Monday, February 19, 2007

Iraq: The Hidden War

(reposted from Crooks & Liars. This documentary shows the true conditions in Iraq that our corporate-censored and gutless MSM won't ever broadcast in the US.)

What the media isn't showing in Iraq: (h/t Hardliner)

It's a gut-wrenching 49 minutes, but worth your time. Americans, these actions are being done in our name.  This is our legacy.



(BTW, there's a larger display of this video located at Google Video; I was having trouble reading the sub-titles until I went there.)



My hope is that showing videos such as this one and bringing you the information that the traditional media downplays or hides that it propel you to take action.  Call your elected officials, even if they are Republicans.  Demand that they stand by their actions in the face of reality, instead of White House spin.  Write them.  Email them. Call news organizations and demand the same.  

The Beltway media and politicians are insulated and isolated.  It's going to take a huge tidal wave from outside the Beltway for them to wake up. 

Please, please …email this to every person you know, no matter what side of the war/occupation they fall in.  

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Watched the whole thing...don't see much that has not been covered in the "MSM", for example, here's some stories that were in the video...

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/02/23/journalists.killed/index.html
http://cnnstudentnews.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0409/13/lad.01.html

Or do you just mean that we don't see enough gore from Iraq? But then again, we don't see the bloody bullet ridden bodies of shooting victims in New Haven. Conspiracy? Also didn't see the mangled and ripped apart bodies form London & Madrid terror bombings on MSM either. Censorship! Do we really need to see someone get beheaded or torture to appreciate that pain and suffering are involved. Maybe you should take your new video camera and get to some local car wrecks to show us some of the gore that the MSM and the automobile industry is hiding from us.

- nb

CT Bob said...

Yes, we do need to see the violence.

For too many voters and policy-makers, the violence in Iraq is just a theoretical concept. Showing that US soldier shooting a wounded Iraqi in the head, basically executing him, was horrific. If that's what was taped, imagine what is going on where there AREN'T cameras rolling!

No, we need to stop sanitizing the effects of this war and making it palatable to the public. Maybe if more people were exposed to the REAL images of this war, they wouldn't continue to support it.

Anonymous said...

> Yes, we do need to see the violence.

Jeez, I didn't get to see Jeffrey Dahlmer's victims, but yeah...I get that there was extreme violence involved. I don't think people need to see the gore to "get it". And I see you just sidestepped the other instances brought up previously... Why not view the victims of murders, accidents, and terror too? I don't recall seeing bodies London/Madrid or 9/11 in the MSM. Or are you only interested in victims that you think will reflect poorly on U.S? Even if there were no war, there would be plenty of gore from crime & accidents...so that every day we could see all this constantly...is that what we need to see all the time? How about children, who are exposed to the same MSM as adults?

> For too many voters and policy-makers, the violence in Iraq is just a theoretical concept

What a crock...only CT Bob & friends have a true appreciation of violence. Get over yourself...

> Showing that US soldier shooting a wounded Iraqi

I'm always amused by the conspiracy theorists who claim bias and censorship in the "corporate-censored" main stream media. But when you ask them if they watch it,"well, no...it's too biased." Kinda circular logic... don't view/read the MSM, but then claim what it does or doesn't cover.

As for that soldier...despite your implication, it was *extensively* covered by the MSM, including a longer video from which that clip was extracted. And it wasn't, I think, such a cut & dry situation... As the soldiers entered the building, the were under the belief that the people inside were dead. I don't think it's unreasonable to conclude that the soldier was startled, and perhaps scared of an ambush. It's not unheard of in war for enemy to feign all sorts of things. A few weeks ago there were some attackers who got onto a U.S. base by pretending to be U.S. soldiers, which ended up with the kidnapping and killing of U.S. soldiers. Not that excess and outright atrocities don't occur by U.S. soldiers sometimes...as they do sometimes by police, or just average citizens. But what's your point, that somehow killing innocents is U.S. Policy? I don't think so... Of course, I'm just brainwashed by the MSM and U.S. Govt. spin.

-nb

PamB said...

I am sending this around my email list, Bob, as well as posting it in a couple of other blogspots. Unfortunetly, it is preaching to the choir though, as most Dems have their eyes wide open and are reading their news on international sites which do not worry about sensitivities when showing REAL world happenings. (even CNN vs CNN International website has a different slant) It is only US media that still has that fear of being called anti-American or anti-troops that refuses to air stuff like this.

I guess anonymous thinks in war there are no rules. Things like Humanity and Geneva Conventions, etc are just talk. Anything goes.
I had 2 brothers in vietnam, plus my husband served. I know that the Military Code of Honor meant something to them.

Anonymous said...

> I guess anonymous thinks in war there are no rules. Things like Humanity and Geneva Convention

Guess again...never said anything like that.

> Dems have their eyes wide open and are reading their news on international sites

Hey, I'm a Democrat...and read/view International news sources too. Heck, I even read CT Bob & MLN.

> only US media that still has that fear of being called anti-American or anti-troops that refuses to air stuff like this.

I still don't get it. I've seen plenty of "stuff like this" on MSM in U.S. Of course, if you want to go on with your premise that the U.S. media is afraid to tell the truth, or is somehow politically or corporately controlled, that is certainly your perogative. Really, why don't you just come right out and say that people who don't agree with you are mindless ignorant sheep?

-nb

CT Bob said...

nb - I appreciate the thoughtful debate. But really, the Dahlmer murders and your other examples weren't state-sponsored and therefore weren't the responsibility of our policy makers, so it doesn't make sense to compare the two.

And it really helps to watch some of the news coverage in foreign countries to see the different "spin" that's applied to our news. The fact is, the news is both controlled by and bullied by the Bush administration. When they focus too much on things that reflect poorly on the White House, they get frozen out.

It's no coincidence that Fox News reporter Tony Snow became Bush's new mouthpiece, and that Brit Hume is LOVED by Bush/Cheney, and he gets access that other networks never will.

So yeah, the media is either directly or indirectly influenced by BushCo. But either way, it's not good for our country.

Anonymous said...

> your other examples weren't state-sponsored and therefore weren't the responsibility of our policy makers.

Take sexual predators. Certainly it's within policy makers to decide how to deal with them - death? life imprisonment? a term in jail then be allowed to live among public? should neighbors be informed? should they have tatoos on their forheads. or maybe just no punishment at all. Would you argue that video of a child rapes be broadcast? Likewise, the images of bodies ripped apart in a drunk driving accident might influence the policy maker's view on drunk driving laws. So why are these images not seen regularly in the media? You seem to be saying that without showing the graphic horror of something, people can't make an informed decision on public policy. Or that there's some sort of cover-up.

> The fact is, the news is both controlled by and bullied by the Bush administration.

If that were absolutely true, we wouldn't have learned about Abu Gharib, and that no WMD were found.

> It's no coincidence that Fox News reporter Tony Snow became Bush's new mouthpiece

Well, of course it's no coincidence...doesn't *every* politician choose staff that more or less agree with him. Besides his Fox stint, Snow was chief speechwriter and Deputy Assistant of Media Affairs for George Sr., so that may be even a bigger qualification for his current position...which is, almost by definition, to spin things in the Whitehouse direction, that should be a given. Also, if you seen press conferences, reporters do get to publically confont W.H. with tough questions - not that they always get an answers we might like.

> really helps to watch some of the news coverage in foreign countries to see the different "spin"

Yeah, it is interesting. I see a lot of foreign coverage (language permitting ;-) ) and you're right, it's sometimes "different spin", but I wouldn't assume that "different" is always more correct or true. Sometimes it's just different spin. Sometimes it's like watching Rashômon.

-nb

CT Bob said...

Your examples still aren't appropriate. Equating coverage of the actions of sexual predators with our government's censoring the coverage of our military's conduct in Iraq is unreasonable. The reason the media doesn't show graphic coverage of the results of sexual attacks is to protect the rights and identities of the victims.

The reason the administration doesn't allow uncensored coverage of the war is to protect themselves from their own complicity and guilt.

That's two entirely different situations and motivations. Surely I won't need to further clarify this.

And Abu Gahrib was exposed by unathorized soldier's photos getting out, not because of unrestricted media access. Lyndie England was posing for a friend's camera, not a reporter's.

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Filmmaker James Longley spent three years in post-invasion Iraq making this stunning film. It has now been nominated for an Academy Award after having won three major awards — director, editing, cinematography-- at Sundance last year. The film is made up of three stories that help us understand the messy complexity of what we often distill down to just “Iraq.”

The first story tracks an 11 year-old orphaned boy who has apprenticed himself to the domineering Sunni owner of a garage in Baghdad. The second brings us into the world of two brick-baking Kurdish farm families in the north who are enjoying the relative freedom of life that the fall of Saddam Hussein has brought. The third highlights the Shiite movement of Moqtada al-Sadr in Najaf where free elections are touted and Shia law is enforced at the end of a club or a gun.

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