Truth of news coverage so far - a review

Thank you for continuing to post the Mai Lai picture. Shall we start posting pictures of concentration camps when discussing current German policy? Or how about pictures of the rape of Nanking when discussing the modern Japanese?

Posting that picture is deliberately being trollish and offensive. You know as well as we all do that the individuals who murdered those civilians were tried for their crimes. Unless your intention is to make a case for American Rassenschuld, I will ask you nicely to stop posting it.

Just wanted to point out that for example on German TV the journalist openly speak of dead women, children and babies and when i see for example CNN they talk all the time of "killed civilians" and the question i raise is: Why always using such a neutral expression like "civilians" and not just say what is really happening.

I just saw an interview with Dan Scemama a israelian journalist that tried to report independently from inside Iraq and was arrested and maltreated by american troops because they said he was a spy. LOL israelian a spy of the Iraqi government, well he said he saw american soldiers heavyly maltreated captured Iraqi soldiers and innocent people just like he was. He was beaten up and also his friend. I just wonder why nobody is showing this on american TV. If they did i apoligize but until now i didnt read or see any of that on american TV.

They weren't. There's proof.

Just wanted to point out that for example on German TV the journalist openly speak of dead women, children and babies and when i see for example CNN they talk all the time of "killed civilians" and the question i raise is: Why always using such a neutral expression like "civilians" and not just say what is really happening.

This is just nonsense.

"U.S. troops shot and killed at least seven Iraqi civilians ? some of them children" (MSNBC)

"Central Command said 13 women and children were in the van shot at Monday." (ibid)

"Referring to Monday's fatal shootings by U.S. soldiers of at least seven women and children at a checkpoint..." (CNN)

Just a few seconds on Google News would show that what you are claiming is false. All the American news outlets use both civilian for the generic description and "women and children" for the specific, when there were actually women and children.

He was beaten up and also his friend. I just wonder why nobody is showing this on american TV.

I don't know why CNN isn't reporting this. All the other American sites are. Certainly it should be reported.

Links?

Last I heard there was no proof that it was from the coalition...

I don't believe there is proof, but it is starting to look like they were ours:

http://www.globetechnology.com/serv...omb0401/GTStory

Note the quote by the Janes editor, "These two marketplace attacks are looking increasingly sure to have been caused by coalition weapons than went off target."

Note that this isn't unexpected. Even a best case scenario has 95% success. In the Afghan war it was more like 70 - 80%.

For the other side the BBC is still reporting the opposite:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2906953.stm

Mr Straw told the conference it was "increasingly probable" that Iraq was responsible for the first bombing of a Baghdad market place, "and not coalition action".




We aren't God. We can't only kill the guilty - especially given how Iraq has positioned its weapons. We can only try to minimize civilian casualties as much as humanly possible.

You are right i think i was a bit emotional about this since i am against this War and the last week clearly showed this is not a clean War! Something the Bush Administration and major parts of the american press were saying in the first week of this useless War.

But i just read the New York Times and was looking for reports of babies killed by US Troops and if i am not mistaken i couldnt find any of that only a report on Iraqi soldiers killing babies.

I think what we all have to do is to understand this is also a Information War and who is saying the truth here and who isnt we have to judge when this War is over. Even though i think this War is going to take years and will not end with the death of Saddam. So i think the truth about who did what will remind unclear until this is all over.

So i will promise the next time i get emotional about a report i will first try to calm down and not stop reading at the headlines.

Thanks for the link (I read his History Of Warfare). A calm, reasoned perspective.

So they underestimated the degree of resistance - no one ever guaranteed that there wouldn't be miscalculations. It's still a pretty impressive operation. I think the real test will be whether they win the "hearts and minds" aspect. It's simply too early to draw conclusions.

Yes, with regards to the hearts and minds there are so many conflicting reports in the media - all drawn directly from interviews with Iraqis.

I think overall the people don't trust the US. They are worried about being left in a lurch, ala 1991. Further there is a strong nationalist streak. (He may be a mad evil tyrant, but he's our mad evil tyrant) I think a lot worry about what the US' ultimate aims are.

Some are definitely upset at deaths. But that's understandable. What is surprising to me is how many people, even in Bagdad, seem to accept it all in a non-plused way. I was listening to an interview on NPR yesterday from one of the few remaining reporters and was rather shocked that there wasn't more anger.

You miss the point. Its not Nazi and Japanese tanks and soldiers , which are now occupying Iraq. Its same force of the same country, which is responsible for Mai Lai massacre. And THIS is the point.

No. I got the point. The point was demagoguery.

Its good that you got the point, no matter how you name it.

Sure. If the point is offensive and bigoted enough it is hard to miss. Rather like the use of a burning cross. Very communicative.

Is it so hard to accept someone's own deeds? Burning cross analogy is not correct here. Burning crosses are burnt because of someone's race, irrelevant of the deeds of the individual. The picture, however offending it is, simply tells truth of deeds of US army.

The point is that this is an emotional appeal and nothing more. The "US Army" of 2000 is not the same as the "US Army" of 1960 or the "US Army" of 1940 or the "US Army of 1914", any more than the US policies of Bush can be consistent with the US policies of Clinton or of Johnson or Nixon or Kennedy.

Does your argument take into account that there was a draft at the time of the VietNam War? Is the motivation of a draftee stuck in the middle of a conflict the same as a volunteer in the early stages of a war?

With reasoning such as yours, the case could be made that the Islamic Arab world is bloodthirsty, from the conquests of Mohammed, the move through North Africa, the Mongols (many of whom converted), the Ottomans ...

I don't know of any reasonable people who are trying to make that connection. We could just as easily talk about the coexistence of Arab religions, Christians, and Jews before Mohammed, in Jerusalem before the Crusades, in Cordoba or Baghdad.

No, I guess we can just ignore history and pick and choose apparently similar circumstances to say that the behavior of some group of people is consistent for all time.

--No, I guess we can just ignore history and pick and choose apparently similar circumstances to say that the behavior of some group of people is consistent for all time.---

----The point is that this is an emotional appeal and nothing more. The "US Army" of 2000 is not the same as the "US Army" of 1960 or the "US Army" of 1940 or the "US Army of 1914", any more than the US policies of Bush can be consistent with the US policies of Clinton or of Johnson or Nixon or Kennedy.--

Why I am not surprised that when confronted with unpleasant facts, many US and Bush apologetists try run away with just ignoring them?
And about US army being not same as US army of 60s or Bush being unlike Clinton - you probably mean that Bush is "passionate neoconservative", haha. And US army even now still represents the same country, which sent thousands to Vietnam and massacred peasants at Mai Lai. About the arabs and mongols- this comparison is not valid at all, because they all belong to different states, if you understand that.

Hash - i used the word Rassenschuld for a reason. Yours is basically a racist argument. Now, I don't know that one can really be "racist" about Americans. But that is pretty much what your argument would boil down to if the subject were any ethnicity. You are saying that if one American commits a crime, then all Americans are guilty of that crime for all time. Is your mind really that ugly?

Now you try to make it personal and even "racist". Heh, its really hard to accept your deeds, isnt it?

Not my deeds. But I give up. Go play in your sandpit, child.

1. You are the one who is trying read things into this discussion. Nothing was said about defending Bush. Nothing was said to justify any actions which had taken place. The only thing that was said is that your argument has no grounds.

2. Do they really belong to different states? How about justifying that statement with some historical facts. Just because the world is currently divided into arbitrary states at the present time, do you have any idea of the scope of the Islamic empire? Do you think they considered themselves different states? The only part of what I stated which is not consistent is that the dynasty in Cordoba at one time split from the main body of the Islamic empire

"if YOU understand that"