http://www.fantasylandmedia.org
News fashioned by the people in charge, the corporations and your government. Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine.
---------
"Binyam Mohamed will return to Britain suffering from a huge range of injuries after being beaten by US guards right up to the point of his departure from Guantánamo Bay, according to the first detailed accounts of his treatment inside the camp.
Mohamed will arrive back tomorrow in the UK, where he was a British resident between 1984 and 2002. During medical examinations last week, doctors discovered injuries and ailments resulting from apparently brutal treatment in detention.
Mohamed was found to be suffering from bruising, organ damage, stomach complaints, malnutrition, sores to feet and hands, severe damage to ligaments as well as profound emotional and psychological problems..."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/22/binyam-mohamed-injuries
--->The NY Times doesn't like to talk about prisoners being beaten in Guantanamo. Makes America look bad. So in its role as chief propaganda agent of the US, the story of Binyam Mohamed injuries did not get printed. Instead there was this: "A Pentagon report requested by President Obama on the conditions at the Guantánamo Bay detention center concluded that the prison complies with the humane-treatment requirements of the Geneva Conventions." How reassuring.
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"Obama is maintaining a hostile policy towards Hugo Chávez – which will cost the US friendships elsewhere in Latin America...
Obama started off with an unprovoked verbal assault on Venezuela. In an interview broadcast by the Spanish-language television station Univision on the Sunday before his inauguration, he accused Hugo Chávez of having 'impeded progress in the region' and 'exporting terrorist activities'.
These remarks were unusually hostile and threatening even by the previous administration's standards. They are also untrue and diametrically opposed to the way the rest of the region sees Venezuela. The charge that Venezuela is 'exporting terrorism' would not pass the laugh test among almost any government in Latin America.
José Miguel Insulza, the Chilean president of the Organisation of American States, was speaking for almost all the countries in the hemisphere when he told the US Congress last year that 'there is no evidence' and that no member country, including the US, had offered 'any such proof' that Venezuela supported terrorist groups.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/02/19-13
--->Hostile remarks towards Venezuela? In the never-never land of the NY Times, Obama's remarks didn't happen. According the NY Times, "The Obama administration so far has toned down its approach to dealing with Venezuela," despite the fact that Chavez's recent victory "creates a new foreign policy challenge for the Obama administration, strengthening a leader who has made a career of taunting and deriding the United States."
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"CARACAS, Venezuela — This country’s small Jewish community was already on edge when vandals painted anti-Semitic epithets on the walls of Jewish institutions and businesses last month after President Hugo Chávez cut ties with Israel and called on Jews here to support his description of Israel’s leaders as a 'government of assassins.'
But another episode, the break-in and desecration of a Sephardic synagogue on Jan. 31, intensified the uncertainty among Jews here. Officials are also putting pressure on Jewish leaders to retract criticism of Mr. Chávez regarding the attack and to accept the government’s explanation of it as a simple robbery by corrupt members of the intelligence and municipal police forces.
'The atmosphere of intimidation is terrifying,' said Rabbi Pynchas Brener, 77, a prominent Ashkenazi leader and an outspoken critic of Mr. Chávez’s government. 'We do not know when this pressure will start to ease up.'"
--->But this NY Times story about anti-Semitism raises more questions than answers. For example, it never covered this interesting bit of information carried by the Israel National News:
"Rabbi's Personal Bodyguard behind Caracas Synagogue Attack...A former security guard who was responsible for protecting a Caracas rabbi has been charged with using his knowledge to help stage the January 31 attack on the house of worship where the rabbi officiated.
Venezuelan minister Tareck el Aissami said that the man and one other guard cut electricity cables to the synagogue's electronic fence, allowing more than a dozen others, including eight policemen, to attack the synagogue without touching off the alarm system...
Aissami said it was clear that the attack was an inside job because there was no evidence of a break-in. He added that the vandals were trying to implicate the Chavez government several weeks after he broke off diplomatic relations with Israel to protest Operation 'Cast Lead' against Gaza terrorists."
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/SendMail.aspx?print=print&type=0&item=129876
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Fantasyland Media:
http://www.fantasylandmedia.org
News fashioned by the people in charge, the corporations and your government. Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine.
---------
"CHICAGO - The climate is heating up far faster than scientists had predicted, spurred by sharp increases in greenhouse gas emissions from developing countries like China and India, a top climate scientist said on Saturday.
'The consequence of that is we are basically looking now at a future climate that is beyond anything that we've considered seriously,' Chris Field, a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, told the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago.
Field said 'the actual trajectory of climate change is more serious' than any of the climate predictions in the IPCC's fourth assessment report called 'Climate Change 2007.'"
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/02/15-1
--->But the climate is not changing fast enough to warrant coverage in the NY Times. It didn't include this report to the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
---------
"THREE human rights groups have obtained documents that confirm US Department of Defense involvement in the CIA's 'ghost' detention program, and the existence of secret prisons at Bagram air base in Afghanistan and in Iraq.
The documents obtained as part of a long-running legal battle using freedom-of-information laws were released by the Department of Defense to Amnesty International USA, the Centre for Constitutional Rights and the Centre for Human Rights and Global Justice last week...
The groups said these documents confirm the existence of secret prisons at Bagram and in Iraq; affirm the Defense Department's cooperation with the CIA's 'ghost' detention program; and show one case where Defense sought to delay the release of Guantanamo prisoners who were scheduled to be sent home by a month and a half in order to avoid bad press."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/02/13-4
--->The NY Times didn't show any interest in reporting ghost detention centers run by the CIA. It ran a story about Bagram this week, but didn't cover these recently released documents confirming the existence of secret prisons.
---------
"WASHINGTON - Two-thirds of Americans favor investigating whether the George W. Bush administration overstepped legal boundaries in its 'war on terror,' according to a poll released Thursday by USA Today and Gallup.
A majority of respondents said a probe should be launched into allegations that the Bush team used torture to interrogate terror suspects.
Investigators also should look into the former president's program of wiretapping US citizens without first securing court-issued warrants, respondents said.
About four respondents in 10 polled by USA Today (38 percent) favored criminal investigations, while about a quarter (24 percent) said they want an investigation without criminal charges being filed."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-02-11-investigation-poll_N.htm
--->To the NY Times, such polls are counterproductive to business as usual. It did not report that a large majority of the public favors investigating the previous administration.
News fashioned by the people in charge, the corporations and your government. Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine.
---------
"CHICAGO - The climate is heating up far faster than scientists had predicted, spurred by sharp increases in greenhouse gas emissions from developing countries like China and India, a top climate scientist said on Saturday.
'The consequence of that is we are basically looking now at a future climate that is beyond anything that we've considered seriously,' Chris Field, a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, told the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago.
Field said 'the actual trajectory of climate change is more serious' than any of the climate predictions in the IPCC's fourth assessment report called 'Climate Change 2007.'"
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/02/15-1
--->But the climate is not changing fast enough to warrant coverage in the NY Times. It didn't include this report to the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
---------
"THREE human rights groups have obtained documents that confirm US Department of Defense involvement in the CIA's 'ghost' detention program, and the existence of secret prisons at Bagram air base in Afghanistan and in Iraq.
The documents obtained as part of a long-running legal battle using freedom-of-information laws were released by the Department of Defense to Amnesty International USA, the Centre for Constitutional Rights and the Centre for Human Rights and Global Justice last week...
The groups said these documents confirm the existence of secret prisons at Bagram and in Iraq; affirm the Defense Department's cooperation with the CIA's 'ghost' detention program; and show one case where Defense sought to delay the release of Guantanamo prisoners who were scheduled to be sent home by a month and a half in order to avoid bad press."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/02/13-4
--->The NY Times didn't show any interest in reporting ghost detention centers run by the CIA. It ran a story about Bagram this week, but didn't cover these recently released documents confirming the existence of secret prisons.
---------
"WASHINGTON - Two-thirds of Americans favor investigating whether the George W. Bush administration overstepped legal boundaries in its 'war on terror,' according to a poll released Thursday by USA Today and Gallup.
A majority of respondents said a probe should be launched into allegations that the Bush team used torture to interrogate terror suspects.
Investigators also should look into the former president's program of wiretapping US citizens without first securing court-issued warrants, respondents said.
About four respondents in 10 polled by USA Today (38 percent) favored criminal investigations, while about a quarter (24 percent) said they want an investigation without criminal charges being filed."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-02-11-investigation-poll_N.htm
--->To the NY Times, such polls are counterproductive to business as usual. It did not report that a large majority of the public favors investigating the previous administration.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Fantasyland Media:
http://www.fantasylandmedia.org
News fashioned by the people in charge, the corporations and your government. Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine.
---------
"No End In Sight To The Iraq 'Gamble'
Washington Post senior correspondent Thomas Ricks says the Iraq war is likely to last at least another five to 10 years. He has written a new book about General David Petraeus and the Iraq war called The Gamble."
-From Fresh Air, Feb 10, 2009
--->NPR's Fresh Air gives us plenty of stale talk about Iraq. First, there is no mention that the US might want to stay in Iraq because US oil companies now have control over the world's most lucrative oil fields. Secondly, Thomas Ricks states that the US must stay in Iraq to avoid a "bloodbath." Exactly the argument that kept us in Vietnam for so long. And the only bloodbath there was from US bombs and napalm. As long as the US covets Iraq's oil, the conflict will continue, and NPR will continue finding noble excuses for it.
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"A new FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting) study finds that leading newspapers have been putting political considerations ahead of humanitarian concerns in their editorials on human rights in Latin America.
The report, 'Human Rights Coverage Serving Washington's Needs,' finds that while Venezuela is by every measure a safer place than Colombia to live, vote, organize unions and political groups, speak out against the government or practice journalism, editorials at four influential newspapers have portrayed Venezuela's government as having a far worse human rights record than Colombia's...
Nine in 10 editorials about human rights in Venezuela presented a strictly negative view of the country's record, while a majority of the Colombia editorials presented either a mixed or wholly positive assessment...
The authors conclude that, 'rather than independently and critically assessing the Colombian and Venezuelan records, major corporate newspaper editors, to one degree or another, have subordinated crucial human rights questions to what they see as the U.S.'s interests in the region.'"
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/02/02-3
--->The FAIR report says it all. Newspapers like the Washington Post and the NY Times are simply propaganda arms of the US government when it comes to human rights reporting.
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"GAZA - Gaza's 1.5 million people are facing a food crisis as a result of the destruction of great areas of farmland during the Israeli invasion.
According to the World Food Programme, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation and Palestinian officials, between 35% and 60% of the agriculture industry has been wrecked by the three-week Israeli attack, which followed two years of economic siege.
Christine van Nieuwenhuyse, the World Food Programme's country director, said: 'We are hearing that 60% of the land in the north - where the farming was most intensive - may not be exploitable again. It looks to me like a disaster'...
'When we have given a food ration in Gaza, it was never a full ration but to complement the diet. Now it is going to be almost impossible for Gaza to produce the food it needs for the next six to eight months, assuming that the agriculture can be rehabilitated. We will give people a full ration.'"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/01/gaza-food-crisis
--->The NY Times doesn't do mass starvation when it is caused by Israel. It didn't report Nieuwenhuyse's comments.
News fashioned by the people in charge, the corporations and your government. Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine.
---------
"No End In Sight To The Iraq 'Gamble'
Washington Post senior correspondent Thomas Ricks says the Iraq war is likely to last at least another five to 10 years. He has written a new book about General David Petraeus and the Iraq war called The Gamble."
-From Fresh Air, Feb 10, 2009
--->NPR's Fresh Air gives us plenty of stale talk about Iraq. First, there is no mention that the US might want to stay in Iraq because US oil companies now have control over the world's most lucrative oil fields. Secondly, Thomas Ricks states that the US must stay in Iraq to avoid a "bloodbath." Exactly the argument that kept us in Vietnam for so long. And the only bloodbath there was from US bombs and napalm. As long as the US covets Iraq's oil, the conflict will continue, and NPR will continue finding noble excuses for it.
---------
"A new FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting) study finds that leading newspapers have been putting political considerations ahead of humanitarian concerns in their editorials on human rights in Latin America.
The report, 'Human Rights Coverage Serving Washington's Needs,' finds that while Venezuela is by every measure a safer place than Colombia to live, vote, organize unions and political groups, speak out against the government or practice journalism, editorials at four influential newspapers have portrayed Venezuela's government as having a far worse human rights record than Colombia's...
Nine in 10 editorials about human rights in Venezuela presented a strictly negative view of the country's record, while a majority of the Colombia editorials presented either a mixed or wholly positive assessment...
The authors conclude that, 'rather than independently and critically assessing the Colombian and Venezuelan records, major corporate newspaper editors, to one degree or another, have subordinated crucial human rights questions to what they see as the U.S.'s interests in the region.'"
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/02/02-3
--->The FAIR report says it all. Newspapers like the Washington Post and the NY Times are simply propaganda arms of the US government when it comes to human rights reporting.
---------
"GAZA - Gaza's 1.5 million people are facing a food crisis as a result of the destruction of great areas of farmland during the Israeli invasion.
According to the World Food Programme, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation and Palestinian officials, between 35% and 60% of the agriculture industry has been wrecked by the three-week Israeli attack, which followed two years of economic siege.
Christine van Nieuwenhuyse, the World Food Programme's country director, said: 'We are hearing that 60% of the land in the north - where the farming was most intensive - may not be exploitable again. It looks to me like a disaster'...
'When we have given a food ration in Gaza, it was never a full ration but to complement the diet. Now it is going to be almost impossible for Gaza to produce the food it needs for the next six to eight months, assuming that the agriculture can be rehabilitated. We will give people a full ration.'"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/01/gaza-food-crisis
--->The NY Times doesn't do mass starvation when it is caused by Israel. It didn't report Nieuwenhuyse's comments.
Thursday, February 05, 2009
Fantasyland Media:
http://www.fantasylandmedia.org
News fashioned by the people in charge, the corporations and your government. Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine.
---------
"Leaders in Davos line up to blame bonuses for collapse of trust.
The head of HSBC has blamed excessive pay for a collapse in trust in the financial sector, as executives lined up at the World Economic Forum in Davos to stress that the economic crisis would prompt curbs on boardroom rewards.
Stephen Green, HSBC's chairman, said there had been a 'huge and growing disparity between different levels of income,' and that one positive aspect of the current crisis was that the problem would now be addressed."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jan/31/davos-executive-salaries-hsbc
--->But to the NY Times, the leaders in Davos weren't blaming business executives for their excessive greed. They were just "buzzing about the growing controversy over Wall Street bonuses." The board of the NY Times is full of such greedy CEO's whose feelings might be hurt if their newspaper reported such things.
---------
"Besides F-16 fighter planes, the Israelis also used a wide array of U.S. weaponry, including Apache helicopters, M60 battle tanks, armoured personnel carriers and heavy artillery.
Frida Berrigan, a senior research associate with the Arms Trade Resource Centre at the World Policy Institute, points out that the bulk of Israel's current arsenal is composed of military equipment supplied under U.S. assistance programmes.
Israel, she said, has been supplied with 226 F-16 fighter planes and attack jets, more than 700 M60 battle tanks, 6,000 armoured personnel carriers and scores of transport planes, attack helicopters and utility and training aircraft, bombs and tactical missiles of all kinds."
http://www.australia.to/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4037%3Ahamas-fights-on-uneven-battlefield&Itemid=30
--->The NY Times, as expected, has done a very poor job letting Americans know of the breadth and sophistication of US arms shipments to Israel. In many ways, the US has both armed and funded the Israeli war crimes committed in Gaza.
---------
"There is evidence that Israel committed war crimes during its 22-day campaign in the Gaza Strip and there should be an independent inquiry, U.N. investigator Richard Falk said on Thursday.
The mental anguish of the civilians who suffered the assault is so great that the entire population of Gaza could be seen as casualties, said Falk, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Falk, speaking by phone from his home in California, said compelling evidence that Israel's actions in Gaza violated international humanitarian law required an independent investigation into whether they amounted to war crimes...
'To lock people into a war zone is something that evokes the worst kind of international memories of the Warsaw Ghetto, and sieges that occur unintentionally during a period of wartime,' Falk, who is Jewish, said, referring to the starvation and murder of Warsaw's Jews by Nazi Germany in World War Two."
http://uk.reuters.com/article/middleeastCrisis/idUKLM736083?sp=true
--->The NY Times doesn't do war crimes when it comes to Israel. Mr. Falk's comments were not covered, despite the fact that he is the UN Rights Envoy for Palestine.
News fashioned by the people in charge, the corporations and your government. Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine.
---------
"Leaders in Davos line up to blame bonuses for collapse of trust.
The head of HSBC has blamed excessive pay for a collapse in trust in the financial sector, as executives lined up at the World Economic Forum in Davos to stress that the economic crisis would prompt curbs on boardroom rewards.
Stephen Green, HSBC's chairman, said there had been a 'huge and growing disparity between different levels of income,' and that one positive aspect of the current crisis was that the problem would now be addressed."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jan/31/davos-executive-salaries-hsbc
--->But to the NY Times, the leaders in Davos weren't blaming business executives for their excessive greed. They were just "buzzing about the growing controversy over Wall Street bonuses." The board of the NY Times is full of such greedy CEO's whose feelings might be hurt if their newspaper reported such things.
---------
"Besides F-16 fighter planes, the Israelis also used a wide array of U.S. weaponry, including Apache helicopters, M60 battle tanks, armoured personnel carriers and heavy artillery.
Frida Berrigan, a senior research associate with the Arms Trade Resource Centre at the World Policy Institute, points out that the bulk of Israel's current arsenal is composed of military equipment supplied under U.S. assistance programmes.
Israel, she said, has been supplied with 226 F-16 fighter planes and attack jets, more than 700 M60 battle tanks, 6,000 armoured personnel carriers and scores of transport planes, attack helicopters and utility and training aircraft, bombs and tactical missiles of all kinds."
http://www.australia.to/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4037%3Ahamas-fights-on-uneven-battlefield&Itemid=30
--->The NY Times, as expected, has done a very poor job letting Americans know of the breadth and sophistication of US arms shipments to Israel. In many ways, the US has both armed and funded the Israeli war crimes committed in Gaza.
---------
"There is evidence that Israel committed war crimes during its 22-day campaign in the Gaza Strip and there should be an independent inquiry, U.N. investigator Richard Falk said on Thursday.
The mental anguish of the civilians who suffered the assault is so great that the entire population of Gaza could be seen as casualties, said Falk, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Falk, speaking by phone from his home in California, said compelling evidence that Israel's actions in Gaza violated international humanitarian law required an independent investigation into whether they amounted to war crimes...
'To lock people into a war zone is something that evokes the worst kind of international memories of the Warsaw Ghetto, and sieges that occur unintentionally during a period of wartime,' Falk, who is Jewish, said, referring to the starvation and murder of Warsaw's Jews by Nazi Germany in World War Two."
http://uk.reuters.com/article/middleeastCrisis/idUKLM736083?sp=true
--->The NY Times doesn't do war crimes when it comes to Israel. Mr. Falk's comments were not covered, despite the fact that he is the UN Rights Envoy for Palestine.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Fantasyland Media:
http://www.fantasylandmedia.org
News fashioned by the people in charge, the corporations and your government. Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine.
---------
"After weeks of denying that it used white phosphorus in the heavily populated Gaza Strip, Israel finally admitted yesterday that the weapon was deployed in its offensive.
The army’s use of white phosphorus – which makes a distinctive shellburst of dozens of smoke trails – was reported first by The Times (UK publication) on January 5, when it was strenuously denied by the army. Now, in the face of mounting evidence and international outcry, Israel has been forced to backtrack on that initial denial...
The incident in question is thought to be the firing of phosphorus shells at a UN school in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip on January 17. The weapon is legal if used as a smokescreen in battle but it is banned from deployment in civilian areas. Pictures of the attack show Palestinian medics fleeing as blobs of burning phosphorus rain down on the compound."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5575070.ece
--->The NY Times has been slow in reporting the obvious use of white phosphorus in Gaza (YouTube is full of fist hand accounts). As late as January 14, its chief Israeli apologist in the region, Ethan Bronner, was writing that observers had "seen no evidence of the use of white phosphorus, an obscurant used in military conflicts that can be dangerous for civilians under certain circumstances." Such a delicate description of Israeli war crimes.
--------------
"Amnesty International Thursday urged the Israeli authorities to disclose the weapons and munitions their forces used against Palestinians in Gaza.
Donatella Rovera, who is leading an AI investigation team in Gaza, said: 'We now know that white phosphorous munitions were used in built-up civilian areas, although the Israeli authorities previously denied this.'
In a statement issued Thursday, AI said that other victims of the conflict have wounds which doctors say they are finding hard to treat because of uncertainty about the nature of the munitions which caused them.
'Doctors tell us they are encountering new and unexplained patterns of injury among some of the Palestinians injured in Israeli military attacks,' said Rovera. 'Some victims of Israeli air strikes were brought in with charred and sharply severed limbs and doctors treating them need to know what weapons were used.'"
http://www.zeenews.com/world/2009-01-23/501025news.html (Zeenews.com, India Edition)
--->While the NY Times did get around to covering some of Donatella Rovera's statements, there was no mention of further unexplained injuries, and the possibility of other new weapons being used by Israel against the Palestinians.
--------------
"GAZA CITY - Eighteen-year-old Mona Al-Ashkar says she did not immediately know the first explosion at the United Nations (UN) school in Beit Lahiya had blown her left leg off. There was smoke, then chaos, then the pain and disbelief set in once she realized it was gone - completely severed by the weapon that hit her.
Mona is one of the many patients among the 5,500 injured that have international and Palestinian doctors baffled by the type of weaponry used in the Israeli operation. High-profile human rights organizations like Amnesty International are accusing Israel of war crimes.
Mona's doctors at Gaza City's Al-Shifa hospital found no shrapnel in her leg, and it looked as though it had been 'sliced right off with a knife.'
'We are not sure exactly what type of weapon can manage to do that immediately and so cleanly,' said Dr. Sobhi Skaik, consultant surgeon general at Al-Shifa hospital. 'What is happening is frightening. It's possible the Israeli army was using Gaza to experiment militarily.'"
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/01/22-1
--->No comment on such wounds by our newspaper of record.
News fashioned by the people in charge, the corporations and your government. Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine.
---------
"After weeks of denying that it used white phosphorus in the heavily populated Gaza Strip, Israel finally admitted yesterday that the weapon was deployed in its offensive.
The army’s use of white phosphorus – which makes a distinctive shellburst of dozens of smoke trails – was reported first by The Times (UK publication) on January 5, when it was strenuously denied by the army. Now, in the face of mounting evidence and international outcry, Israel has been forced to backtrack on that initial denial...
The incident in question is thought to be the firing of phosphorus shells at a UN school in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip on January 17. The weapon is legal if used as a smokescreen in battle but it is banned from deployment in civilian areas. Pictures of the attack show Palestinian medics fleeing as blobs of burning phosphorus rain down on the compound."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5575070.ece
--->The NY Times has been slow in reporting the obvious use of white phosphorus in Gaza (YouTube is full of fist hand accounts). As late as January 14, its chief Israeli apologist in the region, Ethan Bronner, was writing that observers had "seen no evidence of the use of white phosphorus, an obscurant used in military conflicts that can be dangerous for civilians under certain circumstances." Such a delicate description of Israeli war crimes.
--------------
"Amnesty International Thursday urged the Israeli authorities to disclose the weapons and munitions their forces used against Palestinians in Gaza.
Donatella Rovera, who is leading an AI investigation team in Gaza, said: 'We now know that white phosphorous munitions were used in built-up civilian areas, although the Israeli authorities previously denied this.'
In a statement issued Thursday, AI said that other victims of the conflict have wounds which doctors say they are finding hard to treat because of uncertainty about the nature of the munitions which caused them.
'Doctors tell us they are encountering new and unexplained patterns of injury among some of the Palestinians injured in Israeli military attacks,' said Rovera. 'Some victims of Israeli air strikes were brought in with charred and sharply severed limbs and doctors treating them need to know what weapons were used.'"
http://www.zeenews.com/world/2009-01-23/501025news.html (Zeenews.com, India Edition)
--->While the NY Times did get around to covering some of Donatella Rovera's statements, there was no mention of further unexplained injuries, and the possibility of other new weapons being used by Israel against the Palestinians.
--------------
"GAZA CITY - Eighteen-year-old Mona Al-Ashkar says she did not immediately know the first explosion at the United Nations (UN) school in Beit Lahiya had blown her left leg off. There was smoke, then chaos, then the pain and disbelief set in once she realized it was gone - completely severed by the weapon that hit her.
Mona is one of the many patients among the 5,500 injured that have international and Palestinian doctors baffled by the type of weaponry used in the Israeli operation. High-profile human rights organizations like Amnesty International are accusing Israel of war crimes.
Mona's doctors at Gaza City's Al-Shifa hospital found no shrapnel in her leg, and it looked as though it had been 'sliced right off with a knife.'
'We are not sure exactly what type of weapon can manage to do that immediately and so cleanly,' said Dr. Sobhi Skaik, consultant surgeon general at Al-Shifa hospital. 'What is happening is frightening. It's possible the Israeli army was using Gaza to experiment militarily.'"
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/01/22-1
--->No comment on such wounds by our newspaper of record.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Fantasyland Media:
http://www.fantasylandmedia.org
News fashioned by the people in charge, the corporations and your government. Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine.
---------
I don't know anyone who speaks the truth as bluntly as Noam Chomsky. And the truth must be spoken about the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. Here is Chomsky on the invasion:
"On Saturday December 27, the latest US-Israeli attack on helpless Palestinians was launched. The attack had been meticulously planned, for over 6 months according to the Israeli press...
That surely includes the timing of the assault: shortly before noon, when children were returning from school and crowds were milling in the streets of densely populated Gaza City. It took only a few minutes to kill over 225 people and wound 700, an auspicious opening to the mass slaughter of defenseless civilians trapped in a tiny cage with nowhere to flee.
In his retrospective 'Parsing Gains of Gaza War,' New York Times correspondent Ethan Bronner cited this achievement as one of the most significant of the gains. Israel calculated that it would be advantageous to appear to 'go crazy,' causing vastly disproportionate terror, a doctrine that traces back to the 1950s. 'The Palestinians in Gaza got the message on the first day,' Bronner wrote, 'when Israeli warplanes struck numerous targets simultaneously in the middle of a Saturday morning. Some 200 were killed instantly, shocking Hamas and indeed all of Gaza.' The tactic of 'going crazy' appears to have been successful, Bronner concluded: there are 'limited indications that the people of Gaza felt such pain from this war that they will seek to rein in Hamas,' the elected government. That is another long-standing doctrine of state terror..."
And the US involvement? Chomsky continues:
"Since the terms 'aggression' and 'terrorism' are inadequate, some new term is needed for the sadistic and cowardly torture of people caged with no possibility of escape, while they are being pounded to dust by the most sophisticated products of US military technology - used in violation of international and even US law, but for self-declared outlaw states that is just another minor technicality.
Also a minor technicality is the fact that on December 31, while terrorized Gazans were desperately seeking shelter from the ruthless assault, Washington hired a German merchant ship to transport from Greece to Israel a huge shipment, 3,000 tons, of unidentified 'ammunition.' The new shipment 'follows the hiring of a commercial ship to carry a much larger consignment of ordnance in December from the United States to Israel ahead of air strikes in the Gaza Strip,' Reuters reported. All of this is separate from the more than $21 billion in U.S. military aid provided by the Bush administration to Israel, almost all grants. 'Israel's intervention in the Gaza Strip has been fueled largely by U.S. supplied weapons paid for with U.S. tax dollars,' said a briefing by the New America Foundation, which monitors the arms trade..."
--->Our national media will never tell you the truth about this mass murder of Palestinians that we are all paying for. But if you want to know the truth, it is easy to find. That is, if you want to find it. But most of us are "good Germans," in the fact that we accept what our government tells us, even though we sometimes wonder about those trains bound for Auschwitz.
News fashioned by the people in charge, the corporations and your government. Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine.
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I don't know anyone who speaks the truth as bluntly as Noam Chomsky. And the truth must be spoken about the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. Here is Chomsky on the invasion:
"On Saturday December 27, the latest US-Israeli attack on helpless Palestinians was launched. The attack had been meticulously planned, for over 6 months according to the Israeli press...
That surely includes the timing of the assault: shortly before noon, when children were returning from school and crowds were milling in the streets of densely populated Gaza City. It took only a few minutes to kill over 225 people and wound 700, an auspicious opening to the mass slaughter of defenseless civilians trapped in a tiny cage with nowhere to flee.
In his retrospective 'Parsing Gains of Gaza War,' New York Times correspondent Ethan Bronner cited this achievement as one of the most significant of the gains. Israel calculated that it would be advantageous to appear to 'go crazy,' causing vastly disproportionate terror, a doctrine that traces back to the 1950s. 'The Palestinians in Gaza got the message on the first day,' Bronner wrote, 'when Israeli warplanes struck numerous targets simultaneously in the middle of a Saturday morning. Some 200 were killed instantly, shocking Hamas and indeed all of Gaza.' The tactic of 'going crazy' appears to have been successful, Bronner concluded: there are 'limited indications that the people of Gaza felt such pain from this war that they will seek to rein in Hamas,' the elected government. That is another long-standing doctrine of state terror..."
And the US involvement? Chomsky continues:
"Since the terms 'aggression' and 'terrorism' are inadequate, some new term is needed for the sadistic and cowardly torture of people caged with no possibility of escape, while they are being pounded to dust by the most sophisticated products of US military technology - used in violation of international and even US law, but for self-declared outlaw states that is just another minor technicality.
Also a minor technicality is the fact that on December 31, while terrorized Gazans were desperately seeking shelter from the ruthless assault, Washington hired a German merchant ship to transport from Greece to Israel a huge shipment, 3,000 tons, of unidentified 'ammunition.' The new shipment 'follows the hiring of a commercial ship to carry a much larger consignment of ordnance in December from the United States to Israel ahead of air strikes in the Gaza Strip,' Reuters reported. All of this is separate from the more than $21 billion in U.S. military aid provided by the Bush administration to Israel, almost all grants. 'Israel's intervention in the Gaza Strip has been fueled largely by U.S. supplied weapons paid for with U.S. tax dollars,' said a briefing by the New America Foundation, which monitors the arms trade..."
--->Our national media will never tell you the truth about this mass murder of Palestinians that we are all paying for. But if you want to know the truth, it is easy to find. That is, if you want to find it. But most of us are "good Germans," in the fact that we accept what our government tells us, even though we sometimes wonder about those trains bound for Auschwitz.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Fantasyland Media:
http://www.fantasylandmedia.org
News fashioned by the people in charge, the corporations and your government. Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine.
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"A Gaza War Full of Traps and Trickery...Weapons are hidden in mosques, schoolyards and civilian houses, and the leadership’s war room is a bunker beneath Gaza’s largest hospital, Israeli intelligence officials say...
A new Israeli weapon, meanwhile, is tailored to the Hamas tactic of asking civilians to stand on the roofs of buildings so Israeli pilots will not bomb."
-->This type of reporting from the NY Times is much like the stories we got before the invasion of Iraq. Judith Miller's reports on nuclear weapons in Iraq were straight from the Pentagon. Here we are limited to accounts from the Israeli military that are completely unverified by any third party. In fact, several of these Israeli charges have been refuted by YouTube videos made by international medical workers in Gaza. The NY Times does say its reporters have been denied access to Gaza, although our newspaper of record does not tell its readers that Israel is the country that has kept them out.
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"Amnesty International says hitting residential streets with shells that send blast and shrapnel over a wide area constitutes 'prima facie evidence of war crimes...
There has been reckless and disproportionate and in some cases indiscriminate use of force,' said Donatella Rovera, an Amnesty investigator in Israel. 'There has been the use of weaponry that shouldn't be used in densely populated areas because it's known that it will cause civilian fatalities and casualties.'
Rovera has also collected evidence that the Israeli army holds Palestinian families prisoner in their own homes as human shields. 'It's standard practice for Israeli soldiers to go into a house, lock up the family in a room on the ground floor and use the rest of the house as a military base, as a sniper's position. That is the absolute textbook case of human shields...It has been practised by the Israeli army for many years and they are doing it again in Gaza now,' she said."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/13/gaza-israel-war-crimes
-->After reporting unsubstantiated claims of Hamas using civilian shields, the NY Times declined to print the Amnesty report citing specific evidence of Israel's troops doing exactly that.
Such omissions don't stop the NY Times from praising it's own coverage. The Public Editor of the NY Times wrote Sunday, that since both sides of the conflict have complained of bias coverage, well then it must be just about right.
"Though the most vociferous supporters of Israel and the Palestinians do not agree, I think The Times, largely barred from the battlefield and reporting amid the chaos of war, has tried its best to do a fair, balanced and complete job — and has largely succeeded."
Well, except for the stories that it keeps leaving out. Activist Radio has identified 10 important stores about the conflict in the last two months that just never made it into print. All these stories were reported by the international media, including newspapers in Israel. The common link to all these stories? They put Israel in a bad light.
The NY Times complains about not having reporters in Gaza, when it didn't even cover the story of the The Foreign Press Association's petitioning the Israeli Supreme Court about being kept out.
And must the NY Times be so scrupulously balanced in reporting about war crimes? Israel kills 300 children, but let's give them equal time and try not to take sides? Are the perpetrators and the victims of genocide always to be given equal time? That is not balanced reporting; that is a media complicit in the murder of hundreds of Palestinian civilians. Shame on you, NY Times. You are a propaganda arm of Israeli militarism, for all your self congratulation.
News fashioned by the people in charge, the corporations and your government. Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine.
---------
"A Gaza War Full of Traps and Trickery...Weapons are hidden in mosques, schoolyards and civilian houses, and the leadership’s war room is a bunker beneath Gaza’s largest hospital, Israeli intelligence officials say...
A new Israeli weapon, meanwhile, is tailored to the Hamas tactic of asking civilians to stand on the roofs of buildings so Israeli pilots will not bomb."
-->This type of reporting from the NY Times is much like the stories we got before the invasion of Iraq. Judith Miller's reports on nuclear weapons in Iraq were straight from the Pentagon. Here we are limited to accounts from the Israeli military that are completely unverified by any third party. In fact, several of these Israeli charges have been refuted by YouTube videos made by international medical workers in Gaza. The NY Times does say its reporters have been denied access to Gaza, although our newspaper of record does not tell its readers that Israel is the country that has kept them out.
---------
"Amnesty International says hitting residential streets with shells that send blast and shrapnel over a wide area constitutes 'prima facie evidence of war crimes...
There has been reckless and disproportionate and in some cases indiscriminate use of force,' said Donatella Rovera, an Amnesty investigator in Israel. 'There has been the use of weaponry that shouldn't be used in densely populated areas because it's known that it will cause civilian fatalities and casualties.'
Rovera has also collected evidence that the Israeli army holds Palestinian families prisoner in their own homes as human shields. 'It's standard practice for Israeli soldiers to go into a house, lock up the family in a room on the ground floor and use the rest of the house as a military base, as a sniper's position. That is the absolute textbook case of human shields...It has been practised by the Israeli army for many years and they are doing it again in Gaza now,' she said."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/13/gaza-israel-war-crimes
-->After reporting unsubstantiated claims of Hamas using civilian shields, the NY Times declined to print the Amnesty report citing specific evidence of Israel's troops doing exactly that.
Such omissions don't stop the NY Times from praising it's own coverage. The Public Editor of the NY Times wrote Sunday, that since both sides of the conflict have complained of bias coverage, well then it must be just about right.
"Though the most vociferous supporters of Israel and the Palestinians do not agree, I think The Times, largely barred from the battlefield and reporting amid the chaos of war, has tried its best to do a fair, balanced and complete job — and has largely succeeded."
Well, except for the stories that it keeps leaving out. Activist Radio has identified 10 important stores about the conflict in the last two months that just never made it into print. All these stories were reported by the international media, including newspapers in Israel. The common link to all these stories? They put Israel in a bad light.
The NY Times complains about not having reporters in Gaza, when it didn't even cover the story of the The Foreign Press Association's petitioning the Israeli Supreme Court about being kept out.
And must the NY Times be so scrupulously balanced in reporting about war crimes? Israel kills 300 children, but let's give them equal time and try not to take sides? Are the perpetrators and the victims of genocide always to be given equal time? That is not balanced reporting; that is a media complicit in the murder of hundreds of Palestinian civilians. Shame on you, NY Times. You are a propaganda arm of Israeli militarism, for all your self congratulation.
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