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OfflineRadioActiveSlug
addict

Registered: 03/14/03
Posts: 530
Last seen: 20 years, 8 months
Hunter S. Thompson
    #1454739 - 04/13/03 02:27 PM (20 years, 11 months ago)

A sad week in America
By Hunter S. Thompson
Page 2 columnist
Story

This is a very bad week for the American nation, and next week will be even worse. The Kansas-Syracuse game was barely over when I learned to my horror that the United States Marines were killing journalists in Baghdad.

Three journalists have died in Baghdad so far, and not one of them was killed by Enemy Fire. They were shot down like dogs by U.S. military personel, killed and wounded and mangled by Americans, who drive American M1 Abrahms battle tanks and eat all-American pie, just like the rest of us. American troops are killing journalists in a profoundly foreign country, under cover of a war being fought for savage, greed-crazed reasons that most of them couldn't explain or even understand.

What the hell is going on here? How could this once-proud nation have changed so much, so drastically, in only a little more than two years. In what seems like the blink of an eye, this George Bush has brought us from a prosperous nation at peace to a broke nation at war. And why are we killing innocent people at point-blank range on the other side of the world -- with big guns and big bombs that kill everything in reach?

Indeed, there is something going on here, Mr. Jones, and you don't know what it is, do you?

Bob Dylan said that, and he is still right, now more than ever. Hell, there is nothing really new about American enforcers -- especially cops -- killing and brutalizing innocent American citizens. It happens with depressing regularity. But at least the bastards used to have the decency to deny it.

That is a big difference, sports fans, and that is why I feel so savagely depressed tonight. When the Pentagon feels free -- and even gleeful -- about killing anybody and Everybody who gets in the way of their vicious crusade for oil, the public soul of this country has changed forever, and professional sports is only a serenade for the death of the American dream.


--------------------
"Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned." -Buddha
www.impeach-bush-now.org

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Invisibleadrug

Registered: 02/04/03
Posts: 15,800
Re: Hunter S. Thompson [Re: RadioActiveSlug]
    #1455216 - 04/13/03 05:59 PM (20 years, 11 months ago)

Someone tell me about these journalists who were shot by U.S. soldiers, I hadn't heard anything like that.

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OfflineEchoVortex
(hard) member
Registered: 02/06/02
Posts: 859
Last seen: 15 years, 6 months
Re: Hunter S. Thompson [Re: adrug]
    #1455452 - 04/13/03 08:05 PM (20 years, 11 months ago)

It was all over the news. Here is just one link among many possibilties

PBS News Hour

The attacks reported here were clearly deliberate. Either that or we have the most incompetent military in the world. Which do you think is more likely?

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OfflineRadioActiveSlug
addict

Registered: 03/14/03
Posts: 530
Last seen: 20 years, 8 months
Re: Hunter S. Thompson [Re: adrug]
    #1455477 - 04/13/03 08:15 PM (20 years, 11 months ago)

WAke UP BOY! there's a WAR going ON!


Shooting the Messengers: Truth, they say, is the first casualty of war. These days, you can get killed trying to tell the truth.


Journalists Killed By U.S. Fire Two journalists were killed and at least three were injured Tuesday when U.S. forces fired on their hotel in central Baghdad. The Americans said they were responding to fire in the area of the hotel.

A correspondent for the Al-Jazeera television network died in a separate attack.

The United States agreed later not to fire on the 18-story Palestine Hotel, where many members of the international media are staying to cover the war.

"We don't target journalists. But we will continue to target Iraqi military forces," said Capt. Frank Thorp, a Central Command spokesman in Qatar.

CBS News Correspondent Lara Logan was inside the hotel when it was fired on.

The U.S. military said "that they were under fire from the building - small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades," reports Logan. "But I know, because I was in the building, along with all the other journalists who were here, that no one was firing from this building."

Logan says the incident "brings it home to us because we're here on the ground.

"But this is happening to Iraqi families all across Baghdad." ....



Australia's The Age has published a report that indicates it was a deliberate hit:

Footage filmed by France 3 television of a strike on a hotel which killed two journalists in Baghdad today shows a US tank targeting the journalists' hotel and waiting at least two minutes before firing.

Herve de Ploeg, the journalist and film editor who filmed the attack, said: "I did not hear any shots in the direction of the tank, which was stationed at the west entrance of the Al-Jumhuriya (Republic) bridge, 600 metres north-west of the hotel.

The tank's turret is seen moving toward the Palestine Hotel, where foreign reporters have set up shop, and the gun carriage lifting and waiting at least two minutes before opening up.

The French TV channel had positioned two cameras in two rooms facing the bridge as of 6:30am (11:30 local time).

"It had been very quiet for a moment. There was no shooting at all. Then I saw the turret turning in our direction and the carriage lifting. It faced the target," said De Ploeg.

"It was not a case of instinctive firing," he said......


Journalists' union slams deaths in Iraq

By Gareth Harding
UPI Chief European Correspondent
From the International Desk
Published 4/8/2003 12:09 PM

BRUSSELS, Belgium, April 8 (UPI) -- The International Federation of Journalists on Tuesday accused U.S. and Iraqi forces of committing war crimes against reporters after five correspondents were killed around Baghdad in less than 24 hours.

The IFJ, which represents 500,000 journalists worldwide in more than 100 countries, called for an independent inquiry into the deaths.

"There is no doubt at all that these attacks could be targeting journalists," said Aidan White, General Secretary of the IFJ. "If so, they are grave and serious violations of international law."

"The bombing of hotels where journalists are staying and the targeting of Arab media are particularly shocking events in a war which is being fought in the name of democracy. Those who are responsible must be brought to justice."

Two cameramen working for Spain's Telecinco TV station and the Reuters news agency died Tuesday and four other journalists were wounded when an American tank blasted Baghdad's Palestine Hotel. U.S. army officials said troops were responding to sniper fire from the high-rise hotel, where much of the international media is based.

"Journalists are never targeted, but war is a dangerous event. These people are in a combat zone," said Rumi Nielson Green, a spokesman for the U.S. command in Doha, Qatar.

In a separate incident, a correspondent from the al-Jazeera network was killed and a colleague injured when U.S. missiles landed on the station's Baghdad office.

A U.S. State Department Spokesman said the building was hit by mistake. "It is something we all regret. But I don't believe that it is possible that it was deliberate," Nabil Khoury told the Qatar-based broadcasting company.

On Monday, two Spanish and German reporters were killed when an Iraqi missile struck a U.S. army camp south of Baghdad. The IFJ says 12 journalists have been killed in the two-week-long campaign to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

While accusing U.S. forces of deliberately targeting al-Jazeera, White accused the Iraqi regime of using journalists as human shields.

"The Baghdad authorities are just as culpable with their reckless disregard for civilian lives," he said.

The Brussels-based IFJ called for a review of international rules to improve journalists' protection during conflicts.

"This war has been the most televised conflict in history," said White, "but the protection afforded to journalists and media staff is prehistoric by comparison."

French TV film shows US tank blasting hotel

April 08 2003 at 04:57PM

Baghdad - Footage filmed by France 3 television of a strike on a hotel which killed two journalists in Baghdad on Tuesday shows a US tank targeting the journalists' hotel and waiting at least two minutes before firing, according to an AFP correspondent who viewed the film.

"I did not hear any shots in the direction of the tank, which was stationed at the west entrance of the Al-Jumhuriya (Republic) bridge, 600 metres north-west of the hotel," said Herve de Ploeg, the journalist and film editor on contract with the French channel who filmed the attack.

The tank's turret is seen moving toward the Palestine Hotel, where foreign reporters have set up shop, and the gun carriage lifting and waiting at least two minutes before opening up.

The French TV channel had positioned two cameras in two rooms facing the bridge as of 6.30am (02h30 GMT).

"It had been very quiet for a moment. There was no shooting at all. Then I saw the turret turning in our direction and the carriage lifting. It faced the target," said De Ploeg.

"It was not a case of instinctive firing," he said.

The firing took place at 11.59am (08h59 GMT), said France 3 reporter Caroline Sinz.

"I'm very specific because I was due to go on air," she explained.

The incident killed a cameraman for the Telecinco Spanish television station and another for the British news agency Reuters. Three Reuters staffers were also wounded.

The Spanish cameraman was named as Jose Couso, 37. The Reuters cameraman was named as Ukrainian Taras Protsyuk, 35.

A US commander said the tank fired a single round at the hotel.

"The tank was receiving fire from the hotel, RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) and small-arms fire, and engaged with one tank round. The firing stopped," said General Buford Blount, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, speaking at Baghdad's international airport.

A reporter for the Arab satellite television network Al-Jazeera died earlier on Tuesday and a cameraman was injured after the station's offices in Baghdad were hit in a separate attack that the Qatar-based channel charged was a deliberate US strike. - Sapa-AFP

more
Al-Jazeera claims military 'cover up'

Shoot the morons, then the journalists?


By Margo Kingston


April 9 2003




'In our name. US Brigadier General John Kelly, assistant commander of the 1st marine division, claims that hundreds of Muslim fighters putting up a stronger fight than the regular army are, or were, non-Iraqis. "They appear willing to die. We do our best to help them out in that endeavour."

"They stand, they fight, sometimes they run when we engage them.. But often they run into our machine guns and we shoot them down like the morons they are." Don't you feel proud?


A man with a job to do speaks bluntly of the savages war makes of men as the man who ordered him to do this, at a summit with Tony Blair, mourns the loss of fallen Allied soldiers sacrificed to this war of 'liberation' and pointedly fails to mention the innocent Iraqis also sacrificed. He knows that his mighty force has just dumped four giant bombs on a restaurant in a suburban area on the chance Saddam might be there. Up to 14 innocents are dead.

I write this after American forces admitted to bombing the premises of al-Jazeera in Baghdad, killing one journalist, and firing at the Palestine Hotel housing the media, killing another two. No American company will host the al-Jazeera website. Speech in the land of freedom is no longer free. Independently reporting the carnage in Baghdad may no longer be possible.


Rupert Murdoch - an application to the US government pending for permission to add yet another TV network to his global empire - owns Fox TV, the quasi-official propaganda organ of US government in this war. It looks like he's getting his wish of last week fulfilled: "There is going to be collateral damage. And if you really want to be brutal about it, better we get it done now than spread it over months."

The Pentagon now wants a US - not UN - run war crimes tribunal to try Iraqis for war crimes after it has conquered this third world nation in an illegal war with overwhelming force and the use of cluster bombs, an inherently indiscriminate weapon. The superpower invades, destroys, slaughters, then judges the survivors. This is the new world order Australia has signed on to. Might is right. To the victor go the spoils. You in, John? Yes, George.



Back home, John Howard looks younger, smoother, almost serene.

He's "sickened" by the opulence of Saddam's palaces, but much more circumspect in his reaction to the horrors his war has visited upon civilians. He soothes his people, muttering sweet nothings instead of answering questions or telling the Australian people what this is really all about and what he has really done on our behalf in defiance of our wishes.

He is missing from the summits of Bush and Blair to decide the future of Iraq after the war, and the role of what's left of the international institution the world - with significant input from Australia - built after World War II to avoid World War III. He has reduced Australia to fetal position.

Politicians report a pall of silence in their electorates, not just on the war, but on everyday things like Centrelink and Medicare. Readers report that the war is not on the agenda in everyday conversation. The war isn't rating on TV and newspapers aren't selling well compared to the Gulf War or the Bali bombing. As a nation we are stunned. Maybe even in shock.


The opposition, which failed the Australian people so terribly in failing to hold Howard accountable for his big lie before the war that he had not already committed us to it, is now irrelevant, reduced to public brawling about the failings of a leader before it's even decided on a replacement. This is an opposition which failed to insist that a decision for war without the backing of the Australian people stripped a Prime Minister of legitimacy, an opposition which failed to argue a sustained, powerful competing vision for Australia at the time we needed it most. It is cowed, broken, unable to rise to the occasion on at a time when it was imperative that it did so.

The rot set in long ago. Perhaps the end came, not when it walked away from its commitment to universal human rights by capitulating to Howard's refugee agenda post Tampa, but after health spokeswoman Jenny Macklin told Parliament that the private health insurance rebate was the worst piece of public policy ever presented to it. Soon after, Kim Beazley backed it. Now, Medicare is in ruins, as Macklin knew it would be.

Now, university students cannot earn a university place on merit - students with lower scores can buy their way in. The death of Gough Whitlam's dream.

The Americanisation of Australian values happened long before John Howard put our faces in it.

Those whose vision for Australia and its place in the world is now shattered and who find themselves vilified by fellow Australians have no mainstream political leader to fight for their cause in these dark times for Australia and the world. Will they give up? Will they fight on, and if so, how will they fight?

The world is at a "tipping point", as is Australia. What will you do?'

from yahoo - Pentagon regrets journalists' deaths, cites warning

Amnesty International also called for an independent investigation.


"Unless the U.S. can demonstrate that the Palestine Hotel had been used for military purposes, it was a civilian object protected under international humanitarian law that should not have been attacked," Amnesty International said in a statement.


--------------------
"Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned." -Buddha
www.impeach-bush-now.org

Edited by RadioActiveSlug (04/13/03 08:17 PM)

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Invisibleadrug

Registered: 02/04/03
Posts: 15,800
Re: Hunter S. Thompson [Re: RadioActiveSlug]
    #1455607 - 04/13/03 09:22 PM (20 years, 11 months ago)

Pardon me, but I had to work all weekend and didn't even have time to watch the propaganda on TV. :smirk:

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InvisiblePsiloKitten
Ganja Goddess

Registered: 02/12/99
Posts: 1,617
Re: Hunter S. Thompson [Re: RadioActiveSlug]
    #1455879 - 04/13/03 11:16 PM (20 years, 11 months ago)

Hunter S Thompson has been in the thick of politics since he helped bring Nixon down. I wish there were more journalists of his ilk.

What an interesting time for a man who has seen so much. It must have been one helluva ride.


--------------------

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Anonymous

Re: Hunter S. Thompson [Re: RadioActiveSlug]
    #1455969 - 04/14/03 12:05 AM (20 years, 11 months ago)

Perhaps journalists shouldn't be hanging out in a war zone, hmmm? :smirk:
I mean people die in war zones, right?

Edited by TackleBerry (04/14/03 12:12 AM)

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OfflineGazzBut
Refraction

Registered: 10/15/02
Posts: 4,773
Loc: London UK
Last seen: 2 months, 24 days
Re: Hunter S. Thompson [Re: TackleBerry]
    #1456879 - 04/14/03 11:20 AM (20 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

I mean people die in war zones, right?




Thats right but the accepted norm is for them to be killed by the so called enemy.


--------------------
Always Smi2le

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