Something similar happened to a PBS Frontline crew. They were filming a firefight, and when the American soldiers noticed them, they started firing on the film crew, clearly American and carrying bulky camera gear.
This is not an accident, but a matter of policy. The Bush people like controlling information, and an easy way to do that is to stop its collection in a lawless war zone, where you can blame it on a stray bullet or bomb.
The sad thing the numbers in this article show is that this is not a Baby Bush innovation. Similar numbers came out of our Yugoslavia campaign, and from a recent Algerian civil war that we were not involved in.
What our government has figured out is that if Americans can't see it, it doesn't exist. No American soldier has died or been disfigured, no Iraqi child killed or had his arms burned off and his whole family killed.
Knowledge is power, and we need that power to have a democracy. Whoever kills a reporter, kills a piece of democracy, regardless of what ideology the killer thinks he is attacking or defending.
KEY EXCERPTS:
Since U.S. forces and its allies launched their campaign in Iraq on March 20, 2003, 66 journalists and their assistants have been killed, RSF said.
The latest casualty was a Reuters Television soundman who was shot dead in Baghdad on Sunday while a cameraman with him was wounded and then detained by U.S. soldiers.
The death toll in Iraq compares with a total of 63 journalists in Vietnam, but which was over a period of 20 years from 1955 to 1975, the Paris-based organisation that campaigns to protect journalists said on its Web site.
FULL TEXT:
More journalists killed in Iraq than Vietnam -RSF
28 Aug 2005 15:49:10 GMT
Source: Reuters
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L28219813.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment