In reporting the
November 2005 Haditha massacre, in which 24 Iraqi civilians were murdered by US
troops, Newsweek suggested that the scale of the tragedy "should not be
exaggerated". Why?
"America still fields what is arguably the most
disciplined, humane military force in history, a model of restraint compared
with ancient armies that wallowed in the spoils of war or even more-modern
armies that heedlessly killed civilians and prisoners." (Evan Thomas and Scott
Johnson, 'Probing Bloodbath,' Newsweek, June 12, 2006;
http://www.newsweek.com/id/52312/page/1)
The
truth was revealed in a single moment of unthinking honesty by a senior US Army
commander involved in planning the November 2004 Falluja offensive and convinced
of its necessity.
He visited the city afterward and declared:
"My God,
what are the folks who live here going to say when they see this?"
The
answer was provided by physician Mahammad J. Haded, director of an Iraqi refugee
centre, who was in Falluja during the US onslaught:
"The city is today
totally ruined. Falluja is our Dresden in Iraq... The population is full of
rage." (
http://www.countercurrents.org/iraq-awad100305.htm)
In
July 2005, the Independent commented on US actions in Iraq:
"The American
army's use of its massive fire-power is so unrestrained that all US military
operations are in reality the collective punishment of whole districts, towns
and cities." (Patrick Cockburn, 'We must avoid the terrorist trap,' The
Independent, July 11, 2005)
In April 2004, the Daily Telegraph reported
the disgust of senior British army commanders in Iraq with the "heavy-handed and
disproportionate" military tactics used by US forces, who view Iraqis "as
untermenschen. They are not concerned about the Iraqi loss of life... their
attitude toward the Iraqis is tragic, it is awful." (Sean Rayment, 'US tactics
condemned by British officers', Defence Correspondent, Daily Telegraph, April
11, 2004)
Burying The Bride
The anonymous commanders' comments
generalise to both British and American media reporting.
In July, Afghan
investigators in Nangarhar, Afghanistan, told the AFP news agency that they had
been shown the "bloodied clothes of women and children" killed in a July 6 US
air strike. The attack was reported to have killed 47 civilian members of a
wedding party, including 39 women and children, with nine wounded. The head of
the team,
Burhanullah Shinwari, deputy speaker of Afghanistan's senate, said:
"They were all civilians and had no links with Taliban or Al-Qaeda."
Around
ten people were reported still missing, believed buried under rubble. It is now
estimated that 52 people were killed - the same number that died in the London
suicide attacks of July 7, 2005. Another member of the team, Mohammad Asif
Shinwari, said there were only three men among the dead and the rest were women
and children.
Marc Herold of the University of New Hampshire reports that eight
of the victims were between 14 and 18 years of age.
The US military initially claimed only "militants" involved in mortar attacks
had been killed.
A separate investigation into a July 4 strike in the
northeastern province of Nuristan found that 17 civilians had been killed there.
The coalition claimed they had killed several militants who were fleeing after
attacking a base.
But an Afghan official again confirmed that the victims were
"all civilians." Afghan authorities said the dead included two doctors and two midwives who had
been attempting to leave the area to escape military operations.
Air
Force Times reports that allied warplanes are currently dropping a record number
of bombs on Afghanistan. For the first half of 2008, aircraft dropped 1,853
bombs - more than they released during all of 2006 and more than half of 2007's
total. But this only hints at the true extent of the slaughter. The figures do
not include cannon rounds shot by fighters or AC-130 gunships, Hellfire and
other small rockets launched by warplanes and drones, and assaults by
helicopters. Air Force Times comments:
"In close-quarter firefights where
friendly soldiers could be wounded if bombs are used, cannon fire and missiles
are often the preferred alternative." (Bruce Rolfsen, '
Afghanistan hit by record
number of bombs,' Air Force Times, July 18, 2008;)
The
response of the UK press to these latest atrocities is a case study in
censorship by omission.
On July 12, the Guardian devoted 307 words to the
attack on the wedding party. The killing of 39 women and children was not
considered front page news - the story was buried on page 30. (Mohammad Rafiq
Jalalabad, 'US air strike killed 47 civilians, says Afghan government,' The
Guardian, July 12, 2008)
On the same day, a 490-word article in the Times
focused on the fate of nine British troops injured when a US helicopter
accidentally targeted them in a "friendly fire" incident. Six of the nine
soldiers have since returned to duty, with three still receiving medical
treatment. While 447 words were devoted to this story, the article concluded
with two sentences totalling 43 words on the killing of the Afghan
civilians:
"However, 47 civilians, most of them women and children, were
killed when a US aircraft bombed a wedding party in eastern Afghanistan on
Sunday, an Afghan government investigation has concluded. The nine-man
investigation team found that only civilians were hit during the airstrike."
(Dominic Kennedy and Michael Evans, 'Friendly fire inquiry to investigate
messages from troops,' The Times, July 12, 2008)
At time of writing there
have been five mentions of the 47 deaths in UK national quality newspapers.
Media reports on Western victims of terrorist or insurgent attacks
typically provide detailed information on the names, backgrounds and personal
histories of the victims. When the first female British soldier, Sarah Bryant,
was killed in Afghanistan on June 17, the media poured forth details about her
life. The BBC website showed pictures of Bryant's wedding and devoted an article
to moving tributes from her husband, father, mother, commanding officer, unit
commander, friends and colleagues. A friend of the family described Bryant: "A
hundred per cent feminine, very pretty, very unassuming, a natural person, very
happy - the sort of person that when she was in a room, it lit up." (
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7463470.stm)
Bryant,
recall, was a combatant. The depth of focus changes for Iraqi and Afghan
non-combatant victims of US-UK violence. In a BBC online article, Martin
Patience reported the July 6 attack:
"Regional officials said the
casualties were attending a wedding party and that the bride had been killed."
(
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7502137.stm)
We
wrote to Patience (July 14), noting that he had reported that the bride had been
among the victims. We asked him why he had not mentioned that fully 39 of the
victims were women and children. He responded:
"I accept your point about
not mentioning women and children, although, in my defence, the story was linked
to the new story and I didn't necessarily want to repeat the details." (Email to
Media Lens, July 14)
We wrote back:
"Thanks for your response, I
appreciate it. But something doesn't add up. How often did the media provide us
with the personal details - name, gender, photo, education, work lives, loved
ones, aspirations - of the victims of the July 7 bomb attacks in London?
[
See
here]:
The July 6 atrocity in Afghanistan has been reported a tiny handful of times in
the press. Why would you be concerned about repeating the fact that almost all
of the victims were women and children?" (Email, July 14)
We received no
further reply but, to its credit, the BBC did subsequently publish an excellent
piece on the July 6 attack:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7504574.stm
Patience had earlier reported: "the latest claim of civilian casualties
puts yet more pressure on the Afghan authorities and international forces to get
it right when carrying out operations." (
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7492195.stm)
The
reference to the need for "international forces" to "get it right" might sound
like neutral language. But imagine if a journalist had commented in August 1990
that claims of civilian casualties had put "yet more pressure on Saddam Hussein
and the Iraqi forces to get it right when carrying out operations in Kuwait."
The bias suddenly becomes very clear.
Militants And
Mistakes
On July 12, Leonard Doyle of the Independent reported:
"The UN said last month that nearly 700 Afghan civilians had lost their
lives in Afghanistan this year, about two-thirds in attacks by militants and
about 255 in military operations." (Doyle, 'US to investigate air strike that
killed 47 Afghan civilians,' The Independent, July 12, 2008)
From this,
we were presumably to understand that the "militants" are not conducting
"military operations", and Afghan government/"coalition" forces conducting
"military operations" are not "militants".
The point being that
"militant" is a pejorative term used by journalists to suggest illegitimacy. In
June 1999, the BBC reported that "Kosovo Albanians have been welcoming the
return of armed KLA soldiers." (
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/369239.stm)
KLA insurgents fighting Serbian forces were supported by the West and were
regularly described as "soldiers" rather than "militants" or "insurgents". The
British media have similarly referred to the "Chechen resistance" fighting the
Russian army. Ironically, British and American journalists also commonly
referred to Afghan forces fighting the 1979-1989 Soviet occupation of
Afghanistan as "resistance fighters" and "freedom fighters" (
See our media
alert:.)
The use of such terms is of course inconceivable in US-UK reporting of the
current occupation.
On the rare occasions when US-UK atrocities are
discussed, they are invariably described as blunders rather than crimes. On July
13, Alastair Leithead commented on the BBC's evening news:
"It's these
mistakes that cost the US the support of the [Afghan] people."
In
September 2004, the BBC's Nicholas Witchell reported on BBC TV news from
Baghdad:
"As is so often the case in this conflict it's the Iraqi
civilian population which suffers the greatest loss of life - either as a result
of mistakes by the Americans, or, far more frequently, of course, as a result of
the bombs and the bullets of the insurgents." (Witchell, BBC1, 18:00 News,
September 30, 2004)
The bias could hardly be more transparent - we kill
civilians only by "mistake", our enemies do not. Noam Chomsky
comments:
"The more vulgar apologists for U.S. and Israeli crimes
solemnly explain that, while Arabs purposely kill people, the U.S. and Israel,
being democratic societies, do not intend to do so. Their killings are just
accidental ones, hence not at the level of moral depravity of their
adversaries." (Noam Chomsky, 'Terrorists wanted the world over.' February 26,
2008;
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174899)
As
Chomsky notes we can distinguish three categories of crimes: murder with intent,
accidental killing, and murder with foreknowledge but without specific intent.
When Israel's High Court authorised intense collective punishment of the people
of Gaza by depriving them of electricity, when Bill Clinton bombed the al-Shifa
pharmaceutical plant in 1998 in Sudan supplying half the country's drugs, and
when Bush and Blair invaded Iraq, the devastating consequences for civilians
were predictable, but ignored.
Certainly it is reprehensible to kill
with intent. But is it any better to kill without intent when the likely
consequences for our victims are so irrelevant that they do not even enter our
minds? The point being, as Chomsky writes, that Western elites really do appear
to regard Third World peoples "much as we do the ants we crush while walking
down a street. We are aware that it is likely to happen (if we bother to think
about it), but we do not intend to kill them because they are not worthy of such
consideration." (Ibid)
When we assemble the different pieces of the media
jigsaw puzzle, clear patterns emerge. Western victims are presented as real,
important people with names, families, hopes and dreams. Iraqi and Afghan
victims of British and American violence are anonymous, nameless. They are
depicted as distant shadowy figures without personalities, feelings or families.
The result is that Westerners are consistently humanised, while
non-Westerners are portrayed as lesser versions of humanity.
SUGGESTED ACTION
The goal of Media Lens is to promote
rationality, compassion and respect for others. If you do write to journalists,
we strongly urge you to maintain a polite, non-aggressive and non-abusive tone.
Write to Martin Patience
Email:
martin.patience@bbc.co.uk
Write
to Leonard Doyle
Email:
l.doyle@independent.co.uk
Please
send a copy of your emails to us
Email:
editor@medialens.org
Please do
NOT reply to the email address from which this media alert originated. Please
instead email us:
Email:
editor@medialens.org
This media
alert will shortly be
archived here:
The Media Lens book 'Guardians of Power: The Myth Of The Liberal Media'
by David Edwards and David Cromwell (Pluto Books, London) was published in 2006.
For details, including reviews, interviews and extracts, please click here:
http://www.medialens.org/bookshop/guardians_of_power.php
Please consider donating to Media Lens:
http://www.medialens.org/donate
Please visit the Media Lens website:
http://www.medialens.org
Opinion 
In his classic work,
Obedience to Authority, psychologist Stanley Milgram observed:
Subscribe to this comment's feed
