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John Pilger
Greg Dyke, the BBC?s director general, has attacked American television reporting of Iraq. “For any news organisation to act as a cheerleader for government is to undermine your credibility,” he said. “They should be… balancing their coverage, not banging the drum for one side or the other.” He said research showed that, of 840 experts interviewed on American news programmes during the invasion of Iraq, only four opposed the war. “If that were true in Britain, the BBC would have failed in its duty.” Did Dyke say all this with a straight face?
Curtis Doebbler
It’s easy to condemn those who use violent means against others. Since September 11th 2001 one of the most frequent claims repeated in the United States and Europe has been that “violence can never be justified”. We recite this over and again, secure in our feeling that we must be right because violence must be wrong. The picture gets a bit more blurry, however, if we broaden our view of the world and look to how our nations, instead of our neighbours, behave. Regardless, the above-mentioned mantra is still repeated. But when we speak of others using violence against us, we might want to think about who and what we are talking about.
Jim Lobe
USA companies are exporting millions of dollars worth of equipment known to be used for torture, including selling devices to 12 countries where the USA State Department says that the use of torture is “persistent”, according to a new report by Amnesty International.
James Meek
It is almost two years since the Guantanamo prison camp opened. Its purpose is to hold people seized in the ‘war on terror’ and defined by the Bush administration as enemy combatants - though many appear to have been bystanders to the conflict. Images of Camp Delta’s orange-jumpsuited, manacled detainees have provoked international outrage. But the real horror they face isn’t physical hardship, it is the threat of infinite confinement, without trial or access to legal representation. James Meek has spent the past month talking to former inmates and some of those involved in operating the Pentagon’s Kafkaesque justice system.
Mazin Qumsiyeh
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat recognized Israel on 78% of the land of Palestine in hopes of being allowed an independent state on the remaining 22%. Many “deals” since then failed because, as Amnesty International puts it, they fail to recognize the importance of human rights. The media is now trumpeting the latest in this line of agreements: the Geneva understandings. Guided by an imbalance of power, Palestinians would be asked to abrogate the right of return to their homes and lands and to recognize Israel not as a state of its citizens but as a state “for the Jewish people.”
Firas Al-Atraqchi
In 1931, a young Adolf Hitler learned the value of the media. A powerful media could control the people, move them when needed, silence them when needed. This is called propaganda. Last month, USA Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld charged that Arab media in Iraq was “violently anti-coalition.” Apparently, showing images of girls being frisked by USA soldiers, an affront to Muslims and Arabs, is anti-coalition. Apparently, giving voice to Iraqi civilians who complain that they were beaten, or showing old men being pushed around and forced to strip by anxious USA soldiers is anti-coalition.
George Monbiot
The oil industry is buzzing. On Thursday, the government approved the development of the biggest deposit discovered in British territory for at least 10 years. Everywhere we are told that this is a “huge” find, which dispels the idea that North Sea oil is in terminal decline. You begin to recognise how serious the human predicament has become when you discover that this “huge” new field will supply the world with oil for five and a quarter days.
Novakeo
As two young Iraqi sisters gathered wood in a field, American soldiers shot Fatima and Azra, ages 15 and 12, shot dead for their efforts on Thanksgiving Day. They were simply murdered for gathering sticks and for being in their own country, nothing more than a couple of sand niggers, but its ok, you see, George Bush made it all better by making a surprise visit to the troops in Baghdad on the same Thanksgiving Day, all be it for a couple of hours within the strict confines of Baghdad airport. The visit was to boost morale for the Bush clan?s centurions in the field, so they can continue to shoot unarmed Iraqi children and establish vindication and glory for their commander-and-chief. It is the American and patriotic thing to do.
Sam Bahour
The world has finally come to its collective senses by explicitly acknowledging that Israel?s 37-year military occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem must come to an abrupt end in order for peace in the Middle East to have even a remote chance of success. With this belated awakening, a fair and frank question has come to the forefront. Will the Palestinians accept the end of the Israeli occupation as their cue to cease, once and for all, their five-decade struggle to correct the historic injustices done to them? The easy answer is no.
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