[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by AvgAmericanGirl: *
Question is....
Why on earth would G.I.'s target journalists when it brings the entire world opinion on their backside? Makes no sense whatsoever.
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Now that you are talking about "sense", does this whole war make ANY sense to you? Not to me. All the time Bush cried that Iraq has WMDs and is a big threat to US. War started, Baghdad in Control, almost all Iraq in control where are the WMDs?
There were "intelligence" reports as per Bush, and he "knew" that Iraq has 'em, but nowhere to find them now. Well, the major defeat facing, the direction of war changes to "Liberate Iraq" from Saddam's oppression. Great.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Ohioguy: *
"Now suddenly this Gilligan has doubts as soon as Americans come into Baghdad. Strange eah?"
Not strange at all. It was war, and there is an inevitable chaos. That is what I have been saying all along. Jounalists are quick to leave their objectivity behind when they think they personally have been wronged.
[/QUOTE]
Why that never happens to FOX News, CNN or/and NBC reporters?
Now that you are talking about "sense", does this whole war make ANY sense to you? Not to me. All the time Bush cried that Iraq has WMDs and is a big threat to US. War started, Baghdad in Control, almost all Iraq in control where are the WMDs?
There were "intelligence" reports as per Bush, and he "knew" that Iraq has 'em, but nowhere to find them now. Well, the major defeat facing, the direction of war changes to "Liberate Iraq" from Saddam's oppression. Great.
[/QUOTE]
Changez_like,
War would not have been my choice were I president. I have said that numerous times.
Doesn't mean I'm gona climb on the American Bashing bandwagon or that I think everything America does is devious.
Doesn't mean I'm gona root for American soldiers to die, or jump for joy if one of their planes is shot down, anymore than I would jump for joy for an Iraqi to die.
There were intelligence reports that suggest WMD's, just because all of the intelligence reports have not yet panned out doesn't mean that there aren't any WMD's. Could also mean that Saddam is slippery enough to move them. He is a pretty slippery fellow what with all his doubles etc.
**Baghdad hotel killings result of ‘criminal negligence’, says media watchdog **
A US army attack on the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad that killed two journalists was the result of “criminal negligence” and George Bush’s government was partly to blame, said international media watchdog Reporters Sans Frontieres. In a report published today, RSF called for the reopening of a US army inquiry into the shelling of the hotel, which was considered a media safe house and the base for most foreign journalists in the Iraqi capital during the Gulf war. The attack on April 8 left two journalists dead, Reuters cameraman Taras Protsyuk and Jose Couso of Spanish TV station Telecinco, and injured many others. It led to a media outcry at the time - Spanish journalists snubbed a visit by the foreign minister, Jack Straw, to Madrid shortly afterwards, downing cameras, notebooks and holding their heads in silence during a speech. The US at the time admitted it had opened fire on the hotel but said it had come under attack from snipers. But that account has been dismissed as “absurd” by journalists working out of the building. Sky News correspondent David Chater, who saw the tank direct its gun barrel at the hotel, said he was “staggered” it fired despite knowing it was the de facto press centre for all the western media in Baghdad.
RSF said today the real cause of the tragedy was that soldiers in the field were never told the hotel was full of journalists. “It is inconceivable that the massive presence of journalists at the hotel for three weeks prior to the shelling, which was known by any TV viewer and by the Pentagon itself, could have passed unnoticed,” said the watchdog. "Yet this presence was never mentioned to the troops in the field or marked on the maps used by artillery support soldiers. The question is whether this information was withheld deliberately, out of contempt or through negligence. “The US shelling of the hotel was not a deliberate attack on journalists and the media. It was the result of criminal negligence,” said RSF. The watchdog accused American authorities of initially lying about what happened, before exonerating the US army of any blame in an official statement four months later. To begin with Pentagon officials claimed the tank had fired in response to enemy fire. Later, however, they qualified this, saying the soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division who fired the fatal shell were seeking to “neutralise” an Iraqi “spotter”, reporting back to his side on US army movements. RSF said the US government must bear some of the responsibility for what happened, not just because it has authority over the army in the field, but also because leaders made false statements over the incident. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer warned the media to leave Baghdad before the start of the war, in effect creating two kinds of journalists - those who were embedded and those who were “ignored”, RSF said. The gunner who fired the shell, Sergeant Shawn Gibson and his immediate superior, Captain Philip Wolford, should not be held responsible, said RSF. They were simply acting as soldiers in a battle situation, and were not equipped with information that would have made them aware of the consequences of firing on the hotel, the media watchdog concluded. However, the headquarters of the 3rd Infantry commander, General Buford Blount, bore a “heavy responsibility”, said RSF, because it had access to information both from the Pentagon and from the media about the presence of journalists at the hotel.
A spokeswoman for Reuters, which had three other staff seriously hurt in the attack, said: "The main conclusions in this report are generally consistent with the finding of our own investigation which identified a breakdown in communications between military commanders and troops on the ground. “Since this attack, the safety of journalists in Iraq has not improved and we are taking every possible step, including actively engaging with the US military, to try and change this.” A second Reuters cameraman, Mazen Dana, was shot dead by US troops in Iraq in August 2003. It appears they mistook his camera for a grenade launcher. Reuters made a formal complaint to the US army this week about the arrest and treatment of three of its staff held after a helicopter crash near the town of Falluja. In May 2003 the US secretary of state, Colin Powell, said the American government regretted the attack but believed “truly it was an accident of war”. Mr Powell wrote to the Spanish government saying that the use of force was “justified”, and explained that soldiers had attacked in response to “hostile fire appearing to come from a location later identified as the Palestine Hotel”, although this version of event was later modified. Journalists on the scene were adamant no gunfire had come from the hotel before the US shell was fired. On the same day as the US attack on the Palestine Hotel, an American army aircraft fired two missiles at the Baghdad bureau of Arabic TV channel al-Jazeera, killing the station’s correspondent Tareq Ayoub. The British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, also expressed concern over the killing of journalists at the Palestine Hotel and called for a detailed explanation of their deaths.