Usraelis shoot and detain unembedded journalist

[Moses]

 <br>April 12, 2005
Cover the Insurgents, Go to Prison (or Worse)

by Aaron Glantz

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The international press freedom organization Reporters Without Borders is calling on the U.S. government to release a CBS cameraman it shot last week while he was covering a gunfight in Mosul. When he was shot, the Iraqi freelancer was armed with only his camera.

A U.S. Army statement said the CBS cameraman was being held because be might pose "an imperative threat to the coalition forces." The U.S. military suspects him of links to the rebels because video footage found in his camera shows he was on the scene of several bombings shortly after they took place.

"We call on the U.S. Army to release him very quickly if no evidence is produced to support his alleged collaboration with the insurgency," the press freedom organization said.

The CBS cameraman isn't the only reporter being currently imprisoned in Iraq because of the contents of his camera. Iraqi police continue to imprison a reporter for the satellite news channel al-Arabiya. Correspondent Wael Issam was stopped at Baghdad International Airport on March 28. His tapes were confiscated, and he was taken to prison.

"The station managers and his mother are pleading to the Iraqi government to release him because they haven't charged him with anything," the network's Washington bureau chief Talal al-Haj told me, noting the Dubai-based network has also contacted Iraq's foreign minister for help.

So why was Wael Issam arrested? It seems that, like the CBS cameraman, he had been covering the resistance. Arabiya's assignment editor Najib Ben-Shahab said that before his arrest, Issam had been working on a documentary on the Iraqi city of Fallujah, where resistance to the occupation is strong and U.S. military assaults have killed hundreds – if not thousands – of civilians.

"Wael went to Fallujah many times, and he filmed a lot of stuff there," said Najib Ben-Shahab. "He had so much footage of armed groups and the so-called resistance, and he was bringing the material to Dubai to make a short documentary or a piece about Fallujah and the armed groups there."

These two events together indicate what could be a disturbing amount of press censorship in Iraq. If you are a journalist who wants to cover the U.S. military – fine. But want to learn something about those who are fighting the occupation and broadcast it to the outside world so they can learn something about the fighters? That's increasingly difficult.

Indeed, beyond the incarcerations are the shootings of journalists. A month before the CBS cameraman was shot, U.S. forces opened fire at a car carrying Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena. She survived the shooting, but a senior Italian intelligence officer died.

"We just want soldiers to pay more attention – to be more careful," said Reporters Without Borders Washington representative Lucie Morillon. "In a war zone, you don't have only people fighting; you also have civilians and journalists covering this, and you have to be careful, you have to pay more attention."

Lucie Morillon told me the most recent incident is similar to one a year ago where a U.S. soldier shot and killed award-winning Reuters cameraman Mazan Dana as he filmed the families of detainees outside Abu Ghraib prison.

"He was just taking pictures, and a soldier saw him and apparently thought he was having a weapon and shot at him," Morillon said, adding that as in every other case, the military brass cleared the soldier involved. "They said he had only followed the rules of engagement "

Eight journalists have been killed by U.S. troops in Iraq since the occupation began. No American soldier has ever been punished.

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[nana]

Sheesh, I wish they'd stop referring to Iraqi citizens resisting the illegal invasion, distruction, occupation and looting of their country and the wholesale slaughter of its citizens, as 'insurgents'. Like hello!?!?!?!?!
From the point of view of the Iraqis, they're patriots doing exactly what Americans would be doing if the positions were reversed.

Funny how the French Resistance during WW II was glorified and admired for its patriotism but Iraqis doing the same things to the American occupation that the French did to the Germany occupation are 'criminalized'.

They're Iraqi patriots. And to call torture and murder of prisoners 'abuse' makes it sound like someone said something insulting.

How in the name of all that is holy can these atrocities be linguistically trivialized to the point that it seems the average American just shrugs? Even reporters who are critical of the war and the actions of our goverment, perpetuate the trivialization and the linguistic criminalization of the Iraqis who have been driven beyond endurance, by using the same labels and euphemisms as all the government and the lap-dog media's propaganda.

This whole ugly mess isn't and never was a 'war', it was and is a massive war crime with untold numbers of individual war crimes, from start to - - - - - - finish? will it ever finish?.

I"m sofa king fed up with all this propaganda I could puke.

When's the next star ship leaving for Betazed?


Please pardon the flame.

[Moses]

Come to think of it, I'm not sure the UK/US did admire the French resistance all that much? Didn't they kind of cut DeGaulle out of the action and undermine him, and then of course they hunted down the French resistance after the war, because they were communists. The French resistance were mostly communists, I think, and really poor farmers.

Maybe someone knows more about this.

[nana]

I guess I was speaking from a Canadian perspective because in Canada, the French Resistance was admired. To me and many others, they were heroes as were those in Holland. I remember my Uncle Vic, officially in the Canadian Air Force, talking about them when he was home on leave. He wore an Air Force uniform when he was in Canada or in the UK, but when he was overseas he was in France, on the ground, behind German lines working with the the French Resistance spying on the German forces and helping create havoc. Sadly he didn't survive his last assignment in 1944. I wasn't in the USA during WW II so you may be right. Of course there was a significant amount of pressure within the US to stay out of WW II until Pearl Harbour.

[Moses]

I think someone has written a book about their work w/ the French resistance-- a US author. But my recollection is that this author himself became a fascist of some kind and virillantly anti-communist and may have written about betrayals in the French resistance? Not sure-- vague impressions.

What happened to your Uncle Vic, have you been able to find out?

[nana]

'Uncle Vic' never got to be officially my uncle, he was on leave and a very few days before the planned wedding, to marry one of my aunts, who was also in the Air Force, his leave got cut short and he was sent back to occupied France, with the promise of an extended leave when he got back to make up for having to delay the wedding and honeymoon. He had been in and out of occupied territory several times and always when he got back to the UK he was sent home on leave for some R & R. They know he got back to France and then he simply vanished.

For many years, after the war, repeated attempts to find out what had happened to him were made, both by the Air Force and our family. The Red Cross and other organizations were unable to find any information. It was as if he dropped off the face of the earth.

[Moses]

So the RAF dropped him at point X-- and then never heard from him? No radio contact no nothing?

Does Canada keep stuff classified for a long period of time?

He must have been a part of some kind of intelligence operation? And was he alone?

At some point I think the Nazis penetrated the resistance or some of the operations set up in France.

[nana]

Oh we knew very clearly that he was really a 'spy' (in Intelligence) working for Canada and Britain and that he wore his RCAF uniform only when he wasn't really 'working'. I remember as a very small child overhearing his descriptions of the camps in Poland and Germany, long before there was any official acknowledgement of their existance.

All I know is he was dropped, apparently successfully, but never made contact with any of his contacts. He just vanished.
The search began well before the war ended.

Even after documents became unclassified there was simply no trace of him. As far as I know he did operate alone. The search was thorough and exhaustive and continued off and on for decades, by the RCAF and the Red Cross, even declassified Russian files where searched in case he'd been picked up by the Russians. Nothing, nada, zilch.

Missing and presumed dead. Whether by accident or otherwise no one knows. He may have been declared officiallly dead at some point, I never heard. The only trace of his existance is in the memories of those of us still alive who remember him. The aunt he was going to marry has been dead for about 20 years so I may be the last person still living who knew him. I was only 4 when I last saw him but my memories of him are still crystal clear -- I really loved the man.

[Moses]

How very strange! How frustrating! Do you remember where they dropped him?

[nana]

No, I don't have that kind of information, I was only 4 years old at the time ... I assume the adults in both families were told all that they could be told, as information became available. All I remember was that my aunt and grandmother were very upset and I was finally told that he was missing when he failed to arrive home the week before the rescheduled wedding (I was to have been the flower girl). As I got older and asked questions I was told more about the investigations and searches, that were official and extensive, as well as quietly and unofficially, over a longer period of time. I do remember when my aunt finallly stopped hoping to hear something after 5 or 6 years of being told that they were unable to find any information about what happened to him and she eventually met another man, and married and had 4 children, 2 of whom are members of the RCMP. I do remember that even after she was married and had a family, that occasionally his name would come up in conversation and she'd mention that she'd had another letter after secret documents had been opened and searched and still no trace of him.

It's not that strange, he was not the only 'operative' that vanished without a trace during that time. And considering the destruction in many areas of occupied Europe leading to the end of WW II, much of it from Allied bombers, it's not too hard to imagine the kinds of events that would leave no identifiable trace of many of the people who were killed. Whether it was enemy or friendly fire, they're just as dead.

Whatever happened, it probably occurred very quickly after he'd been dropped and before he could reach his contacts because they were were looking for him too. If I remember correctly they raised the alarm (radio) when he didn't arrive as scheduled but I never knew where that place was.

[Moses]

What a haunting mystery. (My grandfather was in the RAF as well -- a Canadian also-- and his brother a mountie.-- I later got a really bad impression of the mounties because one who was stationed at the embassy here had a wife who is a frightening Nazi-- believes unfit people should be killed and such! -- unless I have my wives mixed up-- a possibility!)