Actually, go back and read the article. Unless we are to believe that the soldiers told about a dozen
words in total to the reporter, he has very carefully chosen his quotations, and presented them
completely without context.
Were the dead killed by the soldiers because they were `shooting anything that moves' as the reporter alleges?
Were they caught in a crossfire? Were they being used as human shields? Were they shot by the other side, and
the soldiers could not stop that? Nothing the reporter says, including those quotes, provides evidence for one
of those possibilities as opposed to the others.
Which leads us back to the basic fact here -- that the reporter is breathlessly interpolating from very little
information, and presenting no evidence to back those interpolations.
All reporting is summarizing, and all summarizing is leaving out some events. You may have a very different
idea of which events are `important' than the reporter does. You may have a very different idea of what the
`big picture' is than the reporter (who is actually there) does. He is not `lying' simply because his summary
presents a big picture which is different than you wish it was.
If you want to allege that the media are presenting a `big picture' which they know to be false, well, you simply
haven't provided any evidence to back that claim.
Two notes further, otherwise, I think enough has been said in this thread:
First, the fact that inspectors didn't find anything with 58 people in a nation the side of California doesn't
`prove' anything. That's because inspectors aren't there to find anything that Mr. Hussein doesn't want found. Rather
than being there to play a cat-and-mouse game, they are there to observe Mr. Hussein's disarmament effort, and receive
his accounts of where the tens of thousands of tons of WMD materials he previously admitted to having have gone. Since
he refuses to say where they went, there is nothing for the inspectors to do.
Second, `so far', things have gone pretty darn well. In forty hours, coalition troops travelled as far as Patton did in four
months -- and Patton's advance is still, rightly, called the `race accross France'. These things take time, and two weeks
into a war is a poor time to start judging. It is unfortunate that the 24/7 news cycle blurs how short a time has actually passed...
That's your argument? That in the five years since Iraq kicked out the inspectors, they just threw up their hands
in dismay and unilaterally disarmed? C'mon, that's absurd. Iraq has still not accounted for any of the tens of thousands of tons of WMD
materials which they had when they kicked out inspectors the first time. UNSC resolution 1441 gave them until December 7, 2002
to do so, and they still didn't. But you have `proof' that they actually disposed of them all? Again, that's
your argument?
And David Kay? He's only the guy who headed the nuclear inspections in Iraq for several years -- and unlike Mr. El-Baradei, he doesn't
have the distinction of having declared North Korea nuke-free a month before they announced they had the bomb...
Here you can find links to plenty of press accounts demonstrating
the al-Qaeda Iraq connection. Simply waving your hands and throwing around insults because this connection does not support
the argument which you wish to make does not make those links go away.
Likewise, I'm sure that the UK, Ireland, Denmark, Spain, Australia, Portugal, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary, or Italy would be rather
surprised to see you characterize them as `third world nations' -- and you're the one calling people `ignorant'. But hey, if it's
really your argument that A coalition of fifty nations is `isolated' because it doesn't have the agreement of France, Germany, Angola,
and Cameroon, well...
And you say I'm pushing a propaganda line. Okaaay...
With due respect, if the fact that that article appears in ZMag (the same publication which alleged `millions' of civilian
casualties in Afghanistan) weren't enough to tip you off that that allegation is bogus, I'll clue you in: the Soviet Union
invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968, as any student could tell you, and thousands of people disappeared in the purges
that followed for years thereafter. And yet ZMag alleges that there were no consequences of criticizing the government in
Prague in the sixties and seventies? Take it from someone who has several friends there, this is an absurd claim, as even
a little research would confirm to you.
I know why ZMag is claiming this -- Chomsky's reputation for bizarre claims, including holocaust denial, is well established.
What I don't know is why you are repeating this claim.
So far, you produce two alleged `lies'. The first is the fact that parts of a document produced by the British government
and passed on by ours was plagiarized. Not `wrong', mind you. Not `unbacked by evidence'. Merely copied. While this is
clearly sloppiness on the part of Blair's government, it has precious little to do with Bush, and is not a `lie' in any
case.
Likewise, although the intelligence leading to the assertion that Iraq had already obtained uranium from South Africa turned
out to be bad -- something we immediately pointed out when it became clear -- this is hardly a `lie'. Saddam's attempts to
get uranium from a wide range of sources, including in Africa, are well documented, not least in the 12,000 page dossier which
he himself provided to the UN. More information on this can be found in the testimony
of David Kay, former head of the UN weapons inspection program in Iraq. If he did not get it in this case, we can be glad that
our information was bad -- but that does not make it `a lie'.
While the concept of `anticipatory self defense' is well-enshrined in international law, this is rather
beside the point in Iraq, where the ceasefire ending the first gulf war explicitly authorized military
action if Iraq did not comply with the UN resolutions demanding disarmament. Of course, you chose not
to respond to this point. Were the UN Security Council to issue a resolution withdrawing this authorization
(and withdrawing resolution 1441's explicit call for `serious consequences' if Iraq did not `immediately'
comply), then you could talk about this war going against the will of the UN. Until then, we are doing exactly
what the UN called for in seventeen resolutions over twelve years.
We are also, of course, acting to disarm a tyrant armed with WMD who has
well-documented ties to those who attacked us on September
11.
But let's go through the alleged `lies' you point to, anyway:
Aluminum tubes -- your source for the claim that the Bush administration lied is... Madeleine Albright?! That
doesn't even pass the laugh test, but if you want the other view, go read the testimony of
David Kay, former head of the nuclear inspections program in Iraq.
weeks not months -- even the article you point to notes that Cheney said `weeks, not months if no complications arise', and
of course the administration has never said that the war would be easy, or necessarily short. On the contrary, the administratin has repeatedly
said that `the only sure thing in war is sacrifice', and that the war will go on `as long as it takes'. On the other hand, since it has currently been
less than two weeks, you are mighty quick to assert the war will take `months' in any case.
`Iraq was actively trying to acquire uranium' -- again, go read Kay's testimony above, and go read Hans Blix's statements to the UN, which
confirmed that Iraq was indeed attempting to acquire uranium. No one, not even the UN is denying that Iraq has tried to get uranium. Initial reports
that they had gotten some from South Africa turned out to be incorrect, sure, but even Iraq's own declaration to the UN on December 7, 2002 acknowledges
their attempts to get uranium.
the coalition -- again, dozens of nations have quite vocally voiced their support for Operation Iraqi Freedom, not least eighteen of the nations
of Europe in open letters. Over two dozen have provided hard support, including the UK, Spain, Australia, the Netherlands, Denmark, Poland, Romania, Hungary,
Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, and many more. Dozens more have voiced support openly for the war. So what, exactly,
are you claiming is `a lie'? Eh?
the 51st division -- in the early days of the war, the entire senior leadership of the 51st surrendered to allied troops, and the rest of the
division disbanded. Since then, many troops from the division have re-appeared in fighting, often against their own will, propelled by Fedayeen officers
with guns to their heads and to the heads of their families. Even the Arab media are reporting
that many of those fighting are being forced to do so under threats to themselves and their families. So again, what are you claiming was `a lie'?
Umm Qasr -- likewise here, allied troops took control of this town very early, but later Fedayeen militiament dressed as civilians opened fire
at several points in the town. Although existing only in cut-off pockets, some of these units took a few days to clear out, primarily due to our own
concern to minimize harm to bystanders and to the town. What are you claiming is `a lie' about this?
Since all of these are stretches by any estimation, it seems pretty clear that you are looking to find ways to Blame America First, rather than looking
for the truth of the matter.
There are two parts of your post I'd like to respond to. First is the continuing question of the term `self-censorship'.
I continue to hold that this term remains meaningless, since what you see as `self-censorship' is no different a process
than what you do every time you open your mouth. To call this `censorship' is, let me repeat, an attempt to put
a negative spin on a positive fact (that we select what to say instead of babbling non-stop), and an insult to all those
around the world who are suffering under real censorship.
The second issue is that of `honesty' in the media. Basically, you are asserting here that the press is explicitly promoting a picture of events
different from what they believe to be reality. I just don't see this. What I do see is a wide range of
different publications with honest differences as to what the facts actually are,
each doing their best to present the facts as they see them.
First of all, since the bush administration is partaking of an illegal act by invading Iraq, utlimately whatever caused the blast, the responsibility still lies with them.
OK, wise guy, what is illegal about our actions? Eh? The UN charter explicitly includes the right to independent action in self defense, and the UN ceasefire which ended
the first gulf war explicitly stated that the hostilities were ended only on the condition of Hussein's compliance with resolutions to disarm.
If the UNSC were to pass a resolution stating that they no longer wish that to be the case, then we can talk about `illegal'. Until then, our action is perfectly legal (and
necessary to boot).
Second, since the bush administration has consistently lied about the status of what's happening,
Nonsense. Can you provide any example to back this claim? Any, at all?
I'm more apt to believe the pictures, the reports and the eyewitness accounts of people on the
ground than anything the bush administration says.
Uh-huh. And you have `eyewitness accounts'? The `witnesses' you have are those provided by the Iraqi ministry of information, which has been demonstrably lying since the
war began. Nice `evidence'. Not one of the reports you linked had any more `evidence' than that. Not one.
If `self-censor' were to mean anything at all, it would still be a term so vague as to be useless. Every time you open
your mouth, you choose what to say. To try to assign some negative connotation to this choice is downright absurd.
Likewise, a network by definition cannot report every event which occurs -- to do so would require it to broadcast twenty-four
hours a day on as many channels as it had reporters, and would still be open to accusations of selectivity, since those
reporters cannot be in every place at every time. So, networks select. To call this selection `censorship' is to trivilaize
the very real censorship which is carried out by repressive governments in many parts of the world -- but demonstrably
not here.
And again, it may have been an accidental killing by our side -- I'm not excluding that possibility, nor would I place blame for such a killing
on anyone but the Fedayeen fighters who have been dressing as and hiding behind civilians throughout this fight -- but the reporter has not shown that it was.
Instead, the reporter gives us quotes so out of context as to appear to support his position without being clear. Give us some more information. Did the
US forces `just shoot'? Were the civilians caught in a crossfire? Were they being directly used as human shields, as has happened a number of times in
this campaign? Were they in fact hit by US bullets? The reporter gives us none of this information in the form of evidence, only assertions of how it
was, based purely on breathless interpolation.
Sorry to disappoint you, but even Iraq claims that they use surface-to-air missiles over Baghdad, and many media
outlets, including in the Arab world have pointed out that they have placed such launchers in residential blocks
in the city itself (a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions, needless to say).
Given that some of these launchers were in the very district that was hit, and that the explosion in the marketplace
was far smaller than it would have been from one of our bombs, this seems at the least a likely explanation.
Go read your own links -- not one of them provides evidence that it was a US missile which landed in the marketplace,
though some of them spin pretty hard trying to sound that way.
Although it may have been, that is far from clear at this point, especially as the explosion was far smaller than any of
the ordinance we were using, and since the Iraqis have, in clear violation of the Geneva Conventions, been firing surface to
air missiles from residential blocks in exactly the area that was hit.
So again, what's your evidence? It's one thing to always Blame America First, but if you want to make a rational argument, you'll
need to either provide evidence, or admit that the jury is still very much out on this one.
On the contrary. Al Qaeda loses a major state sponsor, and is shown as ineffectual (c'mon -- bin Laden claimed
to have ten thousand suicide bombers lined up to act when the US entered Iraq, so far he's been able to produce one).
The Iraqi people, on the other hand, get freedom from a brutal tyrant, and a chance (which they may or may not take) to show
the people of the middle east that they can live in a democratic society, and that their rulers (who are the main sources of
a Qaeda funding) are the source of their misery.
And again, to call your choice of what you say `censorship' is an act of doublespeak
of which Orwell's MiniTrue would be proud indeed.
Of course you choose what you say based on your audience. If you say `I eat puppies' in polite company
you will be stared at. This doesn't mean that you have been `censored' from saying it. As long as you
make the choice, however, you have not been censored.
With due respect, the bias of the article is perfectly clear in its breathless tone and choice of language `shellshocked' troops
firing at `anything that moves'? Was the reporter not moving?
To paraphrase the punchline of an old joke, ``We've already settled what the bias of the article is. Now we're just haggling
about the facts.'' And facts, as opposed to breathless interpolations, are something the reporter provides precious few of.
Again, the reporter simply asserts, with no sourcing that US troops are `shooting anything that moves' and
are `shellshocked'. Given that the report is made from an area where there have been widespread incidences
of Fedayeen Saddam militias shooting into crowds of civilians trying to get to US troops or to get out of
the cities.
Nor does the reporter say that he is embedded with this unit, or has talked to anyone in it but two privates in
the scene -- where do you draw this conclusion from?
So again, this is assertion and clearly biased interpolation of facts the reporter doesn't have. You do the same
thing when you assert that they must have been killed by our troops if they were killed near them.
That you make these assertions the same day that the reporters embedded with British troops at Basrah shot video of Fedayeen
militiamen firing mortars and machine guns into crowds of civilians trying to reach the safety of allied lines,
and the same day that four American soldiers died in a murder-suicide bombing exactly because they do ask questions first, shoot later
only hilights the bald bias in those interpolations.
Umm, no. What you describe is not `censorship'. If I decide what to discuss, or what to use my money to put on TV, that's free speech --
the opposite of censorship. If the government tries to tell me what to choose to discuss, that would be censorship.
But more than that, in addition to not being `censorship', what you describe is entirely normal and entirely desirable.
The entire function of a reporter is to distill a day or several days worth of events in to a five-to-twenty
minute reportage. This necessarily involves choosing what to focus on. When I have time to read all of what congress
discussed in a given day, I go read the congressional record. In the far greater
number of cases where I do not have that time, I rely on a wide range of news sources to give me that information.
Don't like what a particular network chooses to focus on? Change the channel! This is your right, just as it is the right of a
broadcaster to focus on the news which he considers important.
Not sure if `a child of five could grasp that', but in a free society, not all important concepts can be reduced to things a child of five (or you, perhaps) can grasp.
Uh-huh. And given the dozens of reports,
even in the Middle Eastern media, of Iraqi Fedayeen militias firing on Iraqi civilians
who tried to leave cities, how do you know that these were shot by US Marines?
Eh? Did you go check the caliber of the bullets used? Or do you just always Blame America First?
At the risk of pointing out the obvious, `self-censor' is a contradiction of terms. Every time
you open your mouth, you choose what to say and what not to say. How is it `censorship' if you
make one choice instead of another?
I don't know. Why don't you ask the Iraqi General in charge of Air Defense who
just got sacked yesterday, apparently due to the high incidence of Iraqi anti-aircraft missiles
falling back on civilian areas? Or maybe you should ask the Iraqi Fedayeen fighters
who have been piling explosives at the base of buildings in Shiite neighborhoods?
No really -- do you have any evidence that these were US bombs?
<sarcasm>
Oh yes. You can tell that's a serious and accurate site from the article on the front page claiming they
have a working anti-gravity device.
</sarcasm>
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, go back and read the article. Unless we are to believe that the soldiers told about a dozen words in total to the reporter, he has very carefully chosen his quotations, and presented them completely without context.
Were the dead killed by the soldiers because they were `shooting anything that moves' as the reporter alleges? Were they caught in a crossfire? Were they being used as human shields? Were they shot by the other side, and the soldiers could not stop that? Nothing the reporter says, including those quotes, provides evidence for one of those possibilities as opposed to the others.
Which leads us back to the basic fact here -- that the reporter is breathlessly interpolating from very little information, and presenting no evidence to back those interpolations.
All reporting is summarizing, and all summarizing is leaving out some events. You may have a very different idea of which events are `important' than the reporter does. You may have a very different idea of what the `big picture' is than the reporter (who is actually there) does. He is not `lying' simply because his summary presents a big picture which is different than you wish it was.
If you want to allege that the media are presenting a `big picture' which they know to be false, well, you simply haven't provided any evidence to back that claim.
Two notes further, otherwise, I think enough has been said in this thread:
First, the fact that inspectors didn't find anything with 58 people in a nation the side of California doesn't `prove' anything. That's because inspectors aren't there to find anything that Mr. Hussein doesn't want found. Rather than being there to play a cat-and-mouse game, they are there to observe Mr. Hussein's disarmament effort, and receive his accounts of where the tens of thousands of tons of WMD materials he previously admitted to having have gone. Since he refuses to say where they went, there is nothing for the inspectors to do.
Second, `so far', things have gone pretty darn well. In forty hours, coalition troops travelled as far as Patton did in four months -- and Patton's advance is still, rightly, called the `race accross France'. These things take time, and two weeks into a war is a poor time to start judging. It is unfortunate that the 24/7 news cycle blurs how short a time has actually passed...
That's your argument? That in the five years since Iraq kicked out the inspectors, they just threw up their hands in dismay and unilaterally disarmed? C'mon, that's absurd. Iraq has still not accounted for any of the tens of thousands of tons of WMD materials which they had when they kicked out inspectors the first time. UNSC resolution 1441 gave them until December 7, 2002 to do so, and they still didn't. But you have `proof' that they actually disposed of them all? Again, that's your argument?
And David Kay? He's only the guy who headed the nuclear inspections in Iraq for several years -- and unlike Mr. El-Baradei, he doesn't have the distinction of having declared North Korea nuke-free a month before they announced they had the bomb...
Here you can find links to plenty of press accounts demonstrating the al-Qaeda Iraq connection. Simply waving your hands and throwing around insults because this connection does not support the argument which you wish to make does not make those links go away.
Likewise, I'm sure that the UK, Ireland, Denmark, Spain, Australia, Portugal, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary, or Italy would be rather surprised to see you characterize them as `third world nations' -- and you're the one calling people `ignorant'. But hey, if it's really your argument that A coalition of fifty nations is `isolated' because it doesn't have the agreement of France, Germany, Angola, and Cameroon, well...
And you say I'm pushing a propaganda line. Okaaay...
With due respect, if the fact that that article appears in ZMag (the same publication which alleged `millions' of civilian casualties in Afghanistan) weren't enough to tip you off that that allegation is bogus, I'll clue you in: the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968, as any student could tell you, and thousands of people disappeared in the purges that followed for years thereafter. And yet ZMag alleges that there were no consequences of criticizing the government in Prague in the sixties and seventies? Take it from someone who has several friends there, this is an absurd claim, as even a little research would confirm to you.
I know why ZMag is claiming this -- Chomsky's reputation for bizarre claims, including holocaust denial, is well established. What I don't know is why you are repeating this claim.
What about your claims here, actually?
So far, you produce two alleged `lies'. The first is the fact that parts of a document produced by the British government and passed on by ours was plagiarized. Not `wrong', mind you. Not `unbacked by evidence'. Merely copied. While this is clearly sloppiness on the part of Blair's government, it has precious little to do with Bush, and is not a `lie' in any case.
Likewise, although the intelligence leading to the assertion that Iraq had already obtained uranium from South Africa turned out to be bad -- something we immediately pointed out when it became clear -- this is hardly a `lie'. Saddam's attempts to get uranium from a wide range of sources, including in Africa, are well documented, not least in the 12,000 page dossier which he himself provided to the UN. More information on this can be found in the testimony of David Kay, former head of the UN weapons inspection program in Iraq. If he did not get it in this case, we can be glad that our information was bad -- but that does not make it `a lie'.
While the concept of `anticipatory self defense' is well-enshrined in international law, this is rather beside the point in Iraq, where the ceasefire ending the first gulf war explicitly authorized military action if Iraq did not comply with the UN resolutions demanding disarmament. Of course, you chose not to respond to this point. Were the UN Security Council to issue a resolution withdrawing this authorization (and withdrawing resolution 1441's explicit call for `serious consequences' if Iraq did not `immediately' comply), then you could talk about this war going against the will of the UN. Until then, we are doing exactly what the UN called for in seventeen resolutions over twelve years.
We are also, of course, acting to disarm a tyrant armed with WMD who has well-documented ties to those who attacked us on September 11.
But let's go through the alleged `lies' you point to, anyway:
- Aluminum tubes -- your source for the claim that the Bush administration lied is
... Madeleine Albright?! That
doesn't even pass the laugh test, but if you want the other view, go read the testimony of
David Kay, former head of the nuclear inspections program in Iraq.
- weeks not months -- even the article you point to notes that Cheney said `weeks, not months if no complications arise', and
of course the administration has never said that the war would be easy, or necessarily short. On the contrary, the administratin has repeatedly
said that `the only sure thing in war is sacrifice', and that the war will go on `as long as it takes'. On the other hand, since it has currently been
less than two weeks, you are mighty quick to assert the war will take `months' in any case.
- `Iraq was actively trying to acquire uranium' -- again, go read Kay's testimony above, and go read Hans Blix's statements to the UN, which
confirmed that Iraq was indeed attempting to acquire uranium. No one, not even the UN is denying that Iraq has tried to get uranium. Initial reports
that they had gotten some from South Africa turned out to be incorrect, sure, but even Iraq's own declaration to the UN on December 7, 2002 acknowledges
their attempts to get uranium.
- the coalition -- again, dozens of nations have quite vocally voiced their support for Operation Iraqi Freedom, not least eighteen of the nations
of Europe in open letters. Over two dozen have provided hard support, including the UK, Spain, Australia, the Netherlands, Denmark, Poland, Romania, Hungary,
Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, and many more. Dozens more have voiced support openly for the war. So what, exactly,
are you claiming is `a lie'? Eh?
- the 51st division -- in the early days of the war, the entire senior leadership of the 51st surrendered to allied troops, and the rest of the
division disbanded. Since then, many troops from the division have re-appeared in fighting, often against their own will, propelled by Fedayeen officers
with guns to their heads and to the heads of their families. Even the Arab media are reporting
that many of those fighting are being forced to do so under threats to themselves and their families. So again, what are you claiming was `a lie'?
- Umm Qasr -- likewise here, allied troops took control of this town very early, but later Fedayeen militiament dressed as civilians opened fire
at several points in the town. Although existing only in cut-off pockets, some of these units took a few days to clear out, primarily due to our own
concern to minimize harm to bystanders and to the town. What are you claiming is `a lie' about this?
Since all of these are stretches by any estimation, it seems pretty clear that you are looking to find ways to Blame America First, rather than looking for the truth of the matter.There are two parts of your post I'd like to respond to. First is the continuing question of the term `self-censorship'. I continue to hold that this term remains meaningless, since what you see as `self-censorship' is no different a process than what you do every time you open your mouth. To call this `censorship' is, let me repeat, an attempt to put a negative spin on a positive fact (that we select what to say instead of babbling non-stop), and an insult to all those around the world who are suffering under real censorship.
The second issue is that of `honesty' in the media. Basically, you are asserting here that the press is explicitly promoting a picture of events different from what they believe to be reality. I just don't see this. What I do see is a wide range of different publications with honest differences as to what the facts actually are, each doing their best to present the facts as they see them.
OK, let's go through what you're claiming here:
OK, wise guy, what is illegal about our actions? Eh? The UN charter explicitly includes the right to independent action in self defense, and the UN ceasefire which ended the first gulf war explicitly stated that the hostilities were ended only on the condition of Hussein's compliance with resolutions to disarm.If the UNSC were to pass a resolution stating that they no longer wish that to be the case, then we can talk about `illegal'. Until then, our action is perfectly legal (and necessary to boot).
Nonsense. Can you provide any example to back this claim? Any, at all? Uh-huh. And you have `eyewitness accounts'? The `witnesses' you have are those provided by the Iraqi ministry of information, which has been demonstrably lying since the war began. Nice `evidence'. Not one of the reports you linked had any more `evidence' than that. Not one.If `self-censor' were to mean anything at all, it would still be a term so vague as to be useless. Every time you open your mouth, you choose what to say. To try to assign some negative connotation to this choice is downright absurd.
Likewise, a network by definition cannot report every event which occurs -- to do so would require it to broadcast twenty-four hours a day on as many channels as it had reporters, and would still be open to accusations of selectivity, since those reporters cannot be in every place at every time. So, networks select. To call this selection `censorship' is to trivilaize the very real censorship which is carried out by repressive governments in many parts of the world -- but demonstrably not here.
And again, it may have been an accidental killing by our side -- I'm not excluding that possibility, nor would I place blame for such a killing on anyone but the Fedayeen fighters who have been dressing as and hiding behind civilians throughout this fight -- but the reporter has not shown that it was.
Instead, the reporter gives us quotes so out of context as to appear to support his position without being clear. Give us some more information. Did the US forces `just shoot'? Were the civilians caught in a crossfire? Were they being directly used as human shields, as has happened a number of times in this campaign? Were they in fact hit by US bullets? The reporter gives us none of this information in the form of evidence, only assertions of how it was, based purely on breathless interpolation.
Sorry to disappoint you, but even Iraq claims that they use surface-to-air missiles over Baghdad, and many media outlets, including in the Arab world have pointed out that they have placed such launchers in residential blocks in the city itself (a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions, needless to say).
Given that some of these launchers were in the very district that was hit, and that the explosion in the marketplace was far smaller than it would have been from one of our bombs, this seems at the least a likely explanation.
Go read your own links -- not one of them provides evidence that it was a US missile which landed in the marketplace, though some of them spin pretty hard trying to sound that way.
Although it may have been, that is far from clear at this point, especially as the explosion was far smaller than any of the ordinance we were using, and since the Iraqis have, in clear violation of the Geneva Conventions, been firing surface to air missiles from residential blocks in exactly the area that was hit.
So again, what's your evidence? It's one thing to always Blame America First, but if you want to make a rational argument, you'll need to either provide evidence, or admit that the jury is still very much out on this one.
On the contrary. Al Qaeda loses a major state sponsor, and is shown as ineffectual (c'mon -- bin Laden claimed to have ten thousand suicide bombers lined up to act when the US entered Iraq, so far he's been able to produce one).
The Iraqi people, on the other hand, get freedom from a brutal tyrant, and a chance (which they may or may not take) to show the people of the middle east that they can live in a democratic society, and that their rulers (who are the main sources of a Qaeda funding) are the source of their misery.
And you think this is good for al Qaeda? Okaay...
Umm, no. Summarizing events necessarily results in loss of detail.
Or are you suggesting that every time you take less than eight hours to answer the question `what did you do at work today' you are lying?
And again, to call your choice of what you say `censorship' is an act of doublespeak of which Orwell's MiniTrue would be proud indeed.
Of course you choose what you say based on your audience. If you say `I eat puppies' in polite company you will be stared at. This doesn't mean that you have been `censored' from saying it. As long as you make the choice, however, you have not been censored.
With due respect, the bias of the article is perfectly clear in its breathless tone and choice of language `shellshocked' troops firing at `anything that moves'? Was the reporter not moving?
To paraphrase the punchline of an old joke, ``We've already settled what the bias of the article is. Now we're just haggling about the facts.'' And facts, as opposed to breathless interpolations, are something the reporter provides precious few of.
Again, the reporter simply asserts, with no sourcing that US troops are `shooting anything that moves' and are `shellshocked'. Given that the report is made from an area where there have been widespread incidences of Fedayeen Saddam militias shooting into crowds of civilians trying to get to US troops or to get out of the cities.
Nor does the reporter say that he is embedded with this unit, or has talked to anyone in it but two privates in the scene -- where do you draw this conclusion from?
So again, this is assertion and clearly biased interpolation of facts the reporter doesn't have. You do the same thing when you assert that they must have been killed by our troops if they were killed near them.
That you make these assertions the same day that the reporters embedded with British troops at Basrah shot video of Fedayeen militiamen firing mortars and machine guns into crowds of civilians trying to reach the safety of allied lines, and the same day that four American soldiers died in a murder-suicide bombing exactly because they do ask questions first, shoot later only hilights the bald bias in those interpolations.
Umm, no. What you describe is not `censorship'. If I decide what to discuss, or what to use my money to put on TV, that's free speech -- the opposite of censorship. If the government tries to tell me what to choose to discuss, that would be censorship.
But more than that, in addition to not being `censorship', what you describe is entirely normal and entirely desirable. The entire function of a reporter is to distill a day or several days worth of events in to a five-to-twenty minute reportage. This necessarily involves choosing what to focus on. When I have time to read all of what congress discussed in a given day, I go read the congressional record. In the far greater number of cases where I do not have that time, I rely on a wide range of news sources to give me that information.
Don't like what a particular network chooses to focus on? Change the channel! This is your right, just as it is the right of a broadcaster to focus on the news which he considers important.
Not sure if `a child of five could grasp that', but in a free society, not all important concepts can be reduced to things a child of five (or you, perhaps) can grasp.
Hey, I'm not the one preemptively declaring that these civilians were killed by our side. Those who do wish to do so should provide evidence...
Uh-huh. And given the dozens of reports, even in the Middle Eastern media, of Iraqi Fedayeen militias firing on Iraqi civilians who tried to leave cities, how do you know that these were shot by US Marines?
Eh? Did you go check the caliber of the bullets used? Or do you just always Blame America First?
At the risk of pointing out the obvious, `self-censor' is a contradiction of terms. Every time you open your mouth, you choose what to say and what not to say. How is it `censorship' if you make one choice instead of another?
No, really, what do you mean?
AC already pretty much summed it up. I said `evidence', not `announcements of the Iraqi Ministry of Information'.
Do you have any?
I don't know. Why don't you ask the Iraqi General in charge of Air Defense who just got sacked yesterday, apparently due to the high incidence of Iraqi anti-aircraft missiles falling back on civilian areas? Or maybe you should ask the Iraqi Fedayeen fighters who have been piling explosives at the base of buildings in Shiite neighborhoods?
No really -- do you have any evidence that these were US bombs?
<sarcasm> Oh yes. You can tell that's a serious and accurate site from the article on the front page claiming they have a working anti-gravity device. </sarcasm>