CBS CREW SHOT IN IRAQ
NOAM CHOMSKY AT WEST POINT
AL GORE AT CANNES FILM FESTIVAL

As outspoken and critical as I have been about network war coverage, I have been equally supportive of journalists on the front lines. I have been reporting regularly on journalists killed and wounded in Iraq.

Now it seems to have been CBS’s turn. When I got the news of the latest deadly attack I forwarded it to Tom Fenton, the network’s former chief foreign correspondent turned critic. His comment:

“Thanks. Paul Douglas, the cameraman, was a good friend, and the only CBS London cameramen who would still volunteer for Baghdad. Another terrible loss in a stupid war.”

This is from two reports on CBS.com

“Two members of the CBS News team were killed and correspondent Kimberly Dozier was seriously hurt in an attack in Baghdad. The crew was embedded with a U.S. Army unit hit by a car bomb. One U.S. soldier was also killed and 6 others were wounded.”

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/05/29/notebook/main1663989.shtml

In England, unlike the US, the press all notes that the two CBS crew members were British. The Telegraph reports: “How the deaths of the CBS journalists shows there is no safe way of reporting from Iraq.” Reuters reported: “The CBS news team had ‘embedded’ with a unit of the 4th Infantry Division, colleagues said, for a brief reporting assignment on what was Memorial Day in the United States, a public holiday dedicated to remembering America’s war dead.”

An Iranian outlet, Islamic Republic News Agency reports: “These killings … bring the total of media staff killed in Iraq to 127”

IFJ: HAD CALLLED FOR PROBE OF MEDIA KILLINGS

The International Federation of Journalists in 2005 called for an investigation into media killings: “Media organizations and journalists’ families face a wall of silence and an unfeeling bureaucracy that refuses to give clear and credible answers to questions.” In a letter to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, today, the IFJ called upon UN leaders to establish an independent inquiry into the killings of media staff at the hands of US and coalition forces.
http://www.ifj.org/default.asp?Index=3340&Language=EN

BUSH VISITS ARLINGTON CEMETARY, CHOMSKY AT WEST POINT
(Yes, you read it right!)

Bush supported his war again Monday. What else? I reported yesterday on his visit to West Point, but this is the event at the US Military Academy I wish I had been at. It was shown last night but took place on April 20:

Description: From the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Noam Chomsky talks to West Point cadets about just war theory and the invasion of Iraq. During the talk, Professor Chomsky criticizes the work of Michael Walzer, an influential proponent of just war theory and the author of the popular “Just and Unjust Wars.” Following his remarks, Professor Chomsky takes questions from the cadets about international law and the Bush administration’s foreign policy.”

It was on CSPAN 2, It probably will be again:
http://www.booktv.org/feature/index.asp?segID=7022&schedID=428

Marine ‘Massacre’ in al-Haditha: Eye Witness Report From Ali Hamdani in al-Haditha and Ned Parker in Baghdad

”Iman Hassan, a 10-year-old Iraqi girl, told The Times how she had watched US marines kill her mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, four-year-old cousin and two uncles.”

’

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13414.htm

WHAT HAPPENS NOW? ROBERT PARRY SAYS: NADA

“The new U.S. atrocity in Iraq, the alleged murder of two dozen Iraqis by revenge-seeking Marines in the city of Haditha, appears likely to follow the course of other Iraq war-crimes cases, such as the prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib - some low- or mid-level soldiers will be court-martialed and marched off to prison.”

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/052906.html

A VETERAN SPEAKS

Bob Geiger says he stayed home on Memorial Day:

“It is a sick paradox that Veterans — who should despise George W. Bush and his administration more than most — are still among the groups that seem to stand by his side, largely supported him as recently as the 2004 election and even donated to his efforts to retain his unfortunate Command-in-Chief role. Forget the Swift Boat Liars, who so cruelly assailed John Kerry in 2004 with their fictitious and irrelevant accounts of his Vietnam service — they’re so far gone that only greed or mental illness can explain their conduct and I can only hope that none live in my town.

But as far as I’m concerned, any of my neighbors who voted for Bush — and certainly those who support him even today, with so many more facts to work with — have on their hands the blood of almost 2,500 of our brothers and sisters who have died in Iraq. And, while I understand that Memorial Day is supposed to be an apolitical day of solemn remembrance, I just cannot bring myself to march should-to-shoulder with them.”

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/

CHAOS IN KABUL

Our friend Stewart Nusbaumer reports from Kabul:

“Today in Kabul the veneer of national progress was ripped off, leaving several Afghanis dead and many more wounded and sending this capital city into a lockdown. Four and a half years after the US military-led offensive successfully overthrew the Taliban government, which was protecting Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda, Kabul has erupted in gunfire, leaving citizens shattered and their confidence in the future shaken.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/052906Y.shtml

Washington Post Report on Incident
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/29/AR2006052900284.html?referrer=email&referrer=email

ENRON AS A POLITICAL SCANDAL

Jason Leopold reminds us of the Engron-Bush connection
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/052906Z.shtml

WAPO: WHO IS/WHAT IS HILLLARY?

“Hillary Rodham Clinton has fashioned a political persona that generates intense passions but defies easy characterization. She is viewed as a hawk on Iraq and national security, stamped as a big-government Democrat for her work on health care in the 1990s, and depicted as seeking the middle ground on abortion.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/29/AR2006052901029.html?referrer=email&referrer=email

QUAKE: SEARCH FOR SURVIVORS ENDS

The Guardian reports:

Indonesia’s president warned on Monday night it would take months to deal with the basic needs of tens of thousands of earthquake survivors, as rescue teams all but gave up hope of pulling more people alive from the rubble. Relief has started trickling through to towns demolished by Saturday’s 6,3-magnitude quake that killed at least 4300 people on Java island.”

Greg Knape reports for ETN—Travel Wire News:

“All the hospitals in Yogyakarta and surroundings were completely overwhelmed and way over capacity, no longer able to handle the dead and wounded, many victims had fractured bones and more were bleeding profusely. Blood supply, medicines, bandages, had run out. In the evening, Yogyakarta Governor, Sultan Hamengku Buwono X, called on all hospitals on Java to help out, as victims were attended to lying on straw mats, plastic sheets or newspapers on hallway floors or in hospital driveways and gardens, with some drips hanging from trees.

Meanwhile, in Yogya’s southern suburb of Bantul, which is located closest - at a mere six kilometers- to the quake’s epicenter, the town was completely flattened, with no house left standing. For houses and buildings here are not built to withstand quakes. Along Yogya’s main street, Malioboro, tens of shophouses were cracked or roofs collapsed. The airport of Adisucipto was closed immediately, as its roof in the domestic terminal had collapsed onto the floor, electricity was down and computers broken. Parts of its runway had cracked and sunk. The last flight out of Yogyakarta was a Garuda Indonesia plane that took off minutes before the quake. Power lines had also fallen down in parts of the city and phone communications was difficult.”

http://eturbonews.com/