Re: My Blind Spot

From: Amara Graps (amara@amara.com)
Date: Mon Mar 17 2003 - 12:18:52 MST

  • Next message: Brett Paatsch: "(> Iraq ) UK Attorney General Lays out legal basis for use of force."

    matus:
    >You support the unconditional removal of Bush for something he
    >*might* do but care not about Saddam who *has* done those things!

    I suggest to look at all sides of the story, gather information
    from as many sources as you can, and not to swallow, hook, line
    and sinker what you hear coming from the White House and from
    American media. It might help to put Iraq in perspective
    with what is occurring elsewhere in the world, too.

    Practicing a healthy skepticism especially with regards to what
    comes out of the mouths of politicians and especially when the
    alternative is some thousands/more precious lives gone might
    make it easier to look at oneself in the mirror in the morning.

    Amara

    ---------

    http://de.indymedia.org/2003/02/40341.shtml

    The legend of Saddam "gassing its own people" ?
    von Kaas - 04.02.2003 00:28

    " President Bush himself has cited Iraq's "gassing its own people,"
    specifically at Halabja A War Crime or an Act of War? "

    It was no surprise that President Bush, lacking smoking-gun evidence
    of Iraq's weapons programs, used his State of the Union address to
    re-emphasize the moral case for an invasion: "The dictator who is
    assembling the world's most dangerous weapons has already used them
    on whole villages, leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind
    or disfigured."

    The accusation that Iraq has used chemical weapons against its
    citizens is a familiar part of the debate. The piece of hard
    evidence most frequently brought up concerns the gassing of Iraqi
    Kurds at the town of Halabja in March 1988, near the end of the
    eight-year Iran-Iraq war. President Bush himself has cited Iraq's
    "gassing its own people," specifically at Halabja, as a reason to
    topple Saddam Hussein.

    But the truth is, all we know for certain is that Kurds were
    bombarded with poison gas that day at Halabja. We cannot say with
    any certainty that Iraqi chemical weapons killed the Kurds. This is
    not the only distortion in the Halabja story. "

    ---------

    http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,58056,00.html

    Media Watchdogs Caught Napping

    By Leander Kahney | Also by this reporter Page 1 of 1

    02:00 AM Mar. 17, 2003 PT

    In the run up to a conflict in Iraq, foreign news websites are
    seeing large volumes of traffic from America, as U.S. citizens
    increasingly seek news coverage about the coming war.

    "Given how timid most U.S. news organizations have been in
    challenging the White House position on Iraq, I'm not surprised if
    Americans are turning to foreign news services for a perspective on
    the conflict that goes beyond freedom fries," said Deborah Branscom,
    a Newsweek contributing editor, who keeps a weblog devoted to media
    issues.

    [...]

    Jon Dennis, Guardian Unlimited deputy news editor, said U.S. readers
    are visiting his site for the range of opinions it publishes, and to
    engage in vigorous debate. Media outlets in the United States, he
    said, are not presenting the issues critically.

    "As a journalist, I find it quite strange that there's not more
    criticism of the Bush administration in the American media," he
    said. "It's as though the whole U.S. is in shock (from Sept. 11).
    It's hard for (the media) to be dispassionate about it. It seems as
    though they're not thinking as clearly as they should be."

    Dennis charged that, unlike much of the American press, the Guardian
    site presents both pro- and anti-war positions. In addition, the
    Guardian encourages its readers to debate the issues, through the
    site's talk boards and interactive features like live interviews
    with various experts.

    The only debate in the U.S. media is on the Web, Dennis said.
    "Weblogs are doing all the work that the U.S. media did in the
    past," he said. "That's an interesting development."

    In fact, a lot of the Guardian's U.S. traffic is referred by
    weblogs, especially Matt Drudge's Drudge Report, said Nielsen's
    Goosey.

    "The new war in Iraq has made world news sources far more
    important," said Stephen Gilliard, who posts a lot of foreign news
    stories to the weblog at NetSlaves. "While not all news sources are
    reliable, there is such a gap between the way Americans see the
    world and the way other people do that it is invaluable to use these
    resources."

    There is also a growing tide of criticism of the U.S. media from
    members of the media, such as veteran CBS broadcaster Dan Rather.

    Rather recently complained to the BBC about the media's lack of
    access to government officials, and the growth of "Milatainment"
    reality shows on U.S. TV, including ABC's Profiles from the Front
    Line and VH1's Military Diaries.

    New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote, "(U.S. TV news) seems
    to be reporting about a different planet than the one covered by
    foreign media."

    That's not to say U.S. news outlets are devoid of criticism for
    leaders' handling of the conflict in Iraq. Krugman himself is a case
    in point, having published a column last week with an opening
    sentence stating that "America's leadership has lost touch with
    reality."

    Barb Palser, online media columnist for the American Journalism
    Review, believes that many visitors to foreign news sites are
    finding their way through links from U.S.-based publications. She
    cites the example of The Spokesman Review, a newspaper in Spokane,
    Washington, which provides links to outside news services, many of
    them overseas, as part of its Iraq coverage.

    Another source that may be pointing U.S. news junkies overseas,
    Palser said, is Google. A search on Google News for the terms "Iraq"
    and "war" turned up more than 54,000 links, with articles from
    Australian, British and Saudi Arabian news outlets topping the list.

    -- 
    ********************************************************************
    Amara Graps, PhD          email: amara@amara.com
    Computational Physics     vita:  ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt
    Multiplex Answers         URL:   http://www.amara.com/
    ********************************************************************
    "The real malady is fear of life, not of death."   -- Naguib Mahfouz
    


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