few or no resources. They left behind fathers, husbands, brothers and sons, as males between the ages of 15 and 45 were denied safe passage out of the city by US-led forces. If the displaced families of Falluja were fortunate, they fled to the homes of relatives in the surrounding towns and villages or to the city of Baghdad - homes that were already overcrowded and overburdened after 20 months of war and occupation. Many families are forced to survive in fields, vacant lots, and abandoned buildings without access to shelter, water, electricity, food or medical care and alongside tens of thousands of displaced and homeless people already living in the rubble of Baghdad.


Please visit the link provided for the complete story.

Originally posted by Souljah

You are Right here, Mate.

So, let us Move back to the Topic.

Here is an article from roughly two years ago - the EFFECT of Corporate Mass Media on the Peoples support for the current Iraqi War.

Originally posted by devilwasp
Would you mind showing the other side?
There is propaganda by both sides..I am asking you do this now to save you from attacks saying you are "biased" against the west...
If you dont I will have to and show you are biased...please dont make me do that.

CNN: Abuse as bad as Saddam era

LONDON, England -- Human rights abuses in Iraq are as bad as they were under Saddam Hussein if not worse, former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi has said.

"People are doing the same as (in) Saddam's time and worse," Allawi said in an interview published in Britain on Sunday.

"It is an appropriate comparison," Allawi told The Observer newspaper. "People are remembering the days of Saddam. These were the precise reasons that we fought Saddam and now we are seeing the same things."

"We are hearing about secret police, secret bunkers where people are being interrogated," said Allawi, who was Iraq's first prime minister of the post-Saddam Hussein era.


Please visit the link provided for the complete story.

Originally posted by Souljah
What is the Other Side?

People Defending their Land against Enemy Occupation? People fighting for their Homes? Ask yourself, what is BETTER in Iraq Today. Ask yourself, are people really FREE.

What a Great and DEMOCRATIC Country the West has Created!

Originally posted by devilwasp
Now tell me, are you saying that the resisitance are not commiting warcrimes?

So it would have been better to do what? Let him create weapons of mass destruction, we both know he would have eventaully.

Originally posted by Souljah
That is not the Question here.

We are talking about Media Distorting the picture of US and UK in the Iraq War. They are supposed the be the "Good" Guys, representing the Civilized West and enforcing International Laws and Conventions - or at least they SAID they are doing that.

Man - can't you see that the WEST sold him EVERYTHING when they Needed him. When the US needed him to defeat Iran in Iraq-Iran war everything was Fine and Dandy. Saddam GOOD. Saddam our ALLY. Saddam our HERO. Saddam will defeat those filthy Iranians! YAY!

It was never about no WMD's.

It was never about no Nuclear Bombs.

It was ALWAYS about Power, Oil and Money.

Originally posted by devilwasp
That WAS the question I asked, since you are clearly not reporting the other side....showing biasism and your ethier inability to post news about the other side or your unwillingness to do so.

Yes we are, IMO the media is doing just that. But not in the same way you think.

I can see that, what you cant see is that those days are long gone.
The west did not sell him everything, unless the west is now making AK-47's , SKS's, RPG's and RPK's?

It was never about no WMD's.
-----------------------
It was.
[/qoute]
Yes it was just something for the Media and something for the People to think about and to keep in mind, how the West is doing a GREAT job "Liberating" Iraq, when in fact they are just doing it to satisfy their GREED.

It was never about no Nuclear Bombs.

Uh yeah It never was...lol....you might be confusing iran with iraq.

Always those 3, I take it that any action that does not fit into your "picture" of the ideal western culture falls under those 3 headings?

But what am I doing, I cant discuss with those that have opinions yet claim the opposite....hmm....what poetic irony.

Originally posted by Souljah
Why are You not reporting the Other side, but always coming in one of my threads, asking me to "cover the other side". You are showing your "Biasism" too bytheway...

So when you hear about Illegal Torture and Abuse at Gitmos, you say the Media is guity? And when you hear about CIA Detention Camp Networks, you say the Media is guilty? And when you hear about US and UK using Banned ammunitions, you say the Media is Guilty?

Not everything

- but Without help from US and the WEST he would have NEVER won the Iraq-Iran war, and you know that if you have read anything about it in your life. Iran is 3 times as big and would have overrun Iraq if Saddam had not used Chemical Weapons.

Yes it was just something for the Media and something for the People to think about and to keep in mind, how the West is doing a GREAT job "Liberating" Iraq, when in fact they are just doing it to satisfy their GREED.

It wasn't?
www.whitehouse.gov...
Tonight I want to take a few minutes to discuss a grave threat to peace, and America's determination to lead the world in confronting that threat.

The threat comes from Iraq. It arises directly from the Iraqi regime's own actions -- its history of aggression, and its drive toward an arsenal of terror. Eleven years ago, as a condition for ending the Persian Gulf War, the Iraqi regime was required to destroy its weapons of mass destruction, to cease all development of such weapons, and to stop all support for terrorist groups. The Iraqi regime has violated all of those obligations. It possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons.It has given shelter and support to terrorism, and practices terror against its own people. The entire world has witnessed Iraq's eleven-year history of defiance, deception and bad faith.

(What a complete and utter piece of CRAP!)

Read your History, Son, and you will find out what the Empires were based upon: POWER, WEALTH and MILITARY.

Then - don't.

Originally posted by devilwasp
BTW, what "side" am I biased to?

I have read about the Iran and Iraq war, I read about the case that sadamm used chemical weapons I am not saying that he didnt use them, I am saying that the west is not the only guilty party.

Oh yeah and all those piles of abandoned WMD's lieing over iraq are really safe arent they?
BTW, the evidence provided by the information services did more than to suggest he had WMD's.

Yet again, it wasnt about Nukes, it was about the fact he was building and looking to aqquire WMD's, if I am not mistaken a nuclear warhead IS a weapon of mass destruction.

Originally posted by Souljah
The Only WMD's found in Iraq were those SOLD to him by the WEST.
And when Saddam USED them on Iran and on Kurdish People, Mistser Rummy was smiling and shaking Hands with him.

Oh wait - Saddam used WP on Kurds also, and at that time US called it "Assualt with Chemical Weapons" - but BEHOLD: When the US Marines use it, its NOT!

Saddam Hussein's forces reportedly killed hundreds of Iraqi Kurds with chemical agents in the Kurdish town of Halabja in March 1988. The poison gas attack on Halabja was the largest-scale chemical weapons (CW) attack against a civilian population in modern times. Halabja had a population of about 80,000 people who was predominantly Kurdish and had sympathised with Iran during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. Troops from the Kurdish Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) entered Halabja on 15th March 1988, accompanied by Iranian revolutionary guards. The Iraqi CW attack began early in the evening of March 16th, when a group of eight aircraft began dropping chemical bombs; the chemical bombardment continued all night. The Halabja attack involved multiple chemical agents -- including mustard gas, and the nerve agents SARIN, TABUN and VX. Some sources report that cyanide was also used.

Hypocrisy?

Originally posted by IAF101
Firstly, if Saddam had used only WP nobody would call it a Chemical Weapon, except maybe the ignorant.

Secondly, From fas.org :

Saddam Hussein's forces reportedly killed hundreds of Iraqi Kurds with chemical agents in the Kurdish town of Halabja in March 1988. The poison gas attack on Halabja was the largest-scale chemical weapons (CW) attack against a civilian population in modern times. Halabja had a population of about 80,000 people who was predominantly Kurdish and had sympathised with Iran during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. Troops from the Kurdish Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) entered Halabja on 15th March 1988, accompanied by Iranian revolutionary guards. The Iraqi CW attack began early in the evening of March 16th, when a group of eight aircraft began dropping chemical bombs; the chemical bombardment continued all night. The Halabja attack involved multiple chemical agents -- including mustard gas, and the nerve agents SARIN, TABUN and VX. Some sources report that cyanide was also used.

Using Nerve Agents, Mustard Gas etc will DEFINITELY quallify as Chemical Weapons not only because they are deadly toxins that are ment to kill people but also because its use is classified as a Chemical Weapon in Schedule 1-3 of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

Common Dreams
The US and Britain sold Saddam Hussein the technology and materials Iraq needed to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction.

Reports by the US Senate's committee on banking, housing and urban affairs -- which oversees American exports policy -- reveal that the US, under the successive administrations of Ronald Reagan and George Bush Snr, sold materials including anthrax, VX nerve gas, West Nile fever germs and botulism to Iraq right up until March 1992, as well as germs similar to tuberculosis and pneumonia. Other bacteria sold included brucella melitensis, which damages major organs, and clostridium perfringens, which causes gas gangrene.

Classified US Defence Department documents also seen by the Sunday Herald show that Britain sold Iraq the drug pralidoxine, an antidote to nerve gas, in March 1992, after the end of the Gulf war. Pralidoxine can be reverse engineered to create nerve gas.

The Senate committee's rep orts on 'US Chemical and Biological Warfare-Related Dual-Use Exports to Iraq', undertaken in 1992 in the wake of the Gulf war, give the date and destination of all US exports. The reports show, for example, that on May 2, 1986, two batches of bacillus anthracis -- the micro-organism that causes anthrax -- were shipped to the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education, along with two batches of the bacterium clostridium botulinum, the agent that causes deadly botulism poisoning.

One batch each of salmonella and E coli were shipped to the Iraqi State Company for Drug Industries on August 31, 1987. Other shipments went from the US to the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission on July 11, 1988; the Department of Biology at the University of Basrah in November 1989; the Department of Microbiology at Baghdad University in June 1985; the Ministry of Health in April 1985 and Officers' City, a military complex in Baghdad, in March and April 1986.

The shipments to Iraq went on even after Saddam Hussein ordered the gassing of the Kurdish town of Halabja, in which at least 5000 men, women and children died. The atrocity, which shocked the world, took place in March 1988, but a month later the components and materials of weapons of mass destruction were continuing to arrive in Baghdad from the US.

The Senate report also makes clear that: 'The United States provided the government of Iraq with 'dual use' licensed materials which assisted in the development of Iraqi chemical, biological and missile-system programmes.'

This assistance, according to the report, included 'chemical warfare-agent precursors, chemical warfare-agent production facility plans and technical drawings, chemical warfare filling equipment, biological warfare-related materials, missile fabrication equipment and missile system guidance equipment'.

Donald Riegle, then chairman of the committee, said: 'UN inspectors had identified many United States manufactured items that had been exported from the United States to Iraq under licences issued by the Department of Commerce, and [established] that these items were used to further Iraq's chemical and nuclear weapons development and its missile delivery system development programmes.'


Please visit the link provided for the complete story.

Originally posted by Souljah
HMmmm...
Lets see what was going on at that time...

Donald Rumsfeld meeting Saddam on 19 December–20, 1983.

Now, in March '88 Saddam gassed the Kurdish People - but a Month Later US STILL Sent Saddam Deadly Components for Chemical&Biological Weapons.

WMD's in Iraq?
You mean Apart from the Massive Tons of Depleted Uranium Dropped by the US and UK?
OR do you mean the ones that the US sold to Saddam?

[*img]http://www.willowpondlane.com/blather/images/faux_news_scores_big.jpg[*/img]

When Osama Appears - "Hey, we can use that, to Increase the FEAR among the Sheeple so that they can support this War on Terror and our Illegal Invasion of Iraq!"

I Wonder how many times FOX news rolled that tape of OBL after 9-11....

Originally posted by IAF101
The link from FAS that I have posted is credible and even though you put up paragraphs of stuff from "commondreams"

it doesnt hold a candle to FAS because their is no proof of it otherwise.

Again with the Donald Rumfeld ?? he was Secretary it was his job to go there and play nice as he did. Just because he went there doesnt mean that the US has given Saddam any chemical agents.

Who said the word WMD ?? I certainly didnt. Also just by having tonnes of DU shells in Iraq doesnt mean that it is a WMD. Their is a specific definition of what a WMD is so that not every "rebel without a cause" can go around saying that this or that is a WMD, read and learn.

Really?, that must be what you overheard from your many presidential breifings that you have attended in the Oval office right ?

USA SUPPLIED CHEMICAL AGENTS TO SADDAM - FACT.

Depleted Uranium is considered as a "weapons of mass and indiscriminate destruction, ... incompatible with international humanitarian or human rights law." according to Secretary General's Report, 24 June 1997.

I have opened another thread covering this topic - ask the VETERANS about it, would you?

Originally posted by Souljah
You Laugh at my Sourc - and I will Laugh at yours!
Let's see where do we get acting like this.
USA SUPPLIED CHEMICAL AGENTS TO SADDAM - FACT.

Foreign Suppliers to Iraq's Biological Weapons Program Obtain Microbial Seed Stock for Standard or Novel Agent
The following is a representative list of biologicals sold to Iraq by the United States prior to the Gulf War

Depleted Uranium is considered as a "weapons of mass and indiscriminate destruction, ... incompatible with international humanitarian or human rights law." according to Secretary General's Report, 24 June 1997.

Do you wanna have a DU dust in your backyard inhaling it everday?
I have opened another thread covering this topic - ask the VETERANS about it, would you?

There are Briefings in the Oval Offiice?