[Media-watch] More from ColdType

[Tony Sutton]

NEW AT COLDTYPE.NET - April 15

MEDIABEAT / Norman Solomon

Mark Twain speaks: ³I¹m an anti-imperialist²
ith U.S. troops occupying Iraq and the Bush administration making bellicose
noises about Syria, let's consider some rarely mentioned words from the most
revered writer in American history.Mark Twain was painfully aware of many
people's inclinations to go along with prevailing evils. When slavery was
lawful, he recalled, abolitionists were "despised and ostracized, and
insulted" ­ by "patriots." As far as Twain was concerned, "Loyalty to
petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul."

Read Norman Solomon at http://www.coldtype.net/mediabeat.html
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GETTING A GRIP / Michael I. Niman
 
Toppling reality ­ image warfare in Iraq
The American media is awash in images of cheering Iraqis welcoming their
American ³liberators.² Our visual lexicon will forever contain toppling
Saddam statues along with images of a falling Berlin wall, crumbling Twin
Towers, Iwo Jima flag raising and a naked Vietnamese girl running from a
napalm attack. Network anchors are obsessively telling us we¹re witnessing
history. And we are. It¹s just not the history they¹re telling us we¹re
watching. What we are seeing is the ultimate triumph of the image ­ with the
pivotal battles of war playing out in the theater of informatics. Welcome to
the post-modern media war.

Read Michael I. Niman at http://www.coldtype.net/Grip.html

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WORDS AGAINST WAR / John Pilger

This is a crime against humanity
A BBC television producer, moments before he was wounded by an American
fighter aircraft that killed 18 people with ³friendly fire², spoke to his
mother on a satellite phone. Holding the phone over his head so that she
could hear the sound of the American planes overhead, he said: ³Listen,
that¹s the sound of freedom.² Did I read this scene in Catch-22? Surely, the
BBC man was being ferociously ironic. I doubt it, just as I doubt that
whoever designed the Observer¹s page three last Sunday had Joseph Heller in
mind when he wrote the weasel headline: ³The moment young Omar discovered
the price of war². 

Read John Pilger at http://www.coldtype.net/pilger.html

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DEADLINE BAGHDAD / Robert Fisk

Airbrushed from the city that bore his name
he fresh black paint is everywhere. ³Sadr City², it says, where once the
name was ³Saddam City². Outside the Aleppo Intermediate School for Girls, I
actually come across a graffiti artist in action, painting over ³Saddam² and
again inserting ³Sadr². The Imam Bakr Sadr of Najaf was one of the first of
Saddam¹s priestly victims. The governor of Najaf, I recall, leant towards me
with special eagerness when I visited his city well over two decades ago.
³Yes, we hanged him,² he said with a smile. ³And his sister.² Legend has it
­ all too real, I fear ­ that they burnt off his beard with a cigarette
lighter and hammered a nail into his eye before they hanged him.

Read Robert Fisk's daily reports for London's Independent at
http://www.coldtype.net/baghdad.html

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CRITICAL MASS / Antonia Zerbisias

Chaos ­ or just a vase they¹re going through?
Okay, so the Anglo-American coalition ignored the United Nations and invaded
Iraq because Iraq ignored the United Nations. I got that. I think. I think I
also get the motivation how the hunt for weapons of mass destruction morphed
into payback for 9/11, which, in turn, became regime change, which then
became Operation Iraqi Freedom. Whatever slogan plays in order to wage war
to achieve peace. 

Read Antonia Zerbisias's reports on the media at war at
http://www.coldtype.net/azerb.html

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