Wednesday, April 21, 2004

Who Would Jesus Bomb? FEATURED ARTICLES - "DOVER EFFECT" PHOTO, democraticunderground.com - U.S. reporters can't probe Iraq deaths, Editor & Publisher - Fallen GIs return unseen - News orgs protest ban on coffin pics, Newsday - Seattle Times runs rare coffin photo, Editor & Publisher - Report from Baghdad -- Hospital Closings and U.S. War Crimes, by Rahul Mahajan, Empire Notes QUOTE OF THE DAY "The difference between revolutionary violence and establishment violence is the same as the difference between dogshit and catshit." - - Leo Tolstoy KNOW YOUR HISTORY - APRIL 21st 1838 -- John Muir, early western naturalist & conservationist, lives. 1898 -- Using the sinking of the battleship Maine as rallying cry, the US Government declares war on Spain in an attempt (successful) to acquire colonies. The colonies acquired by the U.S., which had been seeking independence from Spain, instead find old masters replaced by new. They were, Puerto Rico, Guam & the Philippines. Next, the US used its new presence in the Pacific as an excuse for "annexing" the independent nation of Hawai'i later that year. 1960 -- Dick Clark (a key antagonist in Michael Moore's doc,  "Bowling For Columbine') described as "the single most influential person" in the pop music business, testifies before a congressional committee investigating payola. He admits he had a financial interest in 27 % of the records he played on his show in a 28 month period. RHINO HERE: If the reports from Iraq in today's BOTTOM LINE by Rahul Mahajan, (publisher of the weblog "Empire Notes") are to be believed, US "coalition" troops have closed hospitals & even fired on ambulances.  But is Mr. Mahajan, writing his blog from Iraq, to be believed?  Rhino thinks so, but you tell me. Since real journalism isn't allowed in the war zone, or even at US Air Bases when the coffins come home, it's hard to know who or what to believe? As of April 13, 2004, at least 678 U.S. service members have been killed in Iraq. More than 18,000 have been medically evacuated. At least 10,000 Iraqis have died.  But unlike the TV news coverage of the war in Viet Nam, Americans are not seeing it on their TV screens. The gang has seen to that. Even the printing of one photo, of US Service members coming home in caskets, has created a controversy. Maybe if the American people had to see the images of the deaths being caused in their names, it would end the war faster than a pile of shrubs burning up on a hot summer day. The photo is called the Dover Effect." "DOVER EFFECT"   PHOTO POSTED AT: Dover Effect "SEND THIS THREE-SOME TO A REPUBLICAN!" U.S. reporters can't probe Iraq deaths Source: Editor & Publisher, 4/15/04 Normally, when charges of high civilian casualties in war emerge -- as they have this week in Iraq -- independent reporters attempt to arrive on the scene for a full assessment. But with kidnappings and other threats to the security of journalists rising in Iraq, those kinds of eyewitness probes, at least from Western reporters, may be few and far between. This has already had dire consequences, with the truth in hot dispute, as the U.S. military denies wrongdoing in the siege of Fallujah while Arab television and other press accounts document an estimated 600 dead in that city and 1,200 wounded, many of them women and children. http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000487569 Fallen GIs return unseen - News orgs protest ban on coffin pics Newsday, 4/19/03 The aluminum casket, draped in a U.S. flag and held by an honor guard, is slowly removed from the cargo plane at Dover Air Force Base and placed in to a waiting ambulance bound for the mortuary, where the body of the dead soldier will be prepared for burial. The deceased's family often is looking on, and in some cases, the president. Millions bear witness through television and photographs in newspapers and magazines. But not in the current war with Iraq. The honor guard rituals always take place. However, for more than a year, the Bush administration has strictly enforced a ban on media outlets taking pictures of soldiers' coffins being returned to U.S. military bases on grounds that it upsets mourners. Critics say it's part of the White House's attempt to downplay the human cost of the war, which this month alone has killed at least 99 U.S. troops. As the casualties mount, the prohibition, whose origins date to 1991, has come under renewed scrutiny. http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-wocoff193764197apr19,0,1256808.story 'Seattle Times' runs rare coffin photo Editor & Publisher, 4/19/04 Last week, photos of flag-draped coffins in Kuwait containing the bodies of Americans killed in Iraq surfaced on scattered Internet sites, such as the Drudge Report. The photos were not credited and no major news organization would touch them. But Sunday, a similar image appeared on the front page of The Seattle Times. The picture arrived amid rising debate over the Bush administration's strict ban on media outlets taking photos of soldiers' coffins offloaded at U.S. military bases. "The administration cannot tell us what we can and cannot publish," David Boardman, managing editor at The Seattle Times, told E&P Monday afternoon. "The photo may have been seen as an unnecessarily provocative anti-war sentiment," Boardman said, but he explained, "We weren't attempting to convey any sort of political message." He added that so far, phone calls and e-mails from readers have been "overwhelmingly positive." http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id?00491273 8:01:33 AM    comment

RHINO'S WEEKEND BOTTOM LINE - Report from Baghdad - - Hospital Closings and U.S. War Crimes Report from Baghdad -- Hospital Closings and U.S. War Crimes by Rahul Mahajan, CommonDreams.org, Monday, April 19, 2004 BAGHDAD, Iraq -- "Why do you keep asking about the closing of the Fallujah hospital?" my Iraqi translator asks in exasperation. I explain that this is big news, and it hasn't really been reported in English. He looks at me, incredulous; all Iraqis know about it. When the United States began the siege of Fallujah, it targeted civilians in several ways. The power station was bombed; perhaps even more important, the bridge across the Euphrates was closed. Fallujah's main hospital stands on the western bank of the river; almost the entirety of the town is on the east side. Although the hospital was not technically closed, no doctor who actually believes in the Hippocratic oath is going to sit in an empty hospital while people are dying in droves on the other bank of the river. So the doctors shut down the hospital, took the limited supplies and equipment they could carry, and started working at a small three-room outpatient clinic, doing operations on the ground and losing patients because of the inadequacy of the setup. This event was not reported in English until April 14, when the bridge was reopened. In Najaf, the Spanish-language "Plus Ultra" garrison closed the al-Sadr Teaching Hospital roughly a week ago (as of yesterday, it remained closed). With 200 doctors, the hospital (formerly the Saddam Hussein Teaching Hospital) is one of the most important in Iraq. Troops entered and gave the doctors two hours to leave, allowing them to take only personal items -- no medical equipment. The reason given was that the hospital overlooks the Plus Ultra's base, and that the roof could be used by resistance snipers. Al-Arabiya has also reported that in Qaim, a small town near the Syrian border where fighting recently broke out, that the hospital had been closed, with American snipers positioned atop nearby buildings. The United States has also impeded the operation of hospitals in other ways. Although the first Western reports of U.S. snipers shooting at ambulances (see http://www.empirenotes.org/fallujah.html) caused something of a furor, two days ago at a press conference the Iraqi Minister of Health, Khudair Abbas, confirmed that U.S. forces had shot at ambulances not just in Fallujah but also in Sadr City, the sprawling slum in East Baghdad. He condemned the acts and said he had asked for an explanation from his superiors, the Governing Council and Paul Bremer. .. IT'S ALL AT: http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0419-08.htm NOTE: Doctors from four hospitals in Baghdad were interviewed in compiling this report; all asked that their names be left out. Rahul Mahajan is the publisher of the weblog Empire Notes (http://www.empirenotes.org) and is writing and blogging from Baghdad. He can be reached at rahul@empirenotes.org "RHINO'S BLOG" is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. (rhino@kifaru.com) Feedback, and requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged. SEARCH BLOG ARCHIVES / SURF RHINO'S LINKS, AT: http://www.rhinosblog.info RHINO'S OTHER WEB SITES: http://www.dreamcatchers.org (INDIGENOUS ASSISTANCE & INTERCULTURAL DIALOG) http://www.kifaru.com (NATIVE AMERICAN RELATIONS VIDEO DOCUMENTARIES) Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html All copyrights belong to original publisher. Tell a friend about Rhino's Blog 6:10:42 AM    comment

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