| Number 277 | November 12, 2004 |
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This Week:
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Greetings, I promised last week that I would run the third installment of the “How Not To Get Depressed” series in this week’s edition. I lied. I will get to it soon, I promise. I’m really looking forward to it, too. Actually, if I hadn’t been listening to National Public Radio while I was making dinner on Wednesday, I would have indeed run Part 3 of that series this week. But, instead, I heard the report that is the focus of this week’s case study. I thought it sufficiently timely that I just had to bump the series for one more week. So, please read the case study and call your local peace and justice group to find out what you can do to help. Or visit United For Peace and Justice on the web at http://www.unitedforpeace.org/. All you new readers should know that Nygaard Notes is usually about one-half as this issue is. But the case study this week was so long (as case studies often are) that I had to make this a double issue. That happens sometimes. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all the pledges I have received already in response to the autumn edition of the Nygaard Notes Pledge Drive – THANK YOU! For those who have not yet contributed, I hope the two additional articles this week will get you to do the right thing. I really cannot do this without your contributions. Thanks! Please forgive any typos and editing errors this week. It’s a late-night edition – too tired to proofread. Hopefully – and sleepily – yours, Nygaard |
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This week’s “Quote” comes from St. Paul, and was attached to a $75.00 pledge of support for Nygaard Notes:
May this “Quote” during the Nygaard Notes Pledge Drive be as much of an inspiration to you as it was to me! |
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When you make a contribution to Nygaard Notes, what exactly is it that you are supporting? Let me begin with a few quotations: Quotation 1 is from Jay Rosen, chair of the Journalism School at New York University, writing in a November 3rd article called “Are We Headed for an Opposition Press?”
Quotation 2 comes from former Newsweek reporter Robert Parry, in an article “Too Little, Too Late,” also published on November 3, in consortiumnews.com:
Quotation 3 was written by my friend and ally Ricardo Levins Morales, in a recent essay called “Beyond The Election.” He said,
What Your Pledge Supports Nygaard Notes stands in opposition to the decades-long effort on the part of the so-called “right wing” in this country to shift the range of acceptable ideas in the public sphere to the “right.” I do think that this effort has been a big part of the reason we are where we are today, as the above Robert Parry quotation indicates. Nygaard Notes has little meaning in and of itself. But my intention and expectation is that Nygaard Notes – with your support – can be a small part of building “The Movement” of which Ricardo speaks. The exact vision of The New Movement will be decided by the participants, but I’m betting that it will be based, at least in part, on the values of Solidarity, Compassion, Justice, and Democracy which are the Nygaard Notes Core Values. The particular skills that Nygaard Notes brings to The New Movement include writing, thinking, and teaching. I spell out in a separate article this month the numerous other ways in which I offer these skills to the community. And I do these things in the spirit of popular education, which is based on the idea that true learning is a “do it together” process, and not simply a process of transferring information. In short, the point of my writing is not to show you how much I know; it’s to show you how much YOU know, and indicate how we can all use what we know to build new knowledge together. That’s how I write; that’s how I think. In summary, what you are supporting when you support Nygaard Notes is one piece of a broad and growing movement to re-shape the public discourse in this country, moving it away from what I have called the “Individualistic and Competitive” philosophy that seems to be dominant now, and toward a “Social and Cooperative” philosophy. I hope you share the goals and values of Nygaard Notes, and believe that projects like this have an important role to play in helping to build a democratic and life-affirming society. Your support makes the project possible. Please send in your pledge today!
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When you contribute money to Nygaard Notes, you may think that you are supporting nothing more than a worthy and interesting newsletter (and that is plenty, after all!). But there is more to it than that. While the Notes started out as simply a newsletter, it has now become a multi-faceted “project.” Here are some of its parts: * TEACHING: I have had the opportunity to teach classes in media at the community level, based on the expertise I have accumulated over the years as an activist, journalist, editor, and publisher. * WORKSHOPS: I am often invited by community-based political groups to come out and present workshops on media and critical thinking. For example, I have recently presented workshops on critical media analysis to a Veterans for Peace gathering, and a Free Media Fair put on by the Green Party. * PRESENTATIONS: I make presentations on a regular basis in local colleges and universities, helping students to interact more creatively and critically with the media. I have recently worked with students at the Minneapolis Community and Technical College, the University of Minnesota, and the College of Visual Arts in St. Paul. I expect to do more of this as time goes on. (By the way, if you are a member of a class, group, or institution that might find my presentations useful, please let me know – I do as many as time permits!) * ACTIVIST RESOURCE: I frequently field questions or requests for information from activists in the community who know that I read broadly and keep records that enable me to find information they need to support the projects in which they are engaged. * RADIO PRESENCE: I produce a brief weekly commentary that appears on KUOM Radio in the Twin Cities, as part of their weekly news broadcast. * The next thing on the horizon is to PUBLISH A BOOK. This is just in the talking stages, and I will need to come up with some extra money (that is, time) in order to do it. But I think it is more than likely that I will be able to do this before too long. I think it will have to do with what a friend recently called “The Philosophy of Social Policy.” What I am trying to do, in brief, is make myself available to the community as what might be called a “public intellectual.” By “public” I mean that I make every effort to put my work into the community where it can be used to affect change. By “intellectual” I simply mean that I arrange my life in such a way that I have time to think about things of importance to my community. Nygaard Notes is a multi-faceted project. Please pledge your support today! |
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During the past week the United States has been engaged in a massive attack on the Iraqi city of Fallujah. The reporting in the U.S. press has been so riddled with errors and misinterpretations and omissions that it’s almost worse than no reporting at all. In fact, when it comes to the human costs of this terrible demonstration of U.S. military might, it is no reporting at all. Since it is so hard to know where to begin, I will conduct here a short case study of only one news report, as it is so typical of the overall reporting. The example I will use is a November 10th report that appeared on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. The 4-minute report, in total, verbatim, appears in italics. My un-italicized comments are interspersed. The segment started with an introduction by host Robert Siegel: “The offensive in Fallujah is in its third day, and U.S. forces say they now control 70 percent of that Iraqi city. In a gun battle before dawn, troops took the City Hall compound. A Marine commander says insurgents are only operating in “small pockets, blind, moving through the city. An Iraqi general announced that troops had found what he called “hostage slaughterhouses” where foreign captives had been killed. He told reporters that those houses contained “video CDs showing the murders,” as well as documents belonging to the hostages.” Nygaard says: On the same day as this NPR report, the Associated Press (AP) quoted, in a story headlined “Many Insurgents Fled Fallujah Before U.S. Assault,” an anonymous “officer from the Army's 1st Cavalry Division.” He/she pointed out that the U.S. attack “was widely telegraphed by public statements and media reports,” with the result that “prominent rebel leaders and fighters are thought to have fled the city.” So, of course those who remain are leaderless (“blind”) and, typical of all guerrilla campaigns, the fighters always travel in “small pockets.” The “Embedded” Journalist Reports Next, co-host Michele Norris (MN) took over: “NPR’s Anne Garrels is embedded with one of the units engaged in Fallujah (the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment). Anne, I understand that you went into the city. Describe for us what you saw.” Nygaard says: The practice of “embedding” U.S. reporters with U.S. military units is now standard, and it’s a problem on many levels. For one, listen to Dr. Rita Kirk Whillock, chairwoman of the Division of Corporate Communications and Public Affairs at Southern Methodist University, who says, “If you're an embedded reporter and you have no gun, you develop friendships with [the U.S. troops]. How much criticism are you going to lob?” She called this an “ethical” problem. Anne Garrels: Well, some Marine units have made it to the center of Fallujah, where they are now controlling some key government buildings. Others have moved into certain neighborhoods, where they’re basing themselves in houses they’ve taken over. They’re then patrolling from there. But they don’t control the areas they’ve already passed through. Supply runs – those are the runs I’ve been on – bringing food, water, and ammunition into the city, have been coming under regular attack, with some quite fierce firefights. And the Marine companies I visited are also coming under continuous fire. Nygaard says: On the same day as Garrels’ report, the AP reported, referring to the same anonymous official quoted above, that “There is little evidence that shows guerrillas who fled the city are now mounting attacks on U.S. bases or supply lines, the official said. Instead, attacks have cropped up in Baghdad and elsewhere, he said.” So, “regular attacks,” and “continuous fire,” and “fierce firefights?” Or “little evidence” of attacks? You decide. In addition, listeners might wonder how the U.S. can “now control 70 percent of” Fallujah when they “don’t control the areas they’ve already passed through.” Norris did not ask about this obvious contradiction. Instead... “May Have Found Nerve Gas” MN: You say “continuous fire.” How stiff is the resistance? AG: Well, it’s not as stiff as the Marines anticipated. The battalion I’m with says it has moved much faster than it anticipated. They are able to move around certain areas. They’re going house to house, and they’ve located and destroyed a lot of weapons, in mosques, private houses, and small warehouses. They’ve also found A LOT of bombs [AG’s emphasis] and they’ve found bomb-making material. They located a truck today, for instance, that was full of fuses, things to make these deadly roadside bombs. Nygaard says: This echoes the line of the day. The AP (in a separate story from the one already cited) quoted one Lt. Col. Pete Newell, a battalion commander in the 1st Infantry Division in Fallujah, who said “I'm surprised how quickly (resistance) broke and how quickly they ran away, a force of foreign fighters who were supposed to fight to the death.” Apparently no one has told Mr. Newell, nor the Associated Press, nor Anne Garrels’ Marine sources, that this is how a guerrilla war works. It’s not about controlling territory; it’s about harassing the militarily-superior enemy, raising the costs of occupation, and provoking the enemy into actions that will alienate the population and drive them to support – or at least not betray – the guerrillas. As noted, long before the U.S. forces arrived, a large number of fighters, and surely all or most of the leadership, had left Fallujah, again in standard guerrilla fashion. They’ve located documents which indicate that the insurgents may well have been responsible for attacks on police stations and Iraqi National Guard. Names of people they were targeting or who they killed. And this evening one Marine unit believes it may have found a store of sarin nerve gas, though explosives experts, I have to say, have yet to arrive to inspect this. Nygaard says: When you hear a phrase like “believes it may have found,” more than likely you are hearing unadulterated propaganda which should never have been reported. In this case, NPR ran a 22-second report the next day (which they called an “update” rather than a “correction” or an “apology for spreading shameless propaganda”). Here is the entire report: “An update now on a story by NPR’s Anne Garrels. She reported that Marines in Fallujah had discovered several packages with English-language markings suggesting they contained the deadly nerve gas sarin. Specialists were called in to examine the packages, and today Garrels reports that what was actually found were testing kits used to determine whether sarin gas is present.” Note that the “update” took the liberty of editing the original report, which said nothing about “markings suggesting.” This is bad journalism. “No Longer an ABSOLUTE Safe Haven” MN: Anne, if the resistance was not as stiff as anticipated, might that suggest that a large number of insurgents had left Fallujah before the offensive was launched? AG: Absolutely. Officers are now saying that MANY of the insurgents most probably left. And certainly there is no indication of many of the foreigners they were looking for, including Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The Fallujah offensive alone will not end the insurgency. That’s what many officers are saying. They do believe it will regroup and quite possibly infiltrate Fallujah after the fighting is over. But the Marines say they hope that Fallujah will no longer be an ABSOLUTE safe haven. It will require the Marines, though, to stay in the city for some time. Nygaard says: The missing idea here is the key one held by many, including many in the insurgency, no doubt. That is the idea that the U.S. attack will actually strengthen the insurgency due to the large numbers of civilians killed and the Marines staying in the city for “some time.” Two days later (November 12, as I write this) the lead headline in the NY Times reads, “As U.S. Presses Fallujah Fight, Insurgents Strike Other Cities.” The article states the “insurgent leaders” that fled Fallujah “could be organizing the counteroffensive now unfolding across the country.” As the theory of guerrilla warfare would predict. “Almost Completely Deserted” MN: There were civilians who had fled the city. Some had stayed behind. Do you know anything about civilian casualties? AG: Well, I’ve been traveling around the north of Fallujah, and I have seen only a couple of civilian casualties, who were then treated by the Marines. And the military has not issued any civilian casualty figures at all. The city, frankly, appears to be almost completely deserted, except for the fighters. Shops are shuttered. The houses into which the Marines have moved have been empty. It’s even hard to find insurgents. Or, at least, to see them. You see the flashes of fire, but they’re sort of an invisible enemy for the Marines. I’ve only spoken to a few Marines who have actually – it’s only in about a dozen instances – where they’ve actually shot, or shot at, someone they’ve seen. Nygaard says: Truly remarkable, this last paragraph. Garrels reports only what she saw, while admitting that even the Marines with whom she is “embedded” rarely “see” anybody at all. (Remember, also, Garrels’ comment that supply runs “are the runs I’ve been on.” These runs, presumably, are supplying U.S. troops, and are not likely to go near the targets, which may or may not be civilians.) Also, Garrels’ claim that the city being “almost completely deserted” is absurd. As the Australian ABC network reported on November 10th, “Although much of the city's civilian population had fled [before the U.S. attacked], tens of thousands stayed behind and there's grave concern among aid agencies that civilian casualties could be extremely high.” So why didn’t Garrels see them? Well, as was reported two days earlier, “Under the law, all traffic and men between the ages of 15 and 55 were banned from the streets of Fallujah and surrounding areas 24 hours a day.” In addition, what sort of humanitarian crisis was created by the exodus of 150-200,000 refugees fleeing the U.S. assault? Garrels didn’t mention this issue at all. Let’s talk about civilians for a moment. The issue of civilian casualties is crucial, and not only in humanitarian terms. On November 9th, the New York Times quoted U.S. Col. Craig Tucker, saying of the Fallujah fighters, “They'll try to pull us into the city. They'll win if it's bloody; we'll win if we minimize civilian casualties.” The risk of being seen as “not winning” is a large part of the reason why the U.S. military neither tracks nor reports any civilian casualties that result from its actions. Despite almost all U.S. reporters being “embedded” (As Phil Bennett, foreign editor of The Washington Post, points out “That is the only way to do it.”), there are still some foreign reporters in Iraq, and they might talk to non-U.S. sources about dead people. But the U.S. has thought of that, as the following indicates. The Propaganda Hospital On the first day of U.S. ground operations, the Associated Press reported, “U.S. forces stormed into the western outskirts of Fallujah early Monday, seizing the main city hospital . . .” Why take a hospital? Well, the Associated Press cites “a senior American officer” saying “It's a center of propaganda.” That’s because the hospital apparently had a habit of reporting how many dead and wounded people had been coming there. Hospitals tend to do this sort of thing, but this one won’t, at least not while the Americans control it. So you won’t hear it in this country – from NPR or anybody else – but the U.S. operation is killing innocent people, and plenty of them. On November 10th, the United Nations Integrated Regional Information Networks reported that “Twenty doctors, along with dozens of Iraqis, were killed by a U.S. air strike on a government clinic on Tuesday in the centre of Fallujah...” Two days before the “ground operations” began, the BBC of London ran a story headlined “U.S. Strikes Raze Falluja Hospital,” which told us that “A hospital has been razed to the ground in one of the heaviest US air raids in the Iraqi city of Falluja. . . The air strikes reduced the Nazzal hospital, run by a Saudi Arabian Islamic charity, to rubble.” Who knows how many people were in the hospital? There are many more reports in the international press, almost none of which, unfortunately, have been reported in this country. That was the end of Garrels’ report on National Public Radio. This story lasted for a little over four minutes, which is a long time by radio standards. I think it’s fair to say that the main impressions from the NPR report are that: the U.S. controls 70 percent of the city; the resistance is weak and disorganized (although they may have deadly nerve gas – WMD’s, you know!); there have been few civilian casualties – few civilians, in fact; and there will likely be less terrorism as a result of the resolute U.S. action. Each of these impressions is, at best, highly debatable, with a couple being flat wrong. I don’t mean to single out National Public Radio. On the contrary, this report is all too typical for the mainstream press in the U.S. All of the refutations and missing pieces I supplied above came from English-language media mostly – but not entirely – from outside the U.S. All of it is readily available to NPR, or any other news organization. If you have ever attempted to extinguish a fire by applying gasoline, you understand what to expect as the U.S. continues to use military force to resolve what is fundamentally a political and moral problem. And when the U.S. administration approaches the Congress for billions of additional dollars – as it soon will – for more fuel to add to this fire, the only people in the world who will consider the request reasonable will the be the readers of the mainstream U.S. press and those who feed them the propaganda they so willingly publish. |