John Pilger: Web Alternative (on the reporting of the WP story)

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

(...)

An admission by the US State Department on 10 November that its forces had used white phosphorus in Fallujah followed “rumours on the internet”, according to the BBC’s Newsnight.

There were no rumours. There was first-class investigative work that ought to shame well-paid journalists. Mark Kraft of (http://insomnia.livejournal.com) found the evidence in the March-April 2005 issue of Field Artillery magazine and other sources. He was supported by the work of the film-maker Gabriele Zamparini, founder of the excellent site (thecatsdream.com).

Last May, David Edwards and David Cromwell of (medialens.org) posted a revealing correspondence with Helen Boaden, the BBC’s director of news. They had asked her why the BBC had remained silent on known atrocities committed by the Americans in Fallujah. She replied, “Our correspondent in Fallujah at the time (of the US attack), Paul Wood, did not report any of these things because he did not see any of these things.” It is a statement to savour. Wood was “embedded” with the Americans. He interviewed none of the victims of US atrocities, nor un-embedded journalists. He not only missed the Americans’ use of white phosphorus, which they now admit, he reported nothing of the use, in Fallujah, of another banned weapon, napalm. Thus, BBC viewers were unaware of the fine words of Colonel James Alles, commander of the US Marine Air Group XI. “We napalmed both those (bridge) approaches,” he said. “Unfortunately, there were people there . . . you could see them in the cockpit video . . . It’s no great way to die. The generals love napalm. It has a big psychological effect.”
Once the unacknowledged work of Kraft and Zamparini had appeared in the Guardian and Independent and forced the Americans to come clean about white phosphorus, Wood was on Newsnight describing their admission as “a public relations disaster for the US”. This echoed Menzies Campbell of the Liberal Democrats, perhaps the most quoted politician since Gladstone, who said: “The use of this weapon may technically have been legal, but its effects are such that it will hand a propaganda victory to the insurgency.”

Once the unacknowledged work of Kraft and Zamparini had appeared in the Guardian and Independent and forced the Americans to come clean about white phosphorus, Wood was on Newsnight describing their admission as “a public relations disaster for the US”. This echoed Menzies Campbell of the Liberal Democrats, perhaps the most quoted politician since Gladstone, who said: “The use of this weapon may technically have been legal, but its effects are such that it will hand a propaganda victory to the insurgency.”

http://www.globalecho.org/view_article.php?aid=5923&visitID=0215c4f2bd19763be8d100f6588b82bc

[enough]

1. I'm thankful for John Pliger.

[Briar]

2. Yes

a real journalist. I am just grateful Bush hasn't tried to bomb him (yet).