Archive for May, 2007

Seymour Hersh on Lebanon: US strategy backs Islamist militants

Friday, May 25th, 2007

Islamist militants entrenched in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon are facing an ultimatum to surrender or face further military action. Democracy Now!, the US daily alternative radio and TV show, carried this interview – which you can also watch and listen to on the site – with veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, in which he discusses the evidence he has found for the US government and its allies in the Middle East backing Sunni Islamist groups such as Fatah al-Islam, which is at the centre of the bloody battle with the Lebanese army. The interview is backed up a comment piece By Charles Harb in Thursday’s Guardian.

The Lebanese government accuses Fatah al-Islam of having ties with al-Qaeda and the Syrian government. Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh joins us to talk about another theory of who is backing the militant group – the Lebanese government itself, along with the United States.

Last March, Hersh reported the U.S. and Saudi governments are covertly backing militant Sunni groups like Fatah al-Islam as part of an overarching foreign policy against Iran and growing Shia influence. [includes rush transcript] Lebanon’s defense minister has said Islamist militants entrenched in a Palestinian refugee camp must surrender or face further military action. The ultimatum followed three days of fierce fighting between the army and the Fatah al-Islam group. The army has laid siege to the Nahr al-Bared camp since the fighting erupted on Sunday, bombarding it with tank fire and artillery shells. At least eighty people have died with dozens more wounded.

On Wednesday, an informal ceasefire enabled thousands of residents to flee the camp. Some headed for another Palestinian refugee camp nearby, while others traveled to the neighboring city of Tripoli. The International Committee of the Red Cross estimates between thirteen and fifteen thousand refugees have left Nahr al-Bared. The camp is home to thirty thousand people. The internal conflict is the bloodiest in Lebanon since the civil war ended 17 years ago.

The Lebanese government accuses Fatah al-Islam of having ties with al-Qaeda and the Syrian government. But there’s another theory of who is backing the militant group – the Lebanese government itself, along with the United States. Last March, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reported in the New Yorker that the U.S. and Saudi governments are covertly backing militant Sunni groups like Fatah al-Islam as part of an overarching foreign policy against Iran and growing Shia influence. Seymour Hersh joins us now on the line from Washington DC.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Lebanon’s defense minister has said Islamist militants entrenched in a Palestinian refugee camp must surrender or face further military action. The ultimatum followed three days of fierce fighting between the army and the Fatah al-Islam group. The army has laid siege to the Nahr al-Bared camp since the fighting erupted on Sunday, bombarding it with tank fire and artillery shells. At least eighty people have died, with dozens more wounded.

On Wednesday, an informal ceasefire enabled thousands of residents to flee the camp. Some headed for another Palestinian refugee camp nearby, while others traveled to the neighboring city of Tripoli. The International Committee of the Red Cross estimates between 13,000 and 15,000 refugees have left Nahr al-Bared. The camp is home to 30,000 people. The internal conflict is the bloodiest in Lebanon since the civil war ended seventeen years ago.

AMY GOODMAN: The Lebanese government accuses Fatah al-Islam of having ties with al-Qaeda and the Syrian government. But there’s another theory of who’s backing the militant group: the Lebanese government itself, along with the United States. Last March, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reported in The New Yorker magazine that the US and Saudi governments are covertly backing militant Sunni groups like Fatah al-Islam as part of an overarching foreign policy against Iran and growing Shia influence.

Seymour Hersh joins us now on the phone from his home in Washington, D.C. Welcome to Democracy Now!, Sy.

SEYMOUR HERSH: Good morning.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain what you learned?

SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, very simply — this is over the winter — the government made — I think the article is called “The Redirection.” There was a major change of policy by the United States government, essentially, which was that we were going to — the American government would join with the Brits and other Western allies and with what we call the moderate Sunni governments — that is, the governments of Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt — and join with them and with Israel to fight the Shia.

One of the major goals for America, of course, was the obsession the Bush White House has with Iran, and the other obsession they have is, of course — is in fear — is of Hezbollah, the Party of God, that is so dominant in — the Shia Party of God that’s so dominant in southern Lebanon that once — and whose leader Hassan Nasrallah wants to play a bigger political role and is doing quite a bit to get there and is in direct confrontation with Siniora.

And so, you have a situation where the Sunni government, pretty much in control now, the American-supported Sunni government headed by Fouad Siniora, who was a deputy or an aide to Rafik Hariri, the slain leader of Lebanon, that government has — we know, the International Crisis Group reported a couple years ago that the son Saad Hariri, the son of Rafik Hariri, who’s now a major player in the parliament of Lebanon, he put up $40,000 bail to free four Sunni fundamentalists, Jihadist-Salafists — which you will — who were tied directly to — you know, this word “al-Qaeda” is sort of ridiculous — they were tied to jihadist groups. And God knows, al-Qaeda, in terms of Osama bin Laden, doesn’t have much to do with what we’re talking about. These are independently, more or less, you can call them, fanatical jihadists.

And so, the goal — part of the goal in Lebanon, part of the way this policy played out, was, with Saudi help, Prince Bandar — if you remember him — we remember Prince Bandar, the Saudi prince, as a major player in Iran-Contra and also in the American effort two decades ago — if you remember, we supported Osama bin Laden and other jihadists in Afghanistan against the Russians, and that didn’t work out so well. Well, we run right back to the well again, and we began supporting some of these jihadist groups, and particularly — in the article, I did name Fatah al-Islam.

The idea was to provide them with some arms and some money and some basic equipment so — these are small units, a couple hundred people. There were three or four around the country given the same help covertly, the goal being they would be potential enemies of Hezbollah in case of warfare; in case Nasrallah decided to do something physical, get kinetic, in Lebanon, the Sunni Siniora government would have some very tough guys on its side, period. That’s the policy.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Sy Hersh, if that is true, then what has led to the current fighting now? If the Lebanese government had been backing the group, why is it now attacking it?

SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, first of all, the Lebanese army is very distinct. Let me begin by saying nobody really knows anything right now. I mean, there’s a lot — one of the things about crises is you learn that you really get to play much later. But based on common sense and what I’m reading, the Lebanese army has maintained an amazing sort of neutrality, which is surprising. The army has not been a pawn of the Siniora government.

As you know, the American government — the American position right now — there’s a stand-off politically. You cannot discuss what’s going on without discussing the overall politics. There’s a stand-off politically right now, a very serious one, in Lebanon. The government is polarized. The government in power really has no legal basis to make any changes in cabinet positions, etc., because it’s not a constitutional government, because Hezbollah, which had five members of the parliament — five members of the cabinet and a dozen or so members in the parliament, Hezbollah pulled out months ago. And there were street protests, protests against Siniora. And right now, you have Hezbollah in league with a Christian leader named Aoun, a former chief of staff for the army. Aoun and Nasrallah are in an amazing partnership against the Siniora government. And where this breaks down and who’s going to win this stand-off — it’s been going on since last December — isn’t clear. America clearly supports Siniora. But there’s a big brutal fight going. And the Lebanese army stayed out of it and was pretty much, very much, independent, in the sense that when there were street demonstrations, they did not beat up on the Nasrallah people. They were very impartial.

So I think the story that we have is that there was a crime, and they were chasing people into one of the Palestinian camps, which are always hotbeds. God knows the Palestinians are the end of the stick, not only for the West, but also for the Arab world. Nobody pays much attention to them and those places. I’ve been to Tripoli and been into the camps, and they are seething, as they should be. You know, rational people don’t like being mistreated. And in any case, so what you have is, what seems to me, just a series — the word you could use is “unintended consequences.” I don’t think anybody in the Siniora government anticipated that the people they were covertly supporting to some degree — I got an email the other day, and I have not checked this out, from somebody who was in the community, in the intelligence community and still consults with the community, he says, “Why don’t we ask more about the American arms that the fighters of Fatah al-Islam have, are brandishing?” I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I did get that email. And so, that could be true. Both Saudi money and American money, not directly, but indirectly, was fed into these groups.

And what is the laugh riot and the reason I’m actually talking to you guys about this — I usually don’t like to do interviews unless I have a story in The New Yorker — the reason I’m talking about it is because the American government keeps on putting out this story that Syria is behind the Fatah group, which is just beyond belief. There’s no way — it may be possible, but the chances of it are very slight, simply because Syria is a very big supporter, obviously, of Nasrallah, and Bashar al-Assad has told me that he’s in awe of Nasrallah, that he worships at his feet and has great respect for him. The idea that the Syrians would be sponsoring Sunni jihadist groups whose sole mission are to kill the apostates — that is, anybody who doesn’t support their view, the Wahhabi or Salafist view of Sunni religion — that includes the Shia — anybody who doesn’t believe — support these guys’ religions are apostates and are killable, that’s basically one of the crazy aspects of all this, and it’s just inconceivable. Nothing can be ruled out, but that doesn’t make much case, and I noticed that in the papers today there’s fewer and fewer references to this. The newspapers in America are beginning to wise up, that this can’t be — this isn’t very logical. The White House is putting it out hot and heavy as part of the anti-Syria campaign, but it’s not flying, because it doesn’t make sense. So there we are. It’s another mess.

You might think that one of the reasons — I think I wrote about this in The New Yorker — one of the things that the Saudi Bandar had promised us was that we can control the jihadists. We can control them, he assured us. Don’t worry about getting in bed with these bad guys, because, as we remember, the same kind of assurances were given to us in the late 1980s, when we supported, as I said, bin Laden and others in the war against Russia, the Mujahideen war, and that, of course, bit us on the ass. And this is, too. So there we are.

AMY GOODMAN: Seymour Hersh, what about the role of Vice President Dick Cheney, the Deputy National Security Advisor Elliott Abrams?

SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, you always — any time you have violent anti-Iran policy and anti-Shia policy, you have to start looking there. Look, clearly this president is deeply involved in this, too, but what I hear from my people, of course, the players — it’s always Cheney, Cheney. Cheney meets with Bush at least once a week. They have a lunch. They usually have a scheduled lunch. And out of that comes a lot of big decisions. We don’t know what’s ever said at that meeting. And this is — talk about being opaque, this is a government that is so hidden from us.

So I can’t — I can tell you that — you know, the thing that’s amazing about this government, the thing that’s really spectacular, is even now how they can get their way mostly with a lot of the American press. For example, I do know — and, you know, you have to take it on face value. If you’ve been reading me for a long time, you know a lot of the things I write are true or come out to be more or less true. I do know that within the last month, maybe four, four-and-a-half weeks ago, they made a decision that because of the totally dwindling support for the war in Iraq, we go back to the al-Qaeda card, and we start talking about al-Qaeda. And the next thing you know, right after that, Bush went to the Southern Command — this was a month ago — and talked, mentioned al-Qaeda twenty-seven times in his speech. He did so just the other day this week — al-Qaeda this, al-Qaeda that. All of a sudden, the poor Iraqi Sunnis, I mean, they can’t do anything without al-Qaeda. It’s only al-Qaeda that’s dropping the bombs and causing mayhem. It’s not the Sunni and Shia insurgents or militias. And this policy just gets picked up, although there’s absolutely no empirical basis. Most of the pros will tell you the foreign fighters are a couple percent, and then they’re sort of leaderless in the sense that there’s no overall direction of the various foreign fighters. You could call them al-Qaeda. You can also call them jihadists and Salafists that want to die fighting the Americans or the occupiers in Iraq and they come across the border. Whether this is — there’s no attempt to suggest there’s any significant coordination of these groups by bin Laden or anybody else, and the press just goes gaga. And so, they went gaga a little bit over the Syrian connection to the activities in Tripoli. It’s just amazing to me, you guys.

AMY GOODMAN: Seymour Hersh, I want to thank you very much for being with us, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, writes for The New Yorker magazine, speaking to us from Washington, D.C.

Posted in Abroad, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

The Guardian and Iraq: Bad news

Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007

Tuesday’s (May 22) splash by Simon Tisdall in the Guardian marks something of a watershed: in the words of analyst David Edwards of Media Lens, it is the “single worst piece of journalism I can recall reading” in the paper.

The article claimed to present evidence that Iran was uniting with al-Qaeda to attack US and UK forces in Iraq. But the 3-page article making this claim, all 1,200 words of it, cited just one single, unnamed source throughout (”a senior US official in Baghdad”), and there was not a single quote from any expert who would question the allegations – although there are many who would.

How could crude and dangerous PR like this take up the first three pages of the Guardian? When the New York Times ran a similarly credulous front page in February headlined ‘Deadliest Bomb in Iraq is Made by Iran, US Says’, the newspaper was widely accused of having learned nothing from the Iraq WMD debacle. How could the Guardian fall into the same trap?

David Edwards’ email to the Guardian’s editor, Alan Rusbridger, was forwarded to us. It reads:

“Dear Alan

“I’ve been reading the Guardian for many years now. I have to say that Simon Tisdall’s front cover piece today is the single worst piece of journalism I can recall reading in your paper. I base the judgment on the lack of even the tiniest scrap of evidence in support of the anonymous official claims, the unwillingness to subject these claims to any journalistic scrutiny, the potentially lethal nature of the claims for millions of people in the region, and the extremely high-profile coverage afforded what is actually crude propaganda masquerading as a news report.

“We’ve disagreed with you on many occasions, but I’m just aghast that you could put this on the front page. I’m assuming you’re not away and that you did actually see it.

“Yours in amazement and dismay…”

The Guardian’s senior editors appear to have realised early on that something might be amiss. The paper’s website carried a defensive report on the discussion at the morning news conference on Tuesday. An indication of its weakness, however, is that it cites the Telegraph in its support, apparently unaware that the Telegraph’s reporting of Iran is no model of good journalism.

Media Workers Against the War also wrote to the Guardian on Tuesday, pointing out that the paper was vulnerable to the accusation of having learned nothing from the Iraq WMD debacle. The Guardian’s associate editor Elisabeth Ribbans replied a few hours later. She wrote:

“Thank you for your email to the letters desk, which has been forwarded to me for a personal response. For the record, Simon Tisdall requested the interviews with US officials in Baghdad and not the other way around. The article should be viewed in the light of Simon’s extensive and well-sourced reporting from and about the region, as well as the record of the paper, which certainly cannot be accused of being a mouthpiece for the US administration. Today’s front-page story is just one more part of a jigsaw of the growing power struggle in the region and our editors thought it in the public interest to publish the story.”

Two points can be made in response. First, it is not immediately clear which is worse, publishing PR that is sent to you or actively soliciting it.

Second, MWAW did not accuse the paper of being a “mouthpiece for the US administration”. This suggestion is a straw man. We proposed that the paper had forgotten how the WMD nonsense was used to whip up pro-war sentiment against Iraq. This same accusation was leveled at the entire British media by the Guardian’s own columnist, Peter Wilby, in a recent piece on Iran.

How has it come to this? How could the Guardian stoop so low?

First, the British media have shifted noticeably to the right. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Johann Hari have recently made this point in relation to the BBC (see the article on this website), but it applies more widely. Since the sacking of Piers Morgan from the Mirror and Greg Dyke from the BBC, the media have been bullied and browbeaten by the government, resulting in a climate of timidity and submission at senior levels.

A consequence is that editors tend to forget Harold Evans’ legendary warning to reporters at the Sunday Times: “Always ask yourself when interviewing a politician, why is this bastard lying to me?”

A further consequence is that only the powerful are now considered credible sources. “Balance” is reduced to quoting officials of one government (in this case the US) against officials of another (in this case Iran).

Further, It means that senior editors move in a rarified environment where they have no contact with arguments generated by social forces outside the narrow circle of government. The mass anti-war movement and its leaders are dismissed with a disdainful sneer.

Finally, the Guardian’s senior editors have been inconsistent friends of peace. The paper calls for more troops for Afghanistan, and on Iraq it joins the chorus of hand-wringing in the British media but pointedly refrains from calling for any timetable for troop withdrawal.

Nevertheless, Tuesday’s front page marks a qualitative shift for the paper. People who have read the Guardian in recent years frequently complain that the paper has lost its way, but often find it hard to put their finger on just what is going on. Now we know.

Please read the article in question and write to the Guardian with your opinions. Please also post them as comments to this blog.

And lastly, here is Juan Cole’s essential blog on Tuesday subjecting the front page to whithering scorn:

“I suppose I have to link to this silly article by poor Simon Tisdall in of all places, The Guardian, whom someone is using to push a sinister agenda. Yes, its sources are looney in positing a coming offensive jointly sponsored by Iran, the Mahdi Army and al-Qaeda. Anyone who reads IC [i.e. Juan Cole's blog] regularly will see immediately holes in this story.

“At a time when Sunni Arab guerrillas are said to be opposing “al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia” for its indiscriminate violence against Iraqis, including Shiites, we are now expected to believe that Shiite Iran is allying with it. And, it claims that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards are shelling the Green Zone. The parliament building that was hit today by such shelling is dominated by the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council and its paramilitary, the Badr Organization. Who trained Badr? The Iranian Revolutionary Guards. And they are trying to hit their own guys . . . why? By the way, the US has 16,000 suspected insurgents in custody. Tisdall should ask how many of them are Iranian. (Hint: close to none. What, do they just run faster than the others?)

“The article even traffics in the ridiculous assertion that Iran is backing hyper-Sunni, Shiite-killing Taliban in Afghanistan. Why not just cut to the quick and openly say that Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei is in reality . . . Satan! It really is discouraging that Tisdall didn’t report instead on what crazy things the US military spokesmen in Iraq told him.

“US military spokesmen have been trying to push implausible articles about Shiite Iran supporting Sunni insurgents for a couple of years now, and with virtually the sole exception of the New York Times, no one in the journalistic community has taken these wild charges seriously. But The Guardian?”

Dave Crouch

Posted in Editorials, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

BBC ‘open to right-wing populism’

Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007

The BBC’s in-house magazine, Ariel, has published this hard-hitting critique by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, who accuses the Corporation of “a profoundly illiberal agenda” and argues that “BBC shock jock presenters and producers know their fortunes can only get better”. The article is unavailable online – except here on mwaw.net. It should be read together with John Kampfner’s critique and Johann Hari’s recent article in the Independent.
The article, as publised in Ariel, starts here:

The BBC that helped keep this immigrant in Britain has sold out to ‘right wing populism’ and allows extreme, angry voices too much airtime.

There have been two moments in my life in England as an immigrant when I have made serious plans to quit and move to Canada. The first was in 1975 when I had finished my M.Phil at Oxford. Relatives and friends who had moved to Canada from Uganda (where I came from in 1972, the year Asians were expelled) had settled better, were welcomed more warmly than we who had ended up here. Remember we were not refugees but ultra-loyal British subjects. Enoch Powell was the hero then and we had entered a bitter place.

In 1975, a Canadian friend I’d made in Oxford contacted his local MP and together they persuaded my ex-husband and myself to migrate. We didn’t. One reason was that I couldn’t part from the BBC and Call My Bluff and Just a Minute and the trademark sombre, planetary voices delivering the news that sounded truer than any other truth. (That was back then, when I was not a sceptical journalist).

The second time was in 1996 when I had a newspaper job lined up in Toronto and just as we made final moves, I got a column to write in the Independent, a dream I had had for years. Again, when assessing whether it was the right decision, the BBC floated right up, joining the top reasons why Britain still had a hold on my heart.

So I have stayed, unable to wean myself off the BBC, which played into my ears as a child in Africa, like perennial soothing sounds of an ocean washing in imagined worlds. My dad, a news junkie and anglophile, never went out in the evenings before listening to the World Service news. He missed birthdays, funeral prayers, weddings all for his BBC.

I picked up his passion. Even now, in order for the broadcasts to sound as authentic and dependable as they did in the 50s, 60s and 70s, I need crackles to disturb the reception. It gives the impression that the powerful are trying to stop us listening.

When Idi Amin came to power, I was at Makerere University, then one of the finest in the world. Radio Uganda was playing My Boy Lollipop all day long interspersed with ominous warnings from military men. The crackling, valiant BBC told us what we needed desperately to know, though I now realise it was never the whole truth. It passed over the fact that Idi Amin was supported by Britain, the US and Israel, chosen to be their placed man in the Cold War playing out in Africa. Still, that trust and devotion would not be shaken.

Defenders of the Blairite onslaught

Of course a love like that sometimes hurts and disappoints. For too many years I have moaned about the lack of black and Asian reporters, editors, managers, controllers, and brand names. That wilful neglect continues to wound. As one of the two political columnists of colour in the national press (Gary Younge being the other) I expect to be seen as equal to my white peers. I am not. My colour and now culture limits what the Beeb believes I can or should do. Ah well. At least I have what is patronisingly called ‘access’.

However, I always, always defended the corporation and licence fee because it projected universal, good, liberal values – decency, justice, fairness, democracy, civil rights, national confidence, a common humanity, freedom, civilised conduct and the belief, if not the practice, of equality.

Thatcherism arrived and with it an onslaught on these principles denounced as ‘leftie’ or ‘politically correct’. The decade of Blairism produced further pressures, this time by the new right disguised as the new left. More alarmingly, the big boys and some girls too who lead the BBC were now sympathetic to these New Labour state controllers. In the aftermath of the Gilligan affair, I was truly shocked by how many journalists and editors privately told me they agreed with the Blairite onslaught and that Dyke was out of order.

Gilligan was proven right but the centre of gravity at the BBC is now to the right of where it was under Dyke. As my colleague Johann Hari wrote recently in the Independent: ‘The BBC’s most famous and high profile presenters today are figures on the right and make increasingly little effort to hide it.’ They chase each other for copies of the Daily Mail; they ceaselessly rail against feminism, equality campaigns, state interventions to promote health and safety and of course immigration. All progressive action these days gets stamped with the words ‘politically correct’ and the consensus at the BBC is that PC is always mad, bad and highly dangerous.

And still they cry foul, the right wing tabloids and parliamentarians.

Enigma of ‘radical impartiality’

This new century brought the extraordinary force of people power to radio, the web and new technology. It is shaking up all media outlets. The BBC, already too open to right wing populism and charged up to fight political correctness, is set for a further lurch away from its old values. BBC ‘shock jock’ presenters and producers know their fortunes can only get better. Vocal people use phone in programmes and the web to incessantly complain they are not being heard.

The trick is now used by experts too. Andrew Green, the anti-immigration prophet of Migration Watch, is never off the BBC but claims he is not allowed to present his views. The perpetually angry are also more than likely to be anti-immigration, anti-Europe, anti-equalities provision, anti-Muslim, nationalistic, pro-punishment, fearful and bursting with self pity and self righteousness.

I was recently asked to chair an internal BBC debate – part of the Audio and Music Festival. The subject was the enigmatic term ‘radical impartiality’, a new brand, potentially a bold new direction for the massive ship that is the BBC. It was floated by Peter Horrocks, head of television news, a man who from his demeanour is powerful, intellectual and an impeccable trend spotter.

Simply put (and he describes it in more complex terms) Horrocks believes the BBC needs to bring in voices and campaigners hitherto kept out of the corporation’s respectable broadcasting studios. This means, he says, a move away from the ‘no-platform’ posturings of student politics. On this I agree with him. But when he argues the BNP or extremist Muslim campaigners can be allowed to make their case, with robust interviewers ensuring ‘balance’ my blood freezes. The BBC was never a coliseum, a bloody arena for a fight to the death. That is already what I feel it sees itself as. And it wants more extreme action.

For the first time ever, I resent paying the licence fee because the BBC is not fulfilling its public service role with the integrity it always had.

Broadcasts impact on lives, on perceptions, on the sense of security of vulnerable citizens. Take one example. Day after day, the BBC arranges for an anti-immigration and anti-asylum mood to grow, which it has done over three years. Named asylum seekers are not put up to make their cases – they are always numbers; no equivalence exists between pro and anti immigration views.

A profoundly illiberal agenda is presented by respected presenters. And people like me get more afraid of the future. Some years ago Norman Tebbit, on the Today programme, told me I could never be British. Maybe he was right and I should have emigrated when I could have, before I had to witness the fall from grace of my BBC.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is a columnist, author and broadcaster

Posted in Editorials, U.K., Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Meeting with Tariq Ali and Lindsay German / Audio

Wednesday, May 16th, 2007

Audio of the meeting with Tariq Ali and Lindsay German (10 May 2007):

The audio has been recorded and edited by Julian Bohne.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Anti-war activism, journalists and journalism

Wednesday, May 9th, 2007

A media row has broken out over the National Union of Journalists’ vote at its national conference in April to call for a trade union-led boycott of Israeli goods. Much criticism of the vote has been framed in terms of maintaining journalists’ impartiality and balance. Regardless of how you feel about the boycott issue, for anti-war journalists the dispute raises a key question – can we take a stand on contentious political issues without sacrificing professional standards of accuracy and balance in our work?

The Guardian’s recent leader on the NUJ’s boycott vote is typical of the No position on this issue, accusing the NUJ of sacrificing journalists’ “general integrity” and “casting doubts on whether they can truly approach their work in a spirit of fairness and distinterested inquiry”. If we put to one side the condescending tone of this editorial, what are the serious issues at stake?

If we are concerned about our credibility being undermined, let’s first remember why it’s not particularly high in the first place. Journalists usually rank just above MPs and estate agents in BBC polls on respect for the professions. Going along with the Iraqi WMD farce didn’t do journalism’s credibility any favours — which suggests that the NUJ’s yearly conference votes against the war and for immediate troop withdrawal from Iraq have been a credit to the profession, rather than undermining it.

Moreover, the Guardian’s notion that British journalists “approach their work in a spirit of fairness and distinterested inquiry” might soothe a few senior editorial egos, but it is hardly convincing. Since when was the British media fair to anybody (let alone the Palestinians)? Much political activism in the British media masquerades as balanced reporting. It would be more honest for journalists to be open about their views than to hide behind the myth of professional impartiality – a central theme of Phillip Knightley’s classic book on war reporting, The First Casualty.The British media are well known for their robust editorial positions on all sorts of political issues, yet there is no suggestion that journalists might be compromised by working for these media. So why should we be compromised by taking political positions ourselves? Peter Wilby put this point very well in his column in the MediaGuardian, commenting on the NUJ’s boycott vote (which he opposed):

“Many newspapers take strong positions in their leader columns. These positions are determined by the bosses. Mere hacks – most of whom don’t have columns – should be allowed their say too. If individual correspondents can distance themselves from their paper’s opinions, they can easily do so from their union’s.”

Moreover, journalists’ politics inform all sorts of judgments we make about news and coverage, how we select and investigate our subject matter. Vigorous politics – of both right and left – therefore often stimulate the best reporting. Paul Foot was named journalist of the decade at the What the Papers Say awards in 2000 – no one could accuse him of being politically “neutral”.

So it is a myth that journalists leave our political views at the door when we come into work. Any professional understands how to excise their opinions from the work they produce, we apply standards and methods to make what we write stand above mere opinion. But it is simplistic to suggest that journalists should jettison their personal views. Worse, it is a recipe for stifling dissent in the newsroom.

If it becomes taboo for journalists to hold political views, the right-wing consensus among senior editors and managers will simply go unquestioned and unchallenged. A demand that journalists and their organisations cease to be political hands control of our copy to our employers. We cannot allow governments, the Richard Desmonds and Rupert Murdochs to become the arbiters of editorial standards.

In short, being political is a necessary (though not sufficient) condition of being a good journalist. On the question of the “war on terror”, being actively anti-war clearly means standing up for better journalism. Just look at what has happened to the British media since the invasion of Iraq. Had the peace movement been successful in preventing the war, there would have been:

  • No shadow cast over much of the British media for swallowing the government’s lies;
  • No Hutton report and no Alastair Campbell gloating over bullying the BBC into submission;
  • No Mark Thompson introducing swingeing job cuts across the BBC;
  • The Mirror would still be a serious newspaper, rather than a pale imitation of the Sun.

Media Workers Against the War is about trying to strengthen the tradition of political activism among journalists. Journalists need to be inspired, supported and encouraged to fearlessly report the big issues of our time, rather than go along with the preferences of governments and proprietors. We have much work to do to achieve this aim.

MWAW committee

Regarding the NUJ’s boycott vote, much bluster in the media might have been avoided had commentators acquainted themselves more fully with the motion itself, the speech moving the motion, and the NUJ’s statement on the matter. Media Workers Against the War is not directly engaged in this issue, however. Our primary concern is to develop the broad anti-war movement among media workers to bring into it all those who are appalled by the “war on terror” and the way it is reported.

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Anger as Afghan clashes spread

Friday, May 4th, 2007

The Financial Times (May 4) reports on civilians deaths, military confusion, a widening conflict and growing public anger at the US and Nato: Fighting in Afghanistan has erupted outside the Taliban strongholds of the south and east, catching growing numbers of civilians in the crossfire and stoking public anger at the US and Nato.

Clashes in recent weeks at opposite ends of the country signal a widening of the conflict and increasing confusion among western military officials over the enemy they are confronting.

The worst fighting to strike Afghanistan this year erupted in the western province of Herat leaving 136 people dead after two days of clashes which culminated in a 14-hour-long battle on Sunday, the US military said.

The US military initially said all of the dead were militants but a UN investigative team who visited the battle site “found credible reports of 49 civilian deaths” including unconfirmed numbers of women and children, spokesman Adrian Edwards said.

A US soldier was also killed in the operation by US special forces and Afghan troops in Herat against what a US military statement described as ground operations and air strikes targeting Taliban positions.

President Hamid Karzai warned US and Nato generals and other senior western officials in a meeting on Wednesday that “the patience of the Afghan people was wearing thin”, with heavy-handed army tactics.

Mr Karzai’s warning came after four days of protests in the eastern city of Jalalabad over what locals claim were the deaths of six civilians in a raid on a compound suspected of housing a suicide bomber. The US military said a woman and a teenager were killed in clash that erupted when US forces raided the compound.

The Jalalabad protest coincided with similar demonstrations in western Herat’s Shindand district in which scores of locals chanted “Death to America” in the wake of Sunday’s airstrikes.

Violence in Afghanistan has sharply increased in recent weeks with pitched battles between insurgents and government troops in areas of the country far away from the traditional Taliban strongholds in the south and east.

A western diplomat estimated that some 2,250 insurgents, foreign troops and civilians had been killed in the first four months of this year compared with under 5,000 casualties for the whole of 2006. Yesterday, the UK defence ministry said a British soldier was killed in fighting with militants in southern Afghanistan.

Nato spokesman Nicholas Lunt said that as the Afghan army and Nato troops moved into areas where there had been no government presence they were clashing with anti-government militias.

These clashes could easily be exploited by the Taliban, Joanna Nathan, Kabul-based analyst with the International Crisis Group, said. “The Taliban are very clever about using local rivalries and conflict and appealing to the side that feels disenfranchised,” she said.

In one of their boldest moves, Taliban militants seized control of a highway just 70km outside the capital Kabul in the Tagab district of central Kapisa province on April 18. Government forces retook the road in 24 hours but the clash marked a new frontier for the Taliban – who were able to stage the heaviest battle in the region of the capital since 2001.

Nato troops have launched a string of offensives around the country with the heaviest fighting continuing in the southern province of Helmand where British troops are based. More than 2,000 Nato and Afghan troops were deployed over the weekend in the Helmand’s Sangin valley aimed at driving the Taliban from the heart of the opium-producing province. Officials said the effort involved some 1,100 British troops, 600 US soldiers and more from the Netherlands, Denmark, Estonia and Canada as well as more than 1,000 Afghan government troops.

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Perils of journalism in Afghanistan

Friday, May 4th, 2007

The Frontline Club has posted this excellent piece on journalists in Afghanistan, by Jon Lee Anderson: Ever since his videotaped beheading by the Taliban on the afternoon of Sunday, April 8, Ajmal Naqshbandi has become a household name in Afghanistan. No death in recent years has so galvanized public opinion here. Like the murder of Margaret Hassan in Iraq a few years ago, Ajmal’s has come to epitomize the horror of the war in Afghanistan.

His beheading was the culmination of a harrowing month in captivity for Ajmal, a 24-year old journalist from Kabul. He was taken hostage in Helmand province on March 4, together with La Repubblica reporter Daniele Mastrogiacomo, and their driver Sayed Agha. They had travelled there for a rendezvous with the Taliban; Ajmal was working as the Italian’s fixer, as he had done for other foreign reporters in the past.

But the meeting that had been arranged for them was a trap. Instead of granting Mastrogiacomo an interview, the Taliban took him and his companions hostage, and proceeded to use them as expendable pawns in a horrifying game of death. Sayed Agha, the young driver, was the first to die. He was beheaded by the Taliban shortly after the group was abducted. The Taliban posted a video on the internet showing the three blindfolded men seated on the ground at the feet of their captors.

Then one of the Taliban spoke to the camera, condemning Sayed Agha to death for being a spy. He then slit Sayed Agha’s throat, and cut off his head. A weeping Mastrogiacomo was shown pleading for his life and begging for his captors’ demands to be met. And they were. A few days later, on March 19, the Italian was freed in exchange for five senior Taliban prisoners held by the Afghan government.

Afterwards, President Hamid Karzai haplessly explained that he was pressured by the Italian government – which has 1,800 troops in Afghanistan – to make the exchange. After Mastrogiacomo’s release, however, Ajmal remained in Taliban hands. Supposedly, he was being held until the government handed over two more Taliban prisoners.

But then, two days before the expiration date they executed him. Government officials gave unconvincing explanations as to what had gone wrong, but the damage was done. To Afghans, it appeared that their own government cared more about an Italian than one of its own citizens.

There are several theories floating around as to why Ajmal was really killed, but, whatever the truth, it was a watershed event in Afghanistan. On the one hand, it was a sign that the Taliban were prepared to take their terror tactics to a new level, and that the Afghan government was weak and indecisive. Most importantly, for journalists, it meant that henceforth, similar rendezvous with Taliban fighters in the field might be fatal.

It also means that the handful of savvy, experienced and reliable “fixers” like Ajmal no longer want to risk death by arranging such meetings for foreign reporters.The bottom line: Since the Taliban got what they wanted by kidnapping Mastrogiacomo, it now means that all Westerners, including journalists, have become potentially valuable commodities in the Afghan war – just as they have become in Iraq.

Understandably, the episode has raised the tension levels in Afghanistan to a new high, and raises serious questions about how journalists can accurately report the war here. The killing of Ajmal, above all, highlights the vital and sensitive role local fixers play for all of us who report here and elsewhere. It raises the question of what our responsibility is towards such people when they are victimized for assisting us.

Most reporters who come to Afghanistan do not speak Dari or Pashto, the country’s principal languages, and do not possess the contacts to move around and report unassisted. Whether our published stories reflect it or not, most of us are dependent on fixers, translators, and drivers here in order to do our work -people like Sayed Agha and Ajmal Naqshbandi.

A couple of weeks ago, I visited Ajmal’s family in Kabul and his father told me that, so far, he’d received no offer of help or compensation from either the Afghan or the Italian governments.He is a former aviation mechanic for Ariana airlines, but lost his job after losing a leg in a land mine explosion back in the Nineties.

He was very proud of Ajmal and the work he had been doing, he told me. He pointed to his two surviving sons, both teenagers, who were sitting in the room with us. He said: “Ajmal was the sole breadwinner of our family; he wanted them to go to college. Now I don’t know what we are gong to do for them.”

Ajmal’s father wasn’t insinuating anything, he didn’t have his hand out, he was merely stating the facts, and he uttered his words with great dignity. After a time, I got up to leave. He thanked me for coming and I said goodbye, leaving him to his grief. His two sons saw me to the door and smiled and waved as I left.

In the past several weeks, journalists in New York and London have been trying to raise funds for Ajmal’s and Sayed’s families. Hopefully they will raise enough to show both families that we – all of us – really do care about them.

It will not only provide real help to their families; it will also send proof of our compassion throughout Afghan society. We could go even further. There can be no better moment than this one to establish a special compensation fund for the indispensable, underpaid and often unnamed Ajmals and Sayeds who pull us through and help us get our stories around the world, and who, increasingly, are paying the ultimate price for doing so. It could be called The Ajmal Fund.

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Fledgling Afghan media under fire

Friday, May 4th, 2007

The Guardian’s Declan Walsh on the media in Afghanistan: A day after being freed from captivity by the Taliban, the Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo stepped off a plane in Rome, beaming with relief and raising his arms in a victory salute. But back in Afghanistan his translator, Ajmal Nakshbandi, remained in Taliban hands.

The omens were bad: Mastrogiacomo’s driver, Sayed Agha, had already been beheaded, and a week later 25-year-old Nakshbandi was also dead, his throat slit and his body dumped in the desert.

The brutal slaying last month shook Afghanistan’s fledgling media, sparked recriminations and highlighted how young local reporters were becoming caught in the crossfire of an increasingly vicious conflict.

All sides consider news as a weapon of war, even those professing to defend press freedom. On March 4 American soldiers ripped cameras from local reporters in Nangarhar and deleted their pictures after a convoy of marines shot at least 10 people and wounded 33 in the aftermath of a suicide attack.

A US commander later justified the deletions on the basis that “untrained” Afghans might “capture visual details that are not as they originally were”. A preliminary military inquiry, publicised last week, suggested what those sensitive details could have been: contrary to the soldiers’ earlier claims, investigators found that all of the killed civilians had been unarmed.

Faced with a swelling insurgency and mounting criticism, Afghanistan’s government has also taken a tougher line with the media. Last week three journalists with Tolo, a popular television station, and four from the Associated Press, were detained on orders from the attorney general, Abdul Jabar Sabet, who claimed he had been misrepresented by a reporter.

“We are coming under fire from all sides,” said Rahimullah Samander, president of the Afghan Independent Journalists’ Association. “Before everyone wanted to be a journalist. Not any more.”

The Afghan media has altered beyond recognition since the Taliban regime, when there was one state-controlled radio station and a handful of religion-obsessed newspapers. Now there are eight TV stations, 400 publications and more than 2,000 journalists, according to Mr Samander.

The media explosion is fuelling social change and a spirit of accountability. Editorials harshly criticise the government of the president, Hamid Karzai, and TV stations feature women presenters, foreign films and racy music videos.

Foreign donors encouraged the local media with a flood of funding before the elections in 2004 and 2005. But over the past year the foreign money has started to dry up. Six daily newspapers have folded, journalists have been laid off and wages have plummeted.

There has been a three-fold increase in suicide attacks this year alone. As the Taliban stepped up its attacks, the government’s commitment waned. Last year the state intelligence agency tried to curtail reporting of the insurgency by issuing a list of restrictions to local journalists. A public outcry caused the directive to be withdrawn, but public anger was again stoked over the handling of Mastrogiacomo’s release.

Mastrogiacomo, a correspondent for La Repubblica, was freed in exchange for five “high-value” Taliban prisoners and $2m (£1m), said an Afghan official. President Karzai agreed to the controversial deal because he feared Italy would withdraw 1,800 troops from Afghanistan if the journalist died. The Taliban expedited negotiations by beheading his driver then making the panicked Italian record a video plea for help.

But Afghans say that once Mastrogiacomo was safe, Mr Karzai had allowed the Afghan, Nakshbandi, to die in the desert. “Why didn’t the government strike a deal for both of them? It didn’t take Ajmal seriously,” said Farida Nekzad, managing editor of Pajhwok news agency. “In this country we have two policies – one for the internationals, the other for locals.”

But the Afghan official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the story was more complicated, and that the Taliban had never made demands for the release of Nakshbandi, who was killed to “humiliate Mr Karzai”. He added: “It was political, just to make the government’s name bad.”

Journalists also directed their ire at the Italian journalist and La Repubblica for failing to save Nakshbandi. The Union of Italian journalists has offered money to his family, said Mr Samander.

This week the media debate has focused on the Tolo TV controversy. Mr Sabet, a strident conservative, told the Guardian he had been offended by a television report that took his words out of context. “They are not journalists, they are liars,” he said. He insisted he was within his rights to detain whoever he wished. “These laws give me the power to summon any person in this country, even the president,” he said, waving a book of legislation.

Since being appointed last year as attorney general Mr Sabet has cultivated a reputation as a crusader against corruption and vice, arresting crooked officials and shutting down brothels. But critics say that he sometimes breaks the law or applies it selectively and can be unpredictable.

On Monday a government commission adjudicating on the Tolo dispute ordered the station to apologise to Mr Sabet. Its management refused to back down. “We come under illegal attack and they demand we apologise – how ridiculous is that?” said its director, Saad Mohseni.

There is greater peril in the provinces. Young and poorly paid reporters are vulnerable to intimidation and bribery from local strongmen, usually governors and warlords wanting to stop unfavourable coverage of corruption, human rights abuses and drug trafficking.

But the most potent danger remains the Taliban.

“They want to control our words. They say ‘if we kill one person, you should write [that it was] two’,” said Ms Nekzad, of Pajhwok, who likened the worsening situation to Iraq.

Refusal to comply can lead to an early grave. Mr Samander pulled out a “night letter” that a colleague in Nangarhar had received last week accusing him of working for the CIA. Several journalists had already left, he said.

He sighed. “It is not our job to take sides but this is very difficult. We will surely lose other Ajmals.”

Backstory

Fighting continues in southern Afghanistan but elsewhere the struggle to control the country’s cultural future is being played out on the small screen. TV stations showing Bollywood movies and looking at previously taboo subjects such as child sex abuse are highly popular with young, urban Afghans. Tolo TV is at the vanguard of this wave, but the fledgling media is staunchly resisted by many older Afghans who are sceptical about western influences. A media law now in parliament will give the government greater control. But the freedom that has been acquired might not be readily surrendered. Last week disabled athletes blocked protesters from reaching the Tolo building, in an upmarket area of Kabul. One disabled man said the athletes were involved because it was “good TV”.

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TARIQ ALI: Afghanistan – a good war or another Iraq?

Tuesday, May 1st, 2007

PUBLIC MEETING
Afghanistan: a “good” war or another Iraq?

Thursday May 10, 7pm

Speakers:
TARIQ ALI, author
A BBC JOURNALIST

City University (map)
Lecture theatre CM507
via main entrance, Northampton Square
London EC1

Angel/Old Street/Farringdon/Barbican tube stations

All welcome!

Organised by Media Workers Against the war
www.mwaw.net
tel 07801 789 297

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