God Bless REAL Journalists, those still fighting and those fallen.....

[Tigress DEM]

William Rivers Pitt - Someone I have come to believe is a real National Treasure - is putting together a TO INVESTIGATION with another AWESOME group Reporters Without Borders on the TRUTH about:

The April 8 2003 Bombing of Palestine Hotel in Baghdad by US.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/022505A.shtml

This is huge. After Reading the above article I have come to some basic conclusions:

My conclusions:

A) That the Higher up Military consciously chose not to tell the soldiers in the field that the reporters were there on purpose because they were using them as civilian shield bait to lure the Iraqis to their most logical positing for coordinating targeting of US movements across the bridge as in that direct area the Palestine hotel is the highest vantage point.

B) That the AP wire sent telling the reporters to leave was real and the followup denial was THE actual lie that cost the reporters their lives as it was the AP wire was the last moment they had the truth of the situation and could have gone back to the safety of the Rashid.

C) That US upper intelligence ranks moved the journalists to lure the Iraqis to the Palestine Hotel, maybe hoping the journalists would take the prudent route when they got the AP wire with all the advanced warnings of how dangerous Baghdad was going to be, but that the US felt it needed to issue a followup denial to keep the Iraqis feeling safe behind a civilian shield, and in a place where the US knew where they were.

D) The confusion of battle and 3 things stand out for me.

1) 2 people with binoculars. The journalist on the roof and an Iraqi targeting positions and sending out information via radio using the journalists as his decoy.
2) Maybe the Iraqi captured with the radio was a counterintelligence plant.
3) Actual fire coming from base of the building earlier and "flashes of light" that in the heat of battle may have been camera flashes? mistaken for enemy fire ding the time journalists were recording events. This inaccurately marked the positions of the journalists as enemy combatants because the military engaged on the ground was not given that piece to sort out of the equation.

[Tigress DEM]

1. Victoria Brittain - The Guardian U.K. & By Bob Herbert - NY Times

***THIS*** IS JOURNALISM

C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Desktop\t r u t h o u t - Victoria Brittain Why Are We Welcoming This Torturer.htm

<snip>
Now The Torture Papers - 1,249 pages of government memos and reports, edited by Karen Greenberg, the executive director of the centre on law and security at the New York University School of Law - shows the American government to be guilty of a "systematic decision to alter the use of methods of coercion and torture that lay outside of accepted and legal norms".

Thrown to the Wolves
<snip>
In the fall of 2002 Mr. Arar, a Canadian citizen, suddenly found himself caught up in the cruel mockery of justice that the Bush administration has substituted for the rule of law in the post-Sept. 11 world. While attempting to change planes at Kennedy Airport on his way home to Canada from a family vacation in Tunisia, he was seized by American authorities, interrogated and thrown into jail. He was not charged with anything, and he never would be charged with anything, but his life would be ruined.

Mr. Arar was surreptitiously flown out of the United States to Jordan and then driven to Syria, where he was kept like a nocturnal animal in an unlit, underground, rat-infested cell that was the size of a grave. From time to time he was tortured.

He wept. He begged not to be beaten anymore. He signed whatever confessions he was told to sign. He prayed.

[Tigress DEM]

2. Omar Khan & Mark Jensen

http://electroniciraq.net/news/index.shtml

Conversation with David Barsamian
Omar Khan, Electronic Iraq (24 February 2005)

Like Dahr's Dispatches, Alternative Radio is a news medium sustained solely by the support of individuals.

********

Scott Ritter Says U.S. Plans June Attack On Iran
Mark Jensen , United for Peace of Pierce County (21 February 2005)

[Tigress DEM]

3. Reporters Without Borders - 21st Journalist Kidnapping since 3/03

http://electroniciraq.net/news/1885.shtml

New wave of kidnappings increases dangers for journalists in Iraq Report, RSF, 21 February 2005 http://www.rsf.org

<snip>
Reporters Without Borders voiced alarm today about a new wave of kidnappings in Iraq after Raeda Wazzan, a presenter with the regional public TV station Iraqiya, was kidnapped yesterday in Mosul, 390 km north of Baghdad, probably with her 10-year-old son.

"With four journalists abducted in less than two weeks and one abortive kidnapping attempt, it is becoming increasingly difficult for both Iraqi and foreign journalists to work in Iraq, especially when they try to report in the field," the press freedom organization said.

<snip>
Wazzan is the 21st journalist to be kidnapped in Iraq since the war began in March 2003. Four other journalists have gone missing.

[Tigress DEM]

4. Death threats force another journalist to leave...

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=12669
25 February 2005

<snip>
Death threats force another journalist to leave northeastern region

Reporters Without Borders voiced outrage again today that yet another Colombian journalist has been forced to stop work and flee to another part of the country after being repeatedly threatened. The latest victim is radio journalist Edwin Alberto Moreno Mojica, who had to flee the city of Tame in the northeastern department of Arauca after criticising the mayor

[Tigress DEM]

5. Election reform here and abroad!!

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=12671
25 February 2005 Reporters Without Borders

<snip>
Authorities harass independent media ahead of legislative elections

The government has been harassing the few independent media ahead of parliamentary elections on 27 February, apparently fearing a "tulip revolution", said Reporters Without Borders.

As thousands demonstrate against the exclusion of many opposition candidates, the authorities' constant blocks on press freedom look like a strategy to discredit the opposition and silence all dissident voices, the worldwide press freedom organisation said.

[Tigress DEM]

6. I was hoping people would give more examples of good media

Our independent media is doing such a great job and especially in the face of danger everywhere. It surprises me Nobody has responded at all.

[Gabi Hayes]

7. not surprising......lots of excellent threads get ignored

you should name this one the Robert Parry Memorial Thread

he's still out there reporting important events, as well as writing books....he's got one out now about Bush family relevance in politics since about poppy's time as chair of DNC, or whatever, ca the Nixon resignation.

He was fired from both the AP and Newsweek for refusing to give up on Iran Contra; indeed, he's the one who dug Ollie North out of his rathole at the NSC and introduced him to America

He's been also written Lost History, October Surprise (proven right over the years, but completely ignored: can you spell MAJOR TREASON?), Fooling America (one of the first critiques of the herd mentality in MSM....early 90s)

I could go on, but he's one of the shining examples of what the media SHOULD be, but most likely never will, except in sub rosa fashion.

Until they finally close off the web, your news is here, and almost nowhere else, which is fine----for now.

great thread, btw....nominated

[Tigress DEM]

8. Thanks! Robert Parry sounds awesome! & for the nom

My hope is to get enough REAL news together to be a stark contrast to FAUX News and start putting some side by side flyers out, get a booth at our local May Day event and put on a real demonstration against the lies we are being told by the media. Throw your FAUX TV away.

[WilliamPitt]

9. *waving arms*

This investigation is being run by TO reporter Steve Weissman. On this incredibly important issue, he deserves all the credit and all the support you can give him.