War and the US –what you don’t see can't hurt

The US media's exclusion of graphic images fails to convey the reality of war and allows its glorification.

I’ve never understood the people who don’t watch or read the news.  Obviously, I believe what we do is important, so I’ve always been a bit baffled.  I get it now.  I have been so overwhelmed with emotion watching the Gaza conflict unfold that it has in many ways consumed me from thousands of miles away. 

That means I’ve been doing a lot of walking around D.C. to try and get the pictures out of my head at least temporarily.  I was struck by a couple of things during my walks.  First, there are a lot of tourists in this town.  Second, they are here to see some very beautiful memorials.  And then I realized the old memorials here in Washington are all to war and to President’s that are associated with war.

That made me ask myself, is war at the heart of the American identity? Much of what is left of this country’s manufacturing base is to make tools of war, the planes, the bombs and the ships that carry them.  The United States spends more on defense than the next 13 countries combined.  At the heart of America’s foreign policy are weapons, they allow some to buy them and pay for others to have them as well.  Thevideo game industry survives on make believe war and Hollywood benefits from it as well.  The one place you would be hard pressed to find graphic images of war – on television news. 

I’ve been watching the domestic coverage very carefully.  I’ve written about the bias that I see in some of the reporting.  It’s been fairly blatant in many cases, but there is a subtler form of bias and that is in choosing what pictures to show. 

No dead or dying

I watched the 3 network evening broadcasts the other night.  One talked to injured children but no one showed any of the dead or dying.  They showed bombs from far away, toppled buildings, most didn’t show close ups of mourning and not once did I hear the death toll. 

I’m not saying this is being done on purpose although that is always a possibility.  I was brought up in American television and quite frankly I never really questioned the practice of not showing graphic images.  In local news if a murder victim wasn’t covered up with a white sheet, you usually didn’t even take video of it until the coroner arrived.  It just isn’t what is done.  I remember when I first came to Al Jazeera English; I was very surprised, even mildly shocked, to see the footage we aired.  We are always careful to not cross that hard to define line, but we don’t censor ourselves the way the American media does.  In essence, we don’t sanitize the scene for our viewers to a point that it distorts the reality. 

The images of the grief in Gaza and Israel are just powerful.  The video of the dead, the grieving and destruction stays with you.  The Pentagon knows this, which is why for years no one was allowed to take any video of the caskets of fallen soldiers being returned home.  The loss becomes real.  War becomes real.

I just watched video of a father being told his baby girl was dead.  And his pain seared my heart.  In many ways I wish I had never seen that, but to me, turning away would in some ways insult her memory.  I have to watch this to really know what is happening.  Information that makes us more empathetic humans cannot be a bad thing, even if it is so terribly hard at times.

With this heavy heart, I think I might take another walk.  This time, I might go see the newest memorial; it honors the life of Martin Luther King Junior.  He spent his life in the search for justice through the use of non-violent resistance.  It will be good to be in the one place here where non-violence is held up as something worth honoring, something worth remembering.

Source : Al Jazeera English Blog

UN chief condemns 'atrocious' Gaza killings

Ban Ki-moon condemns killing of civilians by Israel as UN Security Council meets on Gaza.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has condemned the killing of dozens of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by Israeli shelling as an "atrocious action" and called for an immediate end to almost two weeks of fighting.

Ban's comments on Sunday came before a UN Security Council emergency meeting on Gaza  early on Monday that was convened on the request of Jordan.

It also comes as US Secretary of State John Kerry is heading back to the Middle East as the Obama administration attempts to bolster regional efforts to reach a ceasefire.

he State Department said Kerry would leave on Monday for Egypt where he will join diplomatic efforts to resume a truce that had been agreed to in November 2012.

Ban, in Doha on the first leg of a Middle East tour to try to end the bloodshed that has cost more than 400 lives, met Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Qatari Foreign Minister Khaled al-Attiya before heading for Egypt.

"While I was on route to Doha, dozens more civilians have been killed in the Israeli military strikes . . . in Gaza ... I condemn the atrocious action," he said in a statement after talks with Attiya.

"Israel must exercise maximum restraint. I repeat my demands to all sides that they must respect international humanitarian law. The violence must stop now," he added.

More than 60 Palestinians and 13 Israeli soldiers were killed as Israel shelled Gaza's Shejaia neighbourhood and battled Hamas fighters in the bloodiest fighting in the 13-day offensive.

The US Department of State said that two of the Israeli soldiers were US citizens. It was not immediately clear whether they also held Israeli citizenship.

Attiyah called the killings a massacre and said Israel must not be allowed to chose when to wage a war and when to stop.

"We condemn all the atrocities perpetrated by Israel against the Palestinian people, the last of which was al-Shejaia massacre today," Attiya said. "The majority of the victims were women and children."

Israeli soldier 'captured'

Hamas' armed wing al-Qassam brigades said they had taken an Israeli soldier, named Shaul Aron, captive late on Sunday, a claim Israel has denied.

"When they [Israel] decided on this operation they have to expect that their soldiers may be killed, captured, or injured", Senior Hamas official and spokesman Osama Hamdan told Al Jazeera.

In an appeal filmed in Doha, Palestinian President Abbas called on the international community to protect Palestinians against what he called the current "unbearable" situation.

"The UN security council has failed to protect Palestinians and I call on the council to hold an emergency meeting today to protect Palestinians... what Israel did today is crime against humanity," he said in the recording shown to reporters.

He further called for an immediate ceasefire and stressed that unity among all factions in the Palestinian territories.

Hamas says any accord must include lifting a blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt on the Gaza Strip and a return to an understanding that ended a previous round of fighting in 2012.

"There was an Egyptian proposal, which was not accepted by the Palestinians because there were no gurantees for a ceasefire, there were no gurantees for lifting the siege on Gaza and stopping the violations in the West Bank",  Hamdan told Al Jazeera. 

"I am looking forward to a model better than 2012. The events now are worse, the attack is worse- Israel has violated the 2012 ceasefire, so we need more gurantees from the Israeli side and the international community",  Hamdan said.

Source : Al Jazeera and agencies

Former US soldier guilty of rape found hanged

Former soldier was 19 when he raped and killed teenage Iraqi girl and shot dead her three family members.

A former US Army soldier, sentenced to life imprisonment for the 2006 rape and murder of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and the killing of her parents and sister, has been found hanged in his cell. The Los Angeles Times report, quoting prison officials, said the death of Steven Dale Green was being investigated as suicide. Green had been found hanging in his Arizona cell last week, according to the Times report, which was published on Tuesday. Green, 28, was convicted in 2009 of the rape and murder of 14-year-old Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi and the deaths of her father, mother and six-year-old sister in Mahmudiya, 32km south of Baghdad. He was sentenced to life in prison, without the possibility of parole, after a federal jury in Kentucky could not decide whether he should be executed. During the trial, prosecutors portrayed him as the ringleader of a gang of five soldiers that plotted to invade the home of the family of four to rape the girl, and later bragged about the crime. Green, who was 19 when he committed the crime, was described as the triggerman in the group of soldiers, who donned black "ninja" outfits and raped the girl before killing her and her family. Three of the four other soldiers pleaded guilty in the attack and the fourth was convicted, all in military courts. They received sentences ranging from five to 100 years. Green was tried as a civilian because he was arrested after he was discharged from the army. He was described by prosecutors as predisposed to killing Iraqis. While his defence lawyers acknowledged that he took part in the killings, they argued he was suffering combat stress after the death of close colleagues and should be spared the death penalty.

Source: Agencies

Guantanamo inmate pleads guilty over bombing

Saudi brother-in-law of September 11 hijacker pleads guilty to planning to blow up a French oil tanker in Yemen in 2002.

A Saudi detainee at the US prison in Guantanamo Bay has pleaded guilty to plotting with al-Qaeda to blow up a French oil tanker in Yemen in 2002. Ahmed Mohammed Ahmed Haza al-Darbi, the brother-in-law of one of the September 11, 2001 plane hijackers, admitted to planning, aiding and supporting an attack on the MV Limburg which killed a Bulgarian sailor, injured a dozen and caused a large oil spill in the Gulf of Aden. Darbi, who has been held in Guantanamo for more than a decade, likely faces up to 15 more years in prison, the chief prosecutor, Army Brigadier General Mark Martins, said in a statement. Some of that time could be served in his native Saudi Arabia, the AFP news agency reported. His lawyer Ramzi Kassem announced Darbi was pleading guilty to charges of terrorism and to attacking civilians and civilian targets before the US military judge at Guantanamo. "This moment is bittersweet," said Kassem, whose client agreed to cooperate with prosecutors as part of the plea deal. They accuse Darbi of having met with and worked for fellow Saudi Guantanamo detainee Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who faces the death penalty on charges he masterminded the MV Limburg attack and the 2000 attack against the USS Cole in Yemen that left 17 dead. By pleading guilty, Darbi, 39, could become a key witness against Nashiri, whose trial is likely to open in September. Darbi "has pledged to be law-abiding and to cooperate fully and truthfully with authorities," Martins said, adding that soon after his arrest, Darbi began "divulging some useful information to authorities about his involvement in terrorist activities". 'Legally responsible' Speaking a mix of Arabic and English, Darbi admitted supplying visas, boats and other necessary equipment to those who carried out the attack on the MV Limburg. Under the terms of the plea deal, Darbi will not be officially sentenced for another 3.5 years, judge Mark Allred said at the hearing, which was retransmitted for reporters at the US military base in Fort Meade, Maryland, outside Washington. The delay, which has been standard for Guantanamo detainees who plead guilty, means he would still be at the US prison in Cuba when Nashiri's trial begins. Once Darbi is formally sentenced, he could be released from the Guantanamo jail to serve the remainder of his sentence in Saudi Arabia, Martins said. A Pentagon spokesman explained he would serve a minimum of five more years in a Saudi jail, depending on whether his behaviour from this point forward was deemed cooperative, AFP reported. At the hearing, Darbi emphasized that by the time the MV Limburg attack was carried out, "I was already detained at that time, for four months." The oil tanker was bombed on October 6, 2002 and Darbi was captured in June of that year, according to military documents unveiled by WikiLeaks. Nevertheless, Darbi has admitted to being "legally responsible" for all the charges, which could have seen him jailed for life without the plea deal. He waived his right to appeal his conviction as well as to contest his capture and decade-plus detention in Guantanamo, and said: "I agree to cooperate fully and truthfully with the government. "This cooperation includes, but is not limited to, providing complete and accurate information in interviews, depositions, and testimony wherever and whenever requested by prosecutors."

Source: Agencies

Partial verdict in Florida loud-music killing

Jury in trial of man who shot teenager to death in row over loud music deadlocked over charge of first degree murder.

A north Florida jury has convicted a man of three counts of attempted murder for opening fire on a car of black teenagers during an argument over loud rap music, but could not reach a verdict on a murder charge for the killing of a 17-year-old in the car. Michael Dunn, a 47-year-old software engineer, fired 10 rounds at an SUV carrying the four teenagers in a Jacksonville petrol station car park in November 2012, killing Jordan Davis. The jury said it was deadlocked on the most serious charge of first degree murder against Dunn, forcing judge Russell Healey to declare a mistrial on that count. The jury also found Dunn guilty on a fifth count of firing into an occupied vehicle, the Reuters news agency reported. The trial has drawn international attention because of racial overtones and Dunn's claims of self-defence. Following the case in which George Zimmerman was acquitted six months ago over the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, the trial also renewed attention towards Florida's self-defense laws that permit people who say they feel threatened to use lethal force to defend themselves. The failure to reach a verdict on the first degree murder charge is a blow for the prosecution and the Davis family. But the three guilty verdicts on the charge of attempted second degree murder against the other teenagers in the SUV, mean that Dunn still faces a sentence of at least 60 years in jail, legal analysts said. 'Long road' Prosecutors told a news conference after the verdicts that they plan to retry Dunn on the first degree murder charge, Reuters reported. "It's been a long, long road and we're so very happy to have just a little bit of closure," Davis' mother, Lucy McBath, told reporters. "It's sad for Mr Dunn that he will live the rest of his life in that sense of torment. I will pray for him. I will ask my family to pray for him. "But we are so grateful for the charges that have been brought against him, we are so grateful for the truth, we are so grateful that the jurors were able to understand the common sense of it all." The sequestered jury began deliberating on Wednesday afternoon after a week of testimony and spent more than 30 hours trying to reach a verdict. Dunn, who had no prior convictions, testified earlier this week that he began shooting in a state of panic after he thought he saw the barrel of a gun in the back window as Davis started to get out of the car. Prosecutors said Davis, who had no arrest record, used foul language when confronting Dunn after the argument broke out, but was unarmed and never posed a physical threat.

Source: Agencies