scottyz
DP Veteran
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2005
- Messages
- 1,575
- Reaction score
- 0
- Gender
- Undisclosed
- Political Leaning
- Moderate
LONDON (Reuters) - The conduct of U.S. troops in
Iraq, including increasing detention and accidental shootings of journalists, is preventing full coverage of the war reaching the American public, Reuters said on Wednesday.
In a letter to Virginia Republican Sen. John Warner (news, bio, voting record), head of the
Senate Armed Services Committee, Reuters said U.S. forces were limiting the ability of independent journalists to operate.
Schlesinger referred to "a long parade of disturbing incidents whereby professional journalists have been killed, wrongfully detained, and/or illegally abused by U.S. forces in Iraq."
He urged Warner to demand that Rumsfeld resolve these issues "in a way that best balances the legitimate security interests of the U.S. forces in Iraq and the equally legitimate rights of journalists in conflict zones under international law."
At least 66 journalists and media workers, most of them Iraqis, have been killed in the Iraq conflict since March 2003.
U.S. forces acknowledge killing three Reuters journalists, most recently soundman Waleed Khaled who was shot by American soldiers on August 28 while on assignment in Baghdad. But the military say the soldiers were justified in opening fire.
"By limiting the ability of the media to fully and independently cover the events in Iraq, the U.S. forces are unduly preventing U.S. citizens from receiving information...and undermining the very freedoms the U.S. says it is seeking to foster every day that it commits U.S. lives and U.S. dollars," the letter said.
Schlesinger said the U.S. military had refused to conduct independent and transparent investigations into the deaths of the Reuters journalists, relying instead on inquiries by officers from the units responsible, who had exonerated their soldiers.
The U.S. military had failed even to implement recommendations by its own inquiry into one of the deaths, that of award-winning Palestinian cameraman Mazen Dana who was shot dead while filming outside
Abu Ghraib prison in August 2003.
Schlesinger's letter said: "It appears as though the U.S. forces in Iraq either completely misunderstand the role of professional journalists or do not know how to deal with journalists in a conflict zone, or both."
Reuters and other media organizations in Iraq had repeatedly tried to hold a dialogue with the
Pentagon to establish appropriate guidelines on how to safeguard journalists. These efforts had failed "and the situation is now spiraling out of control," Schlesinger said.
He asked Warner to question Rumsfeld specifically about the rules of engagement toward professional journalists, the failure to hold independent investigations into shooting incidents and to ask what was the guidance to U.S. forces on how to distinguish legitimate journalists from insurgents.
This is, indeed, a good thread...It shows how some can be duped into somehow believing the military has some sort of babysitting responsibility for those who publish stories that inhibit their overall goal...Billo_Really said:I'm so glad you posted this. Because this has just got to stop. I'm so sick of journalists being targeted. This tells me their hiding something.
Billo_Really said:I'm so glad you posted this. Because this has just got to stop. I'm so sick of journalists being targeted. This tells me their hiding something.
Billo_Really said:I'm so glad you posted this. Because this has just got to stop. I'm so sick of journalists being targeted. This tells me their hiding something.
You got truth issues. And your promoting dis-honesty. Its no wonder we got a liar in the White House.Originally Posted by Crispy:
Of course you're glad! Anything that dis-credits the war is ok no? lol. I won't slam ya as a soldier hater or nothin
But....
Why should the press have free reign to expose the negative picture of Iraq? That's all they're interested in no? Arguably, its the press's coverage of the Vietnam war that lead to the treatment of Vietnam veterans and the violent anti-war sentiment that broke down our country during that conflict. And.. the press was given cart blanch to cover this war when it started but the sentiment and outcome appears to be the same. US soldiers are murderers in an illegal war which is an opinion that doesn't help.
If I thought that jounalism was an un-biased observer of the situation I wouldn't have a problem with this, but gimme a break!!! Journalists had a direct affect on the outcome of Vietnam just as much as bad policy did and if the US Military is trying to avoid this then amen! Better our military and government gets scrutinized for a while on limiting the press than we have our veterans abused and our military objectives compromised.
Tell the Italian government its crap on the wall. Tell Aljazeerah its crap on the wall. But I have to admit, you do know a lot about crap!Originally posted by cnredd:
This is, indeed, a good thread...It shows how some can be duped into somehow believing the military has some sort of babysitting responsibility for those who publish stories that inhibit their overall goal...
If a reporter took things I've said and twisted them into a story for ratings instead of writing the truth without a misleading context, I doubt I'd want them around, too...
As for people being "sick" of journalists being targeted, I refer to CNN itself, once again proving that anything that sounds bad MUST be true in certain diluted people's mind...
(02-11) 20:07 PST New York (AP) --
CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan quit Friday amid a furor over remarks he made in Switzerland last month about journalists killed by the U.S. military in Iraq. Jordan said he was quitting to avoid CNN being "unfairly tarnished" by the controversy.
During a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum last month, Jordan said he believed that several journalists who were killed by coalition forces in Iraq had been targeted.
He quickly backed off the remarks, explaining that he meant to distinguish between journalists killed because they were in the wrong place when a bomb fell, for example, and those killed because they were shot at by American forces who mistook them for the enemy.
"I never meant to imply U.S. forces acted with ill intent when U.S. forces accidentally killed journalists, and I apologize to anyone who thought I said or believed otherwise," Jordan said in a memo to fellow staff members at CNN.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...e155919S36.DTL
Just another day of throwing crap on the wall and hoping something sticks...
Don't worry....the 0-for-999 streak might end...someday...
I agree with that.purplehaze said:So American troops are going out on "Reporter search and destroy" missions now? To keep them from reporting the truth behind all of our misdoings in Iraq no doubt. Someones been playing with their http://www.buttafly.com/bush/index.php again.
Its one thing to blame bush and call him a liar. But are you really trying to say American soldiers are deliberately going out of their way to shoot journalists for getting too close to the truth? Wouldn't it be more reasonable to assume the number of journalists taking stupid risks to get a better photo shot could be the cause? Shouldn't it be on the reporters to work around a conflict and stay out of harms way? Not the Army having to make concessions and change its way of preforming a mission to make it easier for the news agencies to get a good story? No, of course this is the American troops preforming deliberate execution of journalists. I bet those troops are republicans too, the lying bastards.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?