This Week: The Summer 2009 Nygaard Notes Pledge Drive continues!

Also This Week: Propaganda from Afghanistan; Reporting on War Crimes – A Series in Five Parts

"Quote" of the Week

Gaza: Another Self-Investigation, Another Innocent Verdict

Propaganda from Afghanistan: Reporting on War Crimes – A Series in Five Parts

Propaganda from Afghanistan Part 1: Denying the Problem

The Summer 2009 Nygaard Notes Pledge Drive continues!

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The series that starts in this issue of the Notes, on Propaganda from Afghanistan, points out how the people currently in charge of our news media do, in fact, "tell us what's important." But they do so mostly unconsciously, and in ways that are sometimes hard to see if we don't work at it pretty hard. When we do work at it, we often find that what we are told is "important" is often out of sync with what is important to US.

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Greetings,

This week marks Week #2 of the Summer 2009 Nygaard Notes Pledge Drive. It also marks Week #1 of a multi-part series on patterns of Propaganda as we see them playing out in Afghanistan. We constantly hear about "Taliban propaganda" and the battle to win "hearts and minds" in Afghanistan, but I still think it is hard for many of us to actually see that we are being subjected to propaganda—subtle and not-so-subtle—in every day's news reports, from virtually every source.

This week I start with a story about the Israeli military's investigation of itself in relation to alleged war crimes committed during its siege of the Gaza Strip in December and January. This is a carryover from a couple of pieces I did in NN #430 about some other self-investigations in the United States. The Gaza story is a good bridge to the series that starts this week. That series is composed of five parts, all of which,taken together, show a pattern of Propaganda that is surprisingly hard to see until one backs up and looks at the overall picture. Looking at that overall picture is what I hope to do with this series. I hope you'll find it useful, and I hope you let me know what you think as we go along.

By the way, I apologize for the long lag between the last issue of the Notes and this one. This research was very time-consuming. However, this week it's another double issue, and the Notes will come out weekly for a bit here, so it kind of balances out. Doesn't it?

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"Quote" of the Week

This week's "Quote" of the Week is actually some words that did not appear.

On July 6th Robert S. McNamara died. McNamara was a major figure in 20th-Century United States political life, and his obituary was prominent in the media. Having served as U.S. Secretary of Defense under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 to 1968, McNamara is remembered by most as the architect of the U.S. war against Vietnam. As the New York Times lengthy front-page obituary put it, that war "became his personal nightmare." Two reasons were given for characterizing it as such. One was in the headline: "Robert McNamara, Architect of Futile War, Dies." That is, as the article stated, there was an "American failure in Vietnam," which was understood to be not a war of Empire, but simply a "war that erupted in Southeast Asia." Remembering Vietnam as a "futile war" that simply "erupted" serves to paint the U.S. as a sort of victim of events beyond its control. Wow.

But the real of McNamara's "nightmare" was summarized very succinctly in the sixth paragraph, which read as follows:

"Half a million American soldiers went to war on his watch. More than 16,000 died; 42,000 more would fall in the seven years to come."

Other than the death of McNamara himself (and his wife) and an odd reference to Japanese deaths in World War II, this is the only reference to dying in the obituary. Estimates of Vietnamese killed in what USAmericans call the "Vietnam War" conducted by France and then the U.S. between 1954 and 1974 range from 1.5 million to 3 million or more.

There was no reference—not a single word—to the deaths of the millions of innocent civilians who happened to live in a land targeted by the most powerful military force in the history of the world. These are the words that did not appear in the obituary of the architect of the war that caused those deaths.

Gaza: Another Self-Investigation, Another Innocent Verdict

I last talked about the phenomenon of self-investigations in Nygaard Notes #430, when I left off with a report on the U.S. military's investigation of itself in regard to the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. As expected, the Pentagon found itself innocent. That report came out on February 20th of this year. It was a scant two months later, on April 23rd, that the Israeli military released a report on its own investigation of itself, this one in regard to its actions during its siege of the Gaza Strip this past December and January.

I can't imagine it will surprise anyone to learn that the Israeli military (known as the IDF, or Israeli Defense Forces) found itself innocent of any wrongdoing. Upon the release of the report, Maj. Gen. Dan Harel, the Israeli military's deputy chief of staff, said—on the record!— that there was not "a single case of an Israeli soldier deliberately hurting innocent Palestinian civilians, whether from the land, air or sea."

I suppose one could quibble in this context about the definition of "deliberately," but many reports suggest that the IDF attacked in many cases with what appeared to be an intent to kill civilians. Such as an Associated Press report on June 9th that reported on "a Bedouin man who told the investigators how he watched Israeli soldiers shoot his mother and sister dead as they fled their home waving white flags." The AP also reported on "the Samouni family, whose members say they took refuge on soldiers' orders in a house that was then shelled, killing 21 people." Israel denies all of these, and many other, reports by eyewitnesses and victims.

Still, for the record, I will offer here a short list of investigations called for or carried out by groups other than the accused, with varying degrees of independence. We'll start with those reported in the corporate press in the U.S.

The Israeli siege began on December 27th, and within a couple of weeks we began to see headlines like "UN Rights Chief Wants Investigation of Gaza Abuses." That Jan 9th Associated Press article began, "The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights called Friday for an independent war crimes investigation in Gaza after reports that Israeli forces shelled a house full of Palestinian civilians, killing 30 people."

Less than a week after that Amnesty International issued a statement headed "Growing Calls for Investigations and Accountability in Gaza Conflict." In it, AI cited "evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity" by "all parties", specifically noting that "The Israeli army's attacks are often disproportionate and have killed hundreds of unarmed civilians. Attacks are also directed at civilians and civilian buildings."

The McClatchy-Tribune Information Services story from the same day reported from Jerusalem that "Nine Israeli human-rights groups called Wednesday for an investigation to determine whether the Israeli army had committed war crimes in Gaza, saying that the military had made ‘wanton use of lethal force which has to date caused the deaths of hundreds of uninvolved persons and destroyed infrastructure and property on an enormous scale.'"

Inter Press Service on February 3rd reported that "The International Criminal Court in The Hague announced a preliminary investigation Tuesday into whether Israel committed war crimes during the recent Gaza war." The IPS added that "the ICC investigation comes at a time of heightened debate over the legality of Israel's Gaza campaign under international law." As of June, no investigation had been carried out.

March 25th brought the release of a report by Human Rights Watch entitled "Rain of Fire: Israel's Unlawful Use of White Phosphorus in Gaza." That report stated that "the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) repeatedly exploded white phosphorus munitions in the air over populated areas, killing and injuring civilians, and damaging civilian structures, including a school, a market, a humanitarian aid warehouse and a hospital..." HRW concluded that the use of white phosphorus munitions was "neither incidental nor accidental" and thus "violated international humanitarian law." No reports on this study appeared in the U.S. media.

On April 3rd it was announced by the United Nations Human Rights Council that "The former chief prosecutor of two United Nations criminal tribunals, Richard J. Goldstone, will lead an investigation into violations of human rights and international law during the recent conflict in the Gaza Strip..."

Two weeks later Inter Press Service reported that Israeli government "officials said Wednesday that Israel does not intend to cooperate with the upcoming United Nations investigation into whether Israel and Hamas both committed war crimes during the recent Gaza war.

A month after that the Associated Press told us that "A U.N. investigation into possible war crimes in Israel and Gaza will go ahead with or without Israel's cooperation, the chief investigator said." And go ahead it did, and the Associated Press duly reported on June 9th that "Israel has refused to cooperate, depriving [the U.N.] team access to military sources and victims of Hamas rockets." Thus deprived of access to Israeli victims, subsequent reports have been tilted toward the testimony of the Palestinian victims of the Israeli assault, a tilt which will no doubt limit the impact of the final report, due in September. Whether or not this is the intent of Israeli authorities is a matter of speculation, but a limited impact would seem to be in the interests of those who are withholding their cooperation.

Those are just the reports that appeared in the mass media in the U.S. One report that was ignored in the U.S. was one by Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, which teamed up with the Palestinian Medical Relief Society to release on April 6 a detailed report, concluding in part that "The underlying meaning of the attack on the Gaza Strip, or at least its final consequence, appears to be one of creating terror without mercy to anyone." The group called for a "rigorous, transparent, and independent investigation" of the Gaza invasion.

So far, no such investigation has been carried out, to the best of my knowledge.

On January 16th the Times quoted Brig. Gen. Avi Ronzki, the Israeli military's chief rabbi, who said of the Israeli military operations in Gaza, "we need to use a lot of force like the Americans are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan."

The use of "a lot of force" in Afghanistan—and how it is reported in the country that deploys it—is the subject of the series that begins with the following essay.

Propaganda from Afghanistan: Reporting on War Crimes -- A Series in Five Parts

A lengthy story on the inside pages of the Washington Post of January 16th bore the headline "Resistance to U.S. Plan for Afghanistan; Troop Boost Complicated by Growing Taliban Influence, Anger Over Airstrikes and Civilian Deaths." In it, reporter Pamela Constable noted a pattern she had noticed in the U.S. response to reports of civilians killed by U.S. forces in Afghanistan: "U.S. and NATO officials tend to initially deny or minimize them, and then fail to publicize investigations or findings."

Constable briefly mentions in her story a report by the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission that "concluded that the Afghan public's welcoming attitude toward coalition forces as guests and protectors has significantly shifted to resentment and fear." That report—"From Hope to Fear: An Afghan Perspective on Operations of Pro-Government Forces in Afghanistan"—came out on December 23rd and was deserving of much attention. It got none in the United States.

Ms. Constable's noting of a pattern was reassuring to me, as I have been carrying out a little research to see how and what the people of the United States are told about the crimes that inevitably occur as the U.S. carries out its occupation of Afghanistan. I've been looking to see what patterns I could detect. I think Ms. Constable's report is accurate—about the denial and "failure to publicize" that is—but there's more to it than that. The pattern of Propaganda that I have identified consists of five parts. Confronted with claims or evidence of the killing of civilians or other crimes by U.S. forces, propagandists will tend to:

1. Deny. Tell reporters: Nobody was killed.

2. Quibble. Tell reporters: Some people were killed, but not as many as you think.

3. Obscure the Issue, Blame the Enemy. Tell reporters: There's so much propaganda out there that it's impossible to know what's going on. So trust us. (Closely related is the problem of Projection, or The Devil Made Me Do It!)

4. Promise an Investigation. Tell reporters: We'll look into it and get back to you to tell you what really happened.

5. Hope People Forget. Tell reporters: Nothing, and hope they don't ask (They usually don't.)

The series that begins below consists of a listing of and discussion about each of the five parts of this pattern of Propaganda. Although they generally occur in the order listed, a given response seen in the media may include elements of more than one. For instance, a U.S. official may promise to investigate (#4) while simultaneously dismissing the whole discussion as a result of enemy propaganda (#3).

Before the series begins, we need a short note on terminology: There are at least three terms for the U.S.-allied military forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan. One is "U.S." or "American." Another is "NATO," which refers to the European-U.S. military alliance that has had a strong role in Afghanistan. The third is "ISAF," or International Security Assistance Force," which is led by NATO and commanded by a U.S. general. Media reports tend to use the terms more-or-less interchangeably, and I will, too.

A term used in Afghanistan is "Pro-Government Forces," which refers to the Afghan government led by Hamid Karzai, and its allies, which include all of the groups I just mentioned. It's a little confusing, but keep in mind that the operation is widely, and accurately, perceived to be a U.S. operation, serving primarily U.S. interests. That explains why U.S. forces make up the overwhelming majority of ISAF forces and why Karzai is, as Patrick Cockburn reports in the London Independent, "a man seen by many Afghans as a puppet of the US." Finally, and notably, U.S. airpower is responsible for virtually all of the airstrikes that are the focus of this report.

A widely-shared understanding among reporters in Afghanistan (as was, and is, the case in Iraq) is that they really don't know what is going on. This has not stopped them from reporting, however, and the reporting that has resulted shows a a pattern of Propaganda that, intentionally or not—probably not—functions to serve U.S. Propaganda needs as it goes about its imperial business in that tragic country. That pattern, and how it serves power, is the focus of this series.

Propaganda from Afghanistan Part 1: Denying the Problem

The first response of U.S. officials to reports that U.S. forces have killed innocents is to deny that they did any such thing. The denial takes several forms: Direct Denial ("We only killed bad guys"), Denial by Omission, in which civilians are never mentioned at all, and the Denial of Innocence, in which we are told that whoever died probably deserved it.

Direct Denial: We Didn't Do It.

Direct Denial Example #1: One way of killing is via airstrikes by U.S. forces. A typical Associated Press (AP) article from April 13th about a NATO airstrike led off with these words: "A NATO operation killed six civilians Monday, including a woman and a young girl, in a mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan, villagers and officials said. But the military alliance said its force killed four to eight militants."

Direct Denial Example #2: Airstrikes are not the only way of killing people, of course. On June 10th the New York Times reported on a grenade attack in Eastern Afghanistan that "killed 2 Afghan civilians and wounded 56 people in a crowded market." Witnesses, including "dozens of the injured... said an American soldier threw the grenade into a crowd of some 100 Afghans gathered around a stalled American military vehicle." The head of the provincial council, Malavi Ezatallah, noted that "It was daylight. Everybody saw it."

The Times dutifully reported that "An American military spokesman in Kabul, Chief Petty Officer Brian Naranjo, strongly disputed that account, calling it ‘completely unfounded.'"

(A recent and related form of denial that we see in U.S. media is the phrase "suspected U.S. airstrike." This calls into question not only the killing of anybody, but the fact of any airstrike at all, or at least any "U.S. airstrike.")

Denial by Omission: Did You Say Something about Civilians?

A variation on the pattern of Direct Denial is Denial by Omission. In this variation, civilians are never mentioned at all. U.S. claims of killing only the "enemy" are simply reported with no apparent attempt to verify the reports, which are typically U.S. military "statements" or anonymous "officials."

The headline on a May 29th AP story read: "US: 35 Militants Killed, 13 Wounded in Afghanistan." The story led off saying "U.S.-led coalition forces killed 35 militants and wounded 13 others during a clash in southern Afghanistan... officials said Friday. The clash follows another battle in the eastern Paktika province early Thursday in which 34 militants, including Arabs and Pakistanis, were killed."

The Chinese news agency Xinhua reported that those killed in Paktika were "suspected insurgents," and Agence France Presse, while also quoting only the military, at least admitted that "It was impossible to independently confirm details of the clash." Xinhua and AFP are non-U.S. sources, of course. The typical story in the U.S. media is more like the AP story, where it simply reports the U.S. military statement and doesn't mention civilians.

Denial of Innocence: They (Probably) Deserved to Die.

In this variation it is reported that U.S. actions did indeed kill a bunch of people, but they were all most likely guilty and thus, presumably, deserved to die. It's important to note that, in the moral climate of the Global War On Terror (despite what you may have heard, it has not been called off by Obama), it is considered sufficient justification to note that the dead were "suspected" (by someone, unnamed) to be guilty enough to suffer a violent death at the hands of allied forces. No proof is needed.

For instance, the lead paragraph in an April 10th Associated Press story reads: "Afghan and U.S.-led coalition troops killed 27 suspected insurgents in two separate clashes in southern Afghanistan, the coalition said in a statement Friday." Who "suspected" them? Were there any witnesses? Neither question is addressed.

Other examples from recent weeks: "5 Suspected Militants Killed in Afghanistan" April 18 AP; "The U.S. military said nine suspected militants have been killed..." May 18, Voice of America.

Finally, here are two references from the same St. Paul Pioneer Press article on June 14: "A suspected U.S. missile strike killed five alleged militants..." And, later on, a "suspected strike Sunday hit three vehicles and killed five suspected militants..."

Journalism Rules Suspended

Having looked at how this denial works, we should also consider why it works. It relies on two things: the suspension of one of the most basic rules of journalism, and the insistence on trusting unreliable sources.

The basic rule of journalism of which I speak is verification. That is, when a reporter hears something, the rule says that it doesn't go into the newspaper until it is verified. A reporter or editor who repeatedly runs unverified, or "single-source" reports may get away with it if no one disputes that single source, or if the credibility of the single source used is absolutely unimpeachable. Neither are typically true in reporting from Afghanistan. In this case, unverified reports from a single dubious source—the U.S. military or "official" statements from one or another pro-government group—are the norm. (We'll get more information to assess their credibility as this series goes on.)

You may wonder if I can verify my statement that reporters report things that can't be verified. All I can say is that hey often admit that they do. Witness:

An April 10th Associated Press story reads: "Afghan and U.S.-led coalition troops killed 27 suspected insurgents in two separate clashes in southern Afghanistan, the coalition said in a statement Friday." The reporter went on to say that "It was impossible to independently verify either claim."

I mentioned above an April 13th AP story where villagers said six civilians were killed and NATO said they were "militants." The AP reporter elaborated: "Because of the remote and dangerous regions most operations happen in, it is almost impossible for journalists and human rights workers to verify villager claims." Or U.S. claims, the reporter did not add.

On April 21 the AP reported that "Journalists rarely can travel to the sites of battles to verify claims by villagers of civilian deaths." Or claims by the U.S. military of enemy deaths, the reporter did not add.

It was on June 29 that the AP reported from northwestern Pakistan that "Four militants died, said three intelligence officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information. It was not possible to independently verify the reports because journalists have little access to the dangerous region."

The next day, June 30th, the AP headlined their report "12 Militants Killed in Afghan Airstrike." Even though this was a tiny article, the AP noted that "the coalition...did not specify exactly how many militants were killed, and it was not immediately possible to get independent confirmation of the casualties." No matter: We'll report them anyway!

Next Week: "Propaganda from Afghanistan: Reporting on War Crimes" continues.