Tim Ireland on tabloids, media, blogs and politics
Humanity
Remember
27th Jan 2005
But neither will I tolerate those who would exploit this tragedy in order to commit or excuse their own crimes against humanity.
But neither will I tolerate those who would exploit this tragedy in order to commit or excuse their own crimes against humanity.
Abuse of Iraqis by British troops: naming the bad apples
19th Jan 2005
Well, isn’t that interesting? Richard Desmond appears to be trying to get on Tony’s good side by not running the images and instead reminding us what this fight is ‘really’ about… and that we could all get blowed up…
BBC – ‘Abuse’ pictures dominate papers: The Express is the only paper that does not feature images of alleged abuse on its front page. Instead the paper leads with a special investigation by two of its reporters trying to show “how easy it is for bombers to get into Britain”. It describes how they smuggled fake bombs across the Channel by boat, then took them to various places including the London Eye and Heathrow airport.
Normally, this is the kind of helpful stunt The Sun would pull.
For the record, I should note that I didn’t see a newspaper rack until late yesterday, but when I did I found that the Express also bigged-up the Omar Bakri Mohammed ‘story’. And today they continue the good work.
(Oh, and I haven’t seen a newspaper this morning, either… so I don’t know what the girl with the tits thinks.)
One would almost think that the Bakri matter was pushed/generated in expectation of the release of these pictures, in order to reach that fuzzy area in the back of people’s brains that still links the war in Iraq with the War on Terror… a link that in some small way is supposed to excuse these pictures.
In fact, while The Sun has run with the pictures today, they tie up the messy ends with the following neat little bow….
The Sun – Army’s shame: The country is asking one question today: How COULD the British Army let such terrible things happen? The truth is that only a few revolting individuals have allowed themselves to sink so low… The fine work of 99 per cent of our magnificent Army has been tarnished by a handful of morons. The Sun feels deep sympathy for the mistreated Iraqis, and we know our readers will too. The soldiers on trial must, if convicted, pay a heavy penalty. That is vital. We cannot afford to let the likes of Omar Bakri, the fanatical Muslim cleric, try to make mileage out of these events.
I’m sorry, but I feel the need to correct that middle sentence… The fine work of 100 per cent of our magnificent Army has been tarnished by a handful of morons that are in charge.
Blair! Hoon! Stop pretending to cry at the back there and pay attention! This concerns you.
The same strategists who worked so hard to link the invasion of Iraq with the War on Terror at home did equally fine work contributing to the mentality of our troops. Mix a getsomegetsomegetsome atitude with a false picture of the population you’re invading (Iraqis were responsible for 911, don’t you know), and you’re away.
Combine this with the practice of bagging/hooding that magically turns people into objects, and you have your very own recipe for disaster.
Of course, an incident like this happening so early in the war should have been a warning sign for someone senior along the way. Unless of course such a go-getter attitude was seen as a necessary evil. Or perhaps even a desirable attribute, given that someone would have to get tough sooner or later in order to track down those pesky WMDs. That never existed.
But what makes me angriest about this is that – while no-one is stupid enough to be quite as overt as Rumsfeld about it (though The Sun tries) – the same game to win hearts and minds that led to this is still being played in order to excuse it.
Related:
Iraq, Friendly Fire, Civilian Casualties, and a Total Lack Of Torture
Something Funny Happened On The Way To Abu Ghraib
UPDATE – Today’s topless totty has been moved to page 7. There, Ruthie (23, from Kent) is angered by photos of British troops abusing Iraqi prisoners and turns away from the camera to show a suitably respectful hint of nipple. She says: “Stories like this play right into the hands of our enemies. People who abuse prisoners should be punished.”
And by that she means pilloried.
Iraq: abuse by UK soldiers (graphic content warning goes here)
18th Jan 2005
Guardian – Court martial told of soldiers’ ‘appalling’ abuse: Three British soldiers carried out “shocking and appalling” physical and sexual abuse of Iraqi prisoners that was photographed by servicemen, a court martial heard today. Twenty-two photographs were released by a British military court in Germany where the court martial of the three accused Royal Regiment of Fusiliers soldiers opened today. Among the disturbing images was a picture of two naked Iraqi men simulating anal sex with their thumbs raised up to the cameras. There was also a close-up picture of two Iraqis simulating oral sex.
Is it just me, or do these new pictures look disturbing familiar in theme and content?
Dear oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear… how could this have happened?
UPDATE – Not connected to the above in any way, shape or form. By the way, none of this is real because the images the Mirror published were fake.
Gonzales: Actually, I *was* expecting the Hispanic inquisition
6th Jan 2005
OK, it’s shocking, it’s alarming…. but it Does. Not. Surprise. Me. At. All.
Guardian – Bush’s choice for top law job faces grilling on torture: Alberto Gonzales, currently his chief legal adviser, told Mr Bush in early 2002 that the White House was not bound by the Geneva conventions in dealing with al-Qaida and the Taliban. In August that year he helped orchestrate and approve a justice department memorandum arguing that interrogators could use techniques which the Red Cross has since described as “tantamount to torture”. His role will come under close scrutiny, but he is expected to survive. Republicans consolidated their hold on the Senate in November and some Democrats are uneasy about blocking the country’s first Hispanic attorney general.
Just let the powerlessness/gutlessness of the Democrats sink in for a bit before continuing…
New York Times – Newly Released Reports Show Early Concern on Prison Abuse: When the Abu Ghraib scandal broke last spring, officials characterized the abuse as the aberrant acts of a small group of low-ranking reservists, limited to a few weeks in late 2003. But thousands of pages in military reports and documents released under the Freedom of Information Act to the American Civil Liberties Union in the past few months have demonstrated that the abuse involved multiple service branches in Afghanistan, Iraq and Cuba, beginning in 2002 and continuing after Congress and the military had begun investigating Abu Ghraib.
ACLU – New Documents Suggest Government Reluctance to Investigate Guantanamo Abuses: Documents released today by the American Civil Liberties Union show that an FBI investigation into the use of “aggressive” interrogation techniques at Guantanamo was sharply scaled back, and that records related to the FBI’s investigation are still being withheld.
You can browse through and read those documents here:
Records Released in Response to Torture FOIA Request
DailyKos – What Bush Lackey Gonzales Wrought: Does it matter that Alberto Gonzales advised the President of the United States that he was not bound by the Geneva Conventions, any international treaties to which the U.S. was a signatory, or federal law when it came to “coercive interrogation” techniques? Of course it does. Here’s why…
Lots and lots of comments and extra info in that last link – do follow and dig. Oh and make time to share Something Funny Happened On The Way To Abu Ghraib.
Three minutes of silence for tsunami victims
5th Jan 2005
OK, so let me just make this clear…
Victims of World War I and other wars (some lovely statistics available here) get one or two minutes. Every year.
Victims of the September 11th atrocities got two minutes, but only for one year. (Though, granted, we also managed to silence a few telemarketers.)
Victims of the Asian Tsunami (the Tsunami With No Name) get three minutes… not counting the extra one or two minutes given in many areas on New Years Eve that mostly allowed us to piss away a few million on gunpowder and not feel too bad about it.
Victims of the Totally Justified Iraq War get… no minutes. Not even a minute minute. Perhaps this is because Jack Straw has yet to crunch the numbers and calculate how many minutes (or perhaps even seconds) all those dead Iraqi civilians should be allocated.
UPDATE – We interrupt this silence for a timely sermon from Tom DeLay. More here.
The Asian Tsunami
29th Dec 2004
When something global happens, turn to Blogdex. Today it’s full of useful quake/tsunami references, the bulk of which are presented here alongside a few extras I found along the way:
Someone has already set up a blog at tsunamihelp.blogspot.com with “news and information about resources, aid, donations and volunteer efforts.”
A Merry Christmas from Bloggerheads
24th Dec 2004
I thought long and hard about what I was going to post for Christmas (well, 20 minutes at least).
It just didn’t seem right to switch my brain off, point to a few happy/ironic links and be done with it. A message of hope also seemed misplaced.
Bush won. And the (by now very confident) right controls the majority of the bandwidth.
Frankly, it’s all going a bit tits-up, but us leftist/elitist/secularist/socialist peaceniks – the very model of political correctness gone mad – have been significantly marginalised with the help of media owners such as the lovely Mr Murdoch. (We’re all a bit barmy, in case you hadn’t noticed. We seem to think that greed, fundamentalism and extremism are the main dangers facing us today. Our problem is that we don’t appreciate the complicated nature of world politics. Happily, this can be solved if we approach matters in the simplest terms of Good Vs. Evil.)
So where’s the hope when we’re so visibly getting our butts kicked?
For hope, we must turn to the terrorists. Their greatest weapon is fear. This fear is further enhanced by governments that wish to exploit the threat for their own ends. These ends they seek and the means they use to reach them increase the threat of terrorism. That’s how, with a few planes and bombs, the few have crippled the many.
For hope, we must turn to the Bush administration. They developed and maintained a massive swing to the right by using fears of an equally massive swing to the left.
For hope, we must turn to Tony Blair. He stays in power and is able to enact right-wing policies because he exploits the fear of a return(!) to right-wing government.
Can you see the hope yet? It is in there, you just have to look for it.
These. Machines. Are. Run. On. Fear.
And there’s your hope, right there.
You still can’t see it, can you? But that’s because you’re failing to hang onto it. That’s because you’re failing to use it.
Hope lies in numbers. Using hope can build numbers. And you’re looking at the machine you should be using to build those numbers right now.
Obviously we’re all heathen scum – so most of us won’t have been to church for a while – but you may be familiar with a small fellowship exercise used at many a Christian gathering. Basically, you look to the people around you, find a stranger or two, and shake their hand. Or hug them. It depends on how full of the Holy Spirit you are. (This exercise works especially well at Christmas-time, as there as so many strangers attending church.)
Today, I looked up a few new blogs and I’ve offering them a hug/handshake via hyperlink. I urge you to do the same.
Meet timx. In this post he explains why he blogs. I was pleasantly surprised to find in this post a link to another blogger who already happened to be on my huggy-kissy list…
Meet Disillusioned Kid. He’s a man of strong opinion who peppers his thoughts with links to relevant posts/articles. A technique you may well be familiar with.
Meet Exoplanet. His beliefs appear to be similar to mine, but on his blog he cuts back on opinion and primarily documents news items of interest.
Meet Samir, Eileen, Katie and Leanna. Their blog is kind of like a mid-point between Disillusioned Kid and Exoplanet. There are many news items of interest, but each post is enhanced with an opinion.
Meet Amber. She’s currently serving in Iraq. Her moral is low, but she does find time for levity of sorts.
Meet Bizkitz. He works for the disadvantaged and has just returned from serving in Iraq. Recently he has pondered on the unique relationship between Bush and Blair and expressed concern over “aggressive projection of American interests”.
So there you have it. I’m all hugged-out.
I wish you all the very best in the coming days, I hope you enjoy your toys and – as always – I would ask that you not consume more than is good for you.
It’s hard to imagine a greater nightmare…
20th Dec 2004
Woman charged with killing an expectant mother and cutting 8-month-old baby from victim’s womb
Woman in court over baby cut from womb
Is this the kind of thing that happens when there is no governing moral standard? Where does this scant regard for the sanctity of life come from?
