Juan Cole calls out the U.S. military for its assistance in arresting a reporter for the UK’s Guardian newspaper:
US troops were used to arrest an Iraqi journalist working on a story for a British news organization about corruption in defense contracts in Iraq. This is very troubling on all sorts of levels. US troops do not have a Status of Forces agreement with Iraq and do not have a constitutional right to arrest civilians without a warrant. And, the US military should not be harassing journalists reporting on contract fraud.
Huh. I wonder if his working on a story about contract corruption had anything to do with the U.S. assistance in this arrest. A Guardian account reveals the newspaper staff’s fury over the arrest and manhandling of the reporter:
US troops seize award-winning Iraqi journalist — American troops in Baghdad yesterday blasted their way into the home of an Iraqi journalist working for the Guardian and Channel 4, firing bullets into the bedroom where he was sleeping with his wife and children.
Last week, we discussed the near impossibility of reporting from Iraq without being kidnapped or murdered. Then there’s the coercive control by Bushco: As Jazz at Running Scared blog asks with apt snark, “So tell us again how there’s no war against the press in Iraq?”
Adds Jazz:
… unless some seriously valid mitigating circumstances come to light, this is one very disturbing story. […]
It’s a long stretch to try to find a way to give the benefit of the doubt on this one. If independent sources can confirm that this journalist was actually working as a covert agent for the insurgents, then fine. Raid his house. But if he was, then why was he released four hours later? This has the awfully strong stench of trying to intimidate a reporter who was bringing government and/or military malfeasance to light.
The Guardian reports:
American troops in Baghdad yesterday blasted their way into the home of an Iraqi journalist working for the Guardian and Channel 4, firing bullets into the bedroom where he was sleeping with his wife and children.
Ali Fadhil, who two months ago won the Foreign Press Association young journalist of the year award, was hooded and taken for questioning. He was released hours later. . .
“We need a convincing assurance from the American authorities that this terrifying experience was not harassment and a crude attempt to discourage Ali’s investigation.”
Dr Fadhil was asleep with his wife, their three-year-old daughter, Sarah, and seven-month-old son, Adam, when the troops forced their way in.
“They fired into the bedroom where we were sleeping, then three soldiers came in. They rolled me on to the floor and tied my hands. When I tried to ask them what they were looking for they just told me to shut up,” he said.
More below:
Read more comments at The Heretik blog and Factesque blog (via Memeorandum).
Good grief!! I can’t think of anything else to say. That’s so appalling!
Juan Cole calls out the U.S. military . . .
There is no more blame for the troops on this than there is blame for the cops on the beat for getting an address wrong. The correct question is who ordered the raid and why?
Reads like shit-for-brains-intel. Again.
Iranian troops, if they invaded and occupied the US, and subsequently “raided the wrong address?”
Some Americans might suggest that any and all addresses were the wrong ones, and that the Iranian troops should have remained in Iran.
That said, it is always interesting to read Mr. Cole. He expresses a wider range of opinions than most crusade supporters.
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“Those damn journalists,” I hear RMN talking in the Oval office.
PEACE! Remember Yasser Salihee ●
Reporter Murdered :: Story He Died For
≈ Thanks for quick diary observer393 (TH) ::
US troops seize award-winning Iraqi journalist ≈
Sun Jan 8th, 2006 at 10:55:55 PM PST
● CPJ – From Iraq to Philippines, MURDER is top cause of journalist deaths in `05
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼▼▼ READ MY DIARY ▼
Sounds not all that different from this other incident:
Was this latest episode still part of “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” or have they changed the name?
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Read my diary ::
“All I ever wanted to be was a foreign correspondent,” Carroll wrote last year in the American Journalism Review. “It seemed the right time to try to make it happen.”
KIDNAPPED: Freelance reporter
Jill Carroll has worked in Iraq
since 2003. Delphine Minoui
Carroll, a 28-year-old freelancer for The Christian Science Monitor, was kidnapped Saturday in Baghdad, when gunmen ambushed her car and killed her translator. She had been on her way to meet a Sunni Arab official in one of the city’s most dangerous neighborhoods.
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
Did CSM agree to allow her name used? I removed it from the site the other day.
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Period of silence in the media has ended …
Jill Carroll, a freelance writer currently on assignment for The Christian Science Monitor, was abducted in western Baghdad on Saturday morning, local time. Her Iraqi interpreter was fatally wounded in the kidnapping. Her Iraqi driver escaped unharmed.
At this point, no one has claimed responsibility.
Jill, 28, is an established journalist who has been reporting from the Middle East for Jordanian, Italian, and other news organizations over the past three years. In recent months, the Monitor has tapped into her professionalism, energy, and fair reporting on the Iraqi scene. It was her drive to gather direct and accurate views from political leaders that took her into western Baghdad’s Adil neighborhood on Saturday morning.
The Monitor joins Jill’s colleagues – Iraqi and foreign – in the Baghdad press in calling for her immediate and safe release.
“Jill’s ability to help others understand the issues facing all groups in Iraq has been invaluable. We are urgently seeking information about Ms. Carroll and are pursuing every avenue to secure her release,” says Monitor Editor Richard Bergenheim.
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼▼▼ READ MY DIARY ▼
And once again, where is the U.S. media?
Eason Jordan was forced out of CNN for daring to suggest that the U.S. military was targeting journalists in Iraq, and Linda Foley, President of the Newspaper Guild was similarly pilaried by the mainstream for airing similar feelings.
Yet the U.S. mainstream media continues to ignore incidents like this where their fellow journalists are harrassed, jailed, and even murdered. What hypocricy! They piss and moan when Judy Miller goes to jail rather than rat on her criminal bbenefactors in the White House, but when armed U.S. soldiers attack journalists it doesn’t even appear on their radar screens.
Not a single organ of the U.S. mainstream media except Editor & Publisher has reported this incident.
From the wikipedia
Kind of like suicide by cop, or “going postal” in our society.