"UK Media and 100,000 Iraqi Civilian DeathsS"
Media Lens

Part 1
The Nicest Guys You Can Imagine

In their film, The Corporation, Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott and Joel Bakan describe how in the mid-1800s the corporation was declared a "fictitious person" in law and granted the same legal rights as real individuals. So what kind of 'person' is a corporation?

The filmmakers assessed the corporate 'personality' using diagnostic criteria of the World Health Organisation and standard diagnostic tools of psychiatrists and psychologists:
"The operational principles of the corporation give it a highly anti-social 'personality': It is self-interested, inherently amoral, callous and deceitful; it breaches social and legal standards to get its way; it does not suffer from guilt, yet it can mimic the human qualities of empathy, caring and altruism... Concluding this point-by-point analysis, a disturbing diagnosis is delivered: the institutional embodiment of laissez-faire capitalism fully meets the diagnostic criteria of a 'psychopath.'"

nolympics writes: see video of US Troops executing an injured Iraqi in a Falluja mosque here.

"Marines Self-Destruct"
Robert S. Finnegan, Southeast Asia News

There isn’t a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its ’finger men’ to point out enemies, its ‘muscle men’ to destroy enemies, its ‘brain guys’ to plan war preparations, and a ‘Big Boss, Supra-nationalistic Capitalism. It may seem odd for me a military man, to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to do so. I spent thirty-five years and four months in active service as a member of our country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps.

U.S. Says Troops Now Occupy Fallujah

Jim Krane, Associated Press

FALLUJAH, Iraq — U.S. military officials said Saturday that American
troops had now "occupied" the entire city of Fallujah and there were no
more major concentrations of insurgents still fighting after nearly a
week of intense urban combat.

A U.S. officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Fallujah was
"occupied but not subdued." Artillery and airstrikes also were halted
after nightfall to prevent mistaken attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces who
had taken up positions throughout the city.

"Four Times Falluja Equals?"

Mark LeVine, Left Turn

As American forces penetrate ever deeper and more destructively into the city of Falluja, each of the major players in this violent drama is engaged in a complex, constantly shifting calculus involving ways of turning events to their advantage. Of the many possible outcomes to the battle of Falluja, the four which seem most plausible follow, starting with the one that might be viewed most positively by the Bush administration. In sum, they offer us a grim picture of how the window of success has closed on American strategists in Iraq. Even the "best" outcomes below (from the administration's point of view) have lost the trappings of freedom and democracy that helped justify the invasion nineteen months ago.

Gideon Polya writes:

"Non-Reportage of Huge Iraqi Civilian Deaths"

Gideon Polya

Aside from the sustained lying, massive public deception, illegality, the horrendous "collateral" civilian casualties and immense US corporate benefit (nearly US$400 billion extra military expenditure by the US alone since 9/11), there is a further outrageous scandal associated with the post-9/11 US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, namely the NON-REPORTAGE of horrendous civilian casualties by mainstream global mass media.

SOME mainstream global media have FINALLY permitted their readers to glimpse the horrendous reality of Iraq civilian deaths thanks to a scientific article in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet — however the figure typically quoted of "100,000 over 18 months" is a MINIMUM ESTIMATE as outlined in estimates #1-4 below.

Anonymous Comrade writes:

Theo Van Gogh: His Views and After

Theo van Gogh, murdered in Amsterdam. Was he a hero, anti-Semite, misogynist, or Islamophobe? To find out, we have to look at his own words, translated for English speakers. What will be the consequences of this murder?

The murder of Dutch film maker and columnist Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam on 2 November 2004 in Amsterdam shocked many people. Not only in The Netherlands, but also abroad, reactions were, understandably, often emotional. Many of them described Van Gogh as a martyr for free speech. That leaves the question: free speech for himself and people of his views, or also for his targets?

Many reactions by people in, e.g., England, were by people who didn't know the writings of either Van Gogh or his critics first hand in Dutch. I will try in this article to help provide this information, necessary for a rational assessment.

"Fallujah and the Reality of War"

Rahul Mahajan, Empire Notes

The assault on Fallujah has started. It is being sold as liberation of the
people of Fallujah; it is being sold as a necessary step to implementing
"democracy" in Iraq. These are lies.

I was in Fallujah during the siege in April, and I want to paint for you a
word picture of what such an assault means.

"Ten Years Into the Zapatista Rebellion"

John Ross and Chris Arsenault

[John Ross has written several books on the Zapatista struggle including
Rebellion from the Roots and The War Against Oblivion. La Journada,
Mexico’s foremost independent daily, describes Ross as “the new John Reed
covering the new Mexican revolution”. Chris Arsenault is coordinator of Students Taking Action in Chiapas. He is
currently on a speaking tour talking about Chiapas ten years after the
uprising, and promoting participatory Zapatista economic structures. Arsenault sat
down with Ross at his home on the first floor of the Hotel Isabel in
Mexico City to talk about current realities in Zapatistas territory.]

It’s been ten years since the Zapatistas of Chiapas, Mexico, launched
their rebellion to create ‘a world where many worlds fit’. Once the
darlings of progressive movements around the world, the continuing
struggle and development of autonomous institutions in Chiapas is taking
place with little media fanfare.

"Iraq Occupation Focus"

Rob Eshelman

This IOF Newsletter is produced as a free service for all those opposed to the occupation. In order to strengthen our campaign, please make sure you sign up to receive the free newsletter automatically, go here.

Please also ask all those who share our opposition to the increasingly brutal US-UK occupation to do likewise.

Bush’s re-election and the… deaths of three UK soldiers in Iraq should be a signal for all those opposed to the occupation to renew and redouble their campaigning efforts. With the assault on Fallujah and Ramadi imminent, it’s time to escalate our activity. More than ever we need to focus on Iraq and step our demands for immediate, unilateral, and complete withdrawal of all UK forces from Iraq.

“I think they should just get them all out of there now, because if not we are going to lose a lot more like this,” said Craig Lowe, a serving soldier and the brother of one of the three British soldiers killed on Thursday by a suicide bomber near Baghdad. He added that his brother had blamed Bush for “starting a war over nothing, trying to get money and oil. That’s what we all thought.”

"Peace and the New Corporate Liberation Theology"

Arundhati Roy

[The 2004 Sydney Peace Prize lecture, delivered by Arundhati Roy, November 3, 2004, Seymour Theatre Centre, Sydney University.]

It's official now. The Sydney Peace Foundation is neck-deep in the business of gambling and calculated risk. Last year, very courageously, it chose Dr Hanan Ashrawi of Palestine for the Sydney Peace Prize. And, as if that were not enough, this year — of all the people in the world — it goes and chooses me!