[R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] The Rules Of The Game

[Bill Totten]

Burma and the Making of Iraq's Ghost Towns

www.medialens.org (May 28 2008)


The psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan once commented on "how suavely we
simply ignore great bodies of experience, any clearly analysed instance
of which might present us with a very real necessity for change". {1}

The problem for professional journalists is that they are not free to
change. Or at least, they are not free to change +and+ flourish in their
chosen careers. Ex-CBS producer Richard Cohen explained the relationship
between media and politics:

"Everyone plays by the rules of the game if they want to stay in the
game". {2}

The rules include focusing intently on the crimes of others while
suavely ignoring comparable, or worse, crimes at home.

Consider the intense criticism heaped on the Burmese government for
failing to accept foreign add in the aftermath of cyclone Nargis. Gordon
Brown said:

"There are people suffering in Burma, there are children going without
food, there are people without shelter.

"It is utterly unacceptable that, when international aid is offered, the
regime will try to prevent that getting in.

"And I'm determined to work with the rest of the international community
to make sure that people in need of help, people who face a long and
terrible time ahead ..." {3}

And so on ... Foreign secretary, David Miliband, talked of "malign
neglect". French president Nicolas Sarkozy found Burmese government
inaction "utterly reprehensible". {4}


As ever, the British media rallied to the cause. In the Guardian (May
19), Kim Fletcher lambasted the Burmese generals for having done "a most
effective job in preventing the world from witnessing the wholly
ineffective way in which they appear to have dealt with the
devastation". {5}

An outraged May 18 Sunday Telegraph leader actually raised the
possibility of military action:

"The inevitable violation of Burmese airspace would certainly require
that the cargo planes be protected by fighters. It would not amount to
an invasion of the country. But it would mean the use of force to get
aid through to the people who so desperately need it." {6}

The first aid war! The Observer's Nick Cohen also cited with approval
the "call for foreign troops to escort aid workers into the stricken areas":

"As always, there are 1,001 good reasons for doing nothing. But I don't
think passivity is an option for the UN." {7}

Cohen's compassion for the Burmese people, we were to understand, made
inaction unthinkable.

And yet these are the same politicians and journalists who have shown
almost complete indifference to the suffering of the Iraqi people under
US-UK occupation. Cohen, for example, had plenty to say about the merits
of war in 2002 and early 2003; he has had almost nothing to say about
the catastrophic consequences since.

This is a recurring theme of right-wing commentary. Typically, great
compassion is expressed for the population of a nation targeted for
US-UK attack. As Western violence then wrecks havoc on that country, the
pundit simply moves on to express similar compassion for the next
target. Trails of right-wing tears track across the globe closely
followed by JDAMs, cluster bombs, and blood.

In the last year, Cohen has had essentially nothing to say about the
suffering of civilians in Iraq, beyond tiny mentions in passing. In
April, he wrote that "the United Nations estimated that in 2006, 35,000
died in the civil war in Iraq". But this was in the context of a
discussion of avoidable deaths in NHS hospitals. He described the
illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq as merely a "civil war". {8}

In a further mention, Cohen mocked the idea that America and Britain
were responsible for the violence, describing how "squaddies on the
ground [are] fighting totalitarian enemies in close combat". {9}

By contrast, General Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the British army,
said in September, 2007:

"By motivation ... our opponents are Iraqi nationalists, and are most
concerned with their own needs - the majority are not bad people". {10}


Leaving The Children to Die

On January 19 2007, 100 eminent British doctors wrote to the British
government pleading for emergency medical aid to be sent to an Iraqi
children's hospital - exactly the kind of assistance the government is
now insisting Burma should accept. The doctors' letter, titled, 'Iraq's
children must not be left to die', began:

"We are concerned that children are dying in Iraq for want of medical
treatment. Iraq, instead of being a country at the top of the league for
medicine, as it once was, now has conditions and mortality of a Third
World country. Sick or injured children, who could otherwise be treated
by simple means are left to die in hundreds because they do not have
access to basic medicines or other resources. Children who have lost
hands, feet and limbs are left without prostheses. Children with grave
psychological distress are left untreated." {11}

The letter added:

"Contrary to Article 50, 55, and 56 of the 1949 Geneva Convention IV
where the Occupying Power has a duty of ensuring the food and the
medical supplies of the population ... three years into the conflict,
Iraqi children are dying in large numbers due to lack of medical
supplies. (Babies are being ventilated with a plastic tube in their
noses and dying for want of a 95 pence oxygen mask, or lack of a phial
of vitamin K, or sterile needles, or even rubber surgical gloves.
Premature babies are forced three to an incubator 36 years old held
together with wire and elastoplast)."

In rejecting the request, Hilary Benn, then Britain's Secretary of State
for International Development, replied on January 29, 2007:

"Iraq has a democratically elected government that is responsible for
providing healthcare to its citizens. I agree that the quality of this
healthcare, the security of hospitals and the availability of medical
supplies is entirely inadequate. But I take issue with your assertion
that the deaths of children are a 'direct result of the actions or
inactions of the UK government'. It is the escalating sectarian violence
and political divisions that are the main obstacles to the Government of
Iraq delivering the services that the Iraqi people deserve."

Benn added:

"I regret that I am unable to meet you and your colleagues at this time,
but I can assure you that the issues you raise are of deep concern to
me, and that the UK is making every effort, along with international
partners, to support the Iraqis to improve the situation for their
citizens".

The journalists currently going blue in the face over Burmese
indifference did not give a damn. The doctors' plea was reported in two
brief articles in the Independent - no other media outlet covered the story.


Turning Cities Into Battlefields

Or consider the media response to the fate of Iraqis currently enduring
major US-led assaults. In the last month, UK national broadsheets have
published a total of six articles offering substantial reporting on the
fighting in Sadr City.

Sadr City and other major Shiite areas in Baghdad have been under siege
since late April; millions of people are struggling to survive. On May
1, Patrick Cockburn - an honourable exception to the journalistic norm -
reported in the Independent:

"Shia losses have been heavy. An Iraqi government spokesman for the
civilian side of Baghdad security operations said 925 people had been
killed and 2,605 wounded in Sadr City since the Prime Minister, Nouri
al-Maliki, began his offensive against the Sadrist movement on 25
April." {12}

On May 3, Agence France Presse (AFP) reported the aftermath of a US
attack involving a hospital in Sadr City that was "badly damaged" with a
fleet of ambulances destroyed:

"The hospital corridors were littered with glass shards, twisted metal
and hanging electrical wiring. Partitions in the wards had collapsed.
Huge concrete blocks placed to form a blast wall against explosions had
toppled onto parked vehicles." {13}

Hospital officials reported that at least 28 people had been injured.
The Iraqi Red Crescent Organisation told Time magazine this month that
hundreds of people had fled the fighting and oppressive curfews, which
have cut access to food, water and electricity. Mohammed Kamel Hassan, a
volunteer organiser for Red Crescent reported that up to one million
Sadr City residents needed emergency aid. Abu Haider al-Bahadili, a
Mahdi Army leader, told the Washington Post:

"Sadr City right now is like a city of ghosts. It has turned from a city
into a field of battle". {14}

On May 13, Cockburn reported that more than 1,000 people, "mostly
civilians", had been killed during the offensives. In one clash in Sadr
City, the US claimed it killed 28 Shia "militants" but hospital
officials said they had received 25 bodies, most of which were
civilians. {15}


Bush - "Stay The Course! Kill them!"

Earlier this month, the Independent reported revelations made by Lt Gen
Ricardo Sanchez, the US commander in Iraq in 2003-4. In his recently
published memoirs, Wiser in Battle (2008), Sanchez describes how Bush
personally ordered Shia leader Moqtadr al Sadr to be captured or killed.
During a video conference on April 7 2004, Bush said:

"The Mehdi Army is a hostile force. We can't allow one man [Sadr] to
change the course of the country. At the end of this campaign Sadr must
be gone. At a minimum he will be arrested. It is essential he be wiped
out." (Cockburn, ibid)

Bush emphasised the point:

"Stay strong! Stay the course! Kill them! Prevail! We are going to wipe
them out! We are not blinking!"

This is the ethic of extermination through maximum force that has
brought utter catastrophe to Iraq. The political novelist Gore Vidal
recently summed up the Bush regime:

"They - Cheney, Bush - they wanted the war. They're oilmen. They want a
war to get more oil. They're also extraordinarily stupid. These people
don't know anything about anything." {16}

General Sanchez's grim account was apparently of no interest - the
Independent was the sole newspaper to cover the story.

Indifference also defines media reporting of the assault on Mosul, one
of Iraq's great cities, also described by eyewitnesses as "a ghost
town". According to one rare press report (Cockburn, again), Mosul
"looks ruinous and under siege. Every alley way is blocked by barricades
and the only new building is in the form of concrete blast walls." {17}

We found two articles offering meaningful analysis of the disaster in
Mosul over the last month in the entire UK quality press.

It ought to be a thing of wonder that the British corporate press can
simultaneously rage against the crimes of the Burmese government while
having almost nothing to say about the ongoing US-UK devastation of
Iraq. And yet it feels entirely normal. American media analyst Edward
Herman explained:

"The human capacity for compartmentalisation of thought and suppression
of inconvenient facts always continues to break new ground in service to
evolving political demands". {18}


SUGGESTED ACTION

The goal of Media Lens is to promote rationality, compassion and respect
for others. If you do write to journalists, we strongly urge you to
maintain a polite, non-aggressive and non-abusive tone.

Write to Nick Cohen
Email: nick.cohen at observer.co.uk

Write to Alan Rusbridger
Email: alan.rusbridger at guardian.co.uk

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NOTES

{1} Quoted, Daniel Goleman, Vital Lies, Simple Truths - The Psychology
of Self-Deception (Bloomsbury, 1997), page 124

{2} Quoted, Daniel Schechter, The More You Watch, The Less You Know
(Seven Stories Press, 1997), page 39

{3} http://www.number- 10.gov.uk/output/Page15495.asp

{4} http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree /2008/may/14/burma.china

{5} http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008
/may/19/pressandpublishing.chinathemedia

{6} http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?
xml=/opinion/2008/05/18/dl1801.xml

{7} http://www.guardian.co.uk/ ommentisfree/2008/may/11/cyclonenargis.burma

{8} Cohen, 'Satirists once had real bite. Not any more', The Observer
(April 6 2008)

{9} Cohen, 'Our weasel words betray these decent Iraqis', The Observer
(October 7 2007)

{10} Richard Norton-Taylor, 'Embrace returning troops, pleads army
chief', The Guardian (September 22 2007)

{11} http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/
middle-east/the-letter-sick-or-injured-children-who-could-be-easily-treated-
are-left-to-die-in-hundreds- 432771.html

{12} http://www.independent.ie/world-
news/middle-east/us-military-death-toll-in-iraq-hits-7month-high-
1363667.html

{13} http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM 5it1rhG8GfKYP4YMgIiTDEUl26QwA

{14} http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2008/04/29/AR2008042900560.html

{15} http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/alsadr
-ceasefire-allows-troops-to-enter-shia-slum-827012.html

{16} http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/14/
legendary_author_gore_vidal_on_the

{17} http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/ghost-city-
mosul-braces-for-assault-on-last-bastion-of-alqaida-in-iraq- 826264.html

{18} http://www.zmag.org/zmag/viewArticle/17050


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