Dead presidents vs. dead soldiers -- <font size = "4">The Drunks Bar </font size "4">

[ Show ]

Support VoyForums

[ Shrink ]

VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Main index ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, [6], 7, 8, 9, 10 ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 15:19:11 03/27/03 Thu
Author: NKLS Cody
Subject: Dead presidents vs. dead soldiers

I'm sorta hitching a ride upon Kathy's story in the thread directly below with my observation that I believe witnessing a huge payoff to political campaign cronies is much more shocking and aweful than seeing several dead and captured fighting men/women and I seemingly have an entire information service to back me on that. As the story indicates, Al-Jazeera stays on the air, although those supposed safeguarders of free speech, namely conservative ideologues, work night and day in an organized attempt to destroy their equipment and remove them from the mix of news available to the public.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/03/27/international1151EST0621.DTL

Al Jazeera says it has duty to show world casualties from both sides

SARAH EL DEEB, Associated Press Writer Thursday, March 27, 2003

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(03-27) 08:51 PST DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) --

Responding to criticism for airing footage of dead U.S. and British soldiers, the Arab satellite television network Al-Jazeera said Thursday it had a duty to show the world casualties on all sides in the Iraq war.

"War has victims from both sides," said Al-Jazeera's editor in chief, Ibrahim Hilal. "If you don't show both sides, you are not covering" the war.

On Wednesday, Al-Jazeera showed footage from southern Iraq of the bloodied bodies of two men in uniform identified as British soldiers.

Air Marshall Brian Burridge, the top British commander in the Persian Gulf, told reporters Thursday the men were probably two missing British soldiers and said the broadcast caused "distress to the families of the soldiers."

"All media outlets must be aware of the limits of taste and decency and be wary that they do not unwittingly become the tools of the Iraqi regime," Burridge said.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair criticized the government of Saddam Hussein for releasing photographs of the dead soldiers.

"Day by day we have seen the reality of Saddam's regime. His thugs prepare to kill their own people, the parading prisoners of war and now the release of those pictures of executed British soldiers," Blair said, speaking at a news conference with President Bush at Camp David, Md.

"If anyone needed any further evidence of the depravity of Saddam's regime, this atrocity provides it. It is yet one more flagrant breach of all the proper conventions of war, more than that to the families of the soldiers involved, it is an act of cruelty beyond comprehension," he said.

A few days earlier, U.S. government officials rebuked Al-Jazeera for airing footage of American prisoners of war and dead soldiers. The Geneva Conventions on the humane treatment of those affected by war stipulates that prisoners of war must be protected "against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity."

American networks have shown crowds of Iraqi POWs, but no close-ups in which they would be identifiable or interviews with them. Dramatic pictures of both civilian and military dead, common on Al-Jazeera and other Arab channels, have appeared rarely on U.S. television stations, which have devoted much of their coverage to dusty battles, with some video provided live by embedded journalists.

Before the American POWs were shown on Al-Jazeera and the United States complained the broadcasts violated the Geneva Convention, British TV and newspapers had been freely showing pictures of captured Iraqis. Since then, the media have toned down their footage -- showing captured Iraqi POWs, but usually at a distance or with their faces partly covered.

Hilal said Al-Jazeera gives both Americans and Iraqis their say. Secretary of State Colin Powell was interviewed by Al-Jazeera Wednesday, an American acknowledgment of Al-Jazeera reach and influence in the Arab world.

While U.S. officials appear on the station, other Americans have taken it upon themselves to punish Al-Jazeera for alleged breach of taste.

The Nasdaq Stock Market and the New York Stock Exchange barred journalists from Al-Jazeera, and a Nasdaq spokesman told The Los Angeles Times the network wasn't welcome "in light of (its) recent conduct during the war."

Al-Jazeera's Web site has been plagued by hackers since it showed the dead U.S. soldiers.

Twelve Al-Jazeera reporters are in Baghdad and other parts of Iraq independent of the U.S. or British military, and one Al-Jazeera reporter is embedded with the Marines in southern Iraq.

Hilal said the station would have been able to provide more coverage of the American side if Kuwait had not denied visas to three of its reporters. Reporters had to meet up with the U.S. military units to which they were assigned in Kuwait, one of several Arab countries that have expelled Al-Jazeera reporters because of stories seen as insulting.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

YES, Cody. -- Kathy, 07:53:26 03/28/03 Fri
- Alrighty, Kathy -- NKLS Cody, 09:32:51 03/28/03 Fri