The US, UN & Iraq III

The "British Life And Internet project" recently did a research about "Media and the War in Iraq", which can be read online here:

Link to "Media and the War in Iraq Report Summaries"

"The Art Newspaper" has published an interesting report:
An account of the looting

Thinking that Baghdad's national museum was home to artefacts that dated back 10,000 years, from one of the world's earliest civilisations, that there were sources, whose historical value isn't know yet, I do hope, that some may be recovered, others restored.

But there certainly will be great losses - which perhaps (!) could have been avoided easily.

0 Replies

HofT

HofT wrote:

"Honesty" is a good idea - and while on that subject would it be possible to have a source for number of 5,000 "acceptable" (?!) casualties [..] The number seems pulled out of thin air

I'm grasping to see your point, but it is to do with my observation on how "people have become spoiled, in a way, when it comes to wars", nowadays?

I don't usually have sources for my personal observations ... this one being a very broad-brush one where I was using the number - as the "just like anything over, say" intro made clear - as the roughest kind of approximation indeed. I could refer to newspaper comments last month about how the US would get into trouble selling this war if the death toll of its own soldiers ran into the thousands, I guess. The suggestion that that reflects a generally decreased willingness in Western societies to accept great numbers of casualties in war shouldn't be a controversial observation, I think? I made it in response to perception's post making the same point - of how today's media's "hysteria" in focusing on bad news reflected our societies' "demand for instantaneous perfection", blissfully unaccepting of history's track record of "the bedlam that always follows conquest, liberation, and the birth of a new order".

So what's the point about honesty?

HofT wrote:

unless it's somehow generated by the same sources cited in a monumental Dutch effort which led to the resignation of Holland's government over a year ago:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/yugo/article/0,2763,688327,00.html

Again I seem to be missing your point. But thanks for the link, anyway. Interesting stuff. The Srebrenica report was in the news for weeks here, obviously, but I never knew that the Isareli secret services had been "especially active" illegally "arming the Bosnian Serbs". Nor that "the Pentagon's own secret service" had been "very closely involved" in the (equally illicit) airlifting of weapons to the Bosnian Muslims. Huh. Live and learn ;-). Still, mostly off-topic, I guess.

0 Replies

0 Replies

(It took me ages to read all back, especially, since the side has been sooooo slow for some time.)Looting's Roots - Poverty and despair behind Iraq's ethnic violence may give same answers, too, to a lot of questions posed earlier.

A really good selection of articles re. the Iraquian war from 'The Atlantic' is to be found here:
The Atlantic online: Iraq Considered : commentated articles from 1991 until 2002After The Fall - Chaos. Anarchy. Looting. is another summary of the more recent affairs.

0 Replies

nimh,

Sent you the Friedman article via PM so as not to clog the thread. First time I have done this, let me know how it turns out.

Thanks,

JM

0 Replies

Nimh -- I was aiming my barb about "astounding success" at Timber, not at you! Sorry!

Timber -- You have the maddening habit of demanding respect for the military and then using that "political capital" to justify an invasion which was wholly unjustifiable -- believed to be so by most of the rest of the world and about 50% of the US (or more). You build conjecture on immorality and then leap into warm seas of contentment at what you believe to have been the outcome. When the military are ill-used by their leaders, can there ever be a successful outcome?

0 Replies

Nimh -- You write: "Either you plead for the US to properly take on the adminitration of the region for an interim period and insist on the additional tasks that involves; or you resent their very presence and think any longer stay stinks of imperialism and should be resisted. Can't have it both ways."

Well no, but had the US been better prepared to handle end-of-battle and post-war situations, then this either/or would never have existed. We screwed up and are continuing to screw up the transition. Some say, "Well, it's not the military's task." But if we were to lay out a map of Baghdad and examine what and where the military did take action to protect, we'll see that they were perfectly able but just not doing it. Rumsfeld himself declared that there were other priorities. Has anyone asked Rumsfeld why NGO's weren't flown immediately to do the essential jobs the military didn't want to do?

I don't think the Iraqis are putting us between a rock and hard place, I think the military and political leadership have done that just beautifully.

0 Replies

Walter -- Thanks for the links -- really interesting.

0 Replies

Walter Hinteler wrote:

The "British Life And Internet project" recently did a research about "Media and the War in Iraq", which can be read online here:

Link to "Media and the War in Iraq Report Summaries"

Annoying thing is that you have to register with your e-mail address to see the reports in question.

So to make it easy for ya, this is from the report on UK respondents.

(The full sample was one of 1909 UK Internet users and some 749 non-UK residents, self-selected volunteers from a database of 14667 e-mail addresses. "Although not statistically representative of the general UK population, the return sample comprised a wide demographic mix.").

Quote:

Opinions about the Way TV has Covered the War

Respondents were presented with 21 statements of opinion about the way television news has covered the war against Iraq with which they were invited to agree or disagree. [..]

Although respondents were more likely to agree (44%) than disagree (33%) that TV news has generally presented realistic accounts of the war, relatively few believed that TV coverage has given the public the complete picture about what is happening (10%). [..]

Significant proportions of respondents agreed that the TV coverage has been over dramatic and sensational (48%) and too superficial (46%). The most widespread critical judgement of all was that the TV war coverage has been too repetitive (65% agreed). Men (51%) were markedly more likely than women (36%) to agree that the TV coverage has been over dramatic and sensational. Men (54%) were also more likely than women (38%) to agree that the coverage has been too superficial.

Respondents were far more likely to agree that TV coverage has placed too much emphasis on the US point of view (53%) than that it has placed too much emphasis on the British point of view (36%). Fewer respondents still agreed that TV coverage has given balanced coverage of both pro- and anti-war lobbies (26%). One in ten believed that the coverage has placed too much emphasis on Iraqi spokespersons (10%). Women (30%) were much less likely than men (42%) to agree with the view that TV coverage has placed too much emphasis on the British point of view. Women (7%) were also somewhat less likely than men (12%) to agree that too much emphasis has been placed on Iraqi spokespersons. [..]

More than one in two respondents (54%) agreed that the presence of [embedded] reporters on the front line gives you a better impression of what war is like. Far fewer respondents (27%) agreed that it is unnecessary for TV correspondents to report from the front line. A narrow majority of respondents (54%) also agreed that the use of experts in TV news has been effective in helping to explain what is going on. Fewer respondents, though still a significant minority (39%), agreed that the use of experts in TV news is simply used to fill time. [..]

[D]espite concerns about the impact of war coverage on younger viewers, respondents were more likely to disagree (45%) than agree (22%) that TV had dwelled too much on images of destruction in Iraq.

Despite their potentially upsetting quality, fewer respondents agreed (32%) than disagreed (45%) that it was wrong for British TV to show Iraqi TV pictures of captured American service personnel.

One widespread issue concerned the quality of information in some TV reporting. A clear majority of respondents (71%) agreed that there has been too much speculation by TV reporters about events in Iraq.

There was also strong feeling about getting all sides to the story. Thus, overwhelming majorities of respondents agreed that it is important for the news media to tell the Iraqi side of the story (89%) and in relation to that wish that more use should be made of Arab reporters to explain the situation in their own countries (80%).

The report on US respondents is based on only 267 respondents, so I'll leave that. The one thing I'll highlight is that

Quote:

Looking at how these news media compared in terms of respondents trusting them a lot, the Internet was endorsed most frequently, followed by radio (17%), national newspapers (11%), local newspapers (7%) and magazines (7%), and then television (6%). One in two American respondents (50%) said they would distrust television a lot.

0 Replies

nimh

It certainly may be annoying to register for that site.

But it's a project, and its aim is to regularly review and map the use of the Internet in the UK and its effect on the lifestyle and behaviour of its citizens.

At least, just registering takes much less time than answering all the questions (as I did as one of 749 non-UK-residents) ... or opening this thread today (at some times).

0 Replies

Walter Hinteler wrote:

nimh

It certainly may be annoying to register for that site.

But it's a project, and its aim is to regularly review and map the use of the Internet in the UK and its effect on the lifestyle and behaviour of its citizens.

At least, just registering takes much less time than answering all the questions (as I did as one of 749 non-UK-residents) ... or opening this thread today (at some times).

's true ... i certainly did not mean to obstruct their research <grins>. but many will be hesitant like me to leave their e-mail address all over the place, so i thought i'd save them the bother on this one.

btw - in the meantime i found out that you can also choose to just click straight to http://www.britishlifeproject.co.uk/War.doc for the UK respondents report: that'll save you both the registration and the three clicks to get there.

course, reading our respective posts will have cost ya more time already, dear readers ... <grins again>

0 Replies

sozobe wrote:

I know it's been said ad infinitum, but for the record, I am proud of our troops as well. Criticism of American policy does not mean I am against the troops.

Absolutely right. Although I think their orders were uncalled for, you cannot knock the bravery of those men and women risking their lives.

0 Replies

JamesMorrison wrote:

dafdaf, re your post of Tue Apr 15, 2003 7:40 pm

Quote:
JamesMorrison wrote:
dafdaf, Welcome!

Don't worry about not having all the info about a topic, that fact seldom stops most from forming opinions. The advantage of such a thread is that participants are always more than eager to share their own opinions and those sources from which those opinions are formed.

JM

To which you replied:

Quote:
Oh i never said I didn't know about the issues, I just said I haven't read everything that's been written in this forum . I will certainly be showing my opinions, and backing them up with facts.

You have been warned

I never said you didn't know about the issues. Reading the first sentence of my statement one will notice that I just voiced an observation that most of us, even if deeply embroiled in an issue, probably will not always have all available info.

Respectfully,

JM

Well I appreciate the welcome. Many people have been extremely welcoming on every single forum i've joined here. You guys really do a good job of encouraging newcomers.

0 Replies

Acquiunk wrote:

...The greater loss at Baghdad, byond the objects, is the records of the museum which were intentionally distroyed to hide the extent of the looting and the books that are irreplaceable....

In addition to all the irriplacable treasures lost in the burning libraries and museums is the yet undiscovered pieces that were lying beneath the ground. The ground that has been heavily bombed.

0 Replies

It is almost impossible to assess the effects of bombing on an archaeological site until you excavate it. The general consensus however is that it does not help.

0 Replies

Bush Cultural Advisers Quit Over Iraq Museum Theft
1 hour, 58 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of a U.S. presidential panel on cultural property has resigned in protest at the failure of U.S. forces to prevent the wholesale looting of priceless treasures from Baghdad's antiquities museum.

0 Replies

How can you expect them to look out for antiquities when there's a war to be executed and priceless oil wells to be looked out for?

0 Replies

http://graphics.theonion.com/pics_3913/oil_wells_liberated.jpg

Above: The U.S. flag flies high atop a newly liberated oil well.

0 Replies

Human rights organisation Amnesty International has accused the US and British forces in Iraq of working harder to protect the country's oilfields than the Iraqi people.

0 Replies

Seems like Alibaba and the 40 looters will get a new goal in life.

the Federal Reserve reportedly flies in tens of millions of dollars.
The disbursement of dollars would go some way to providing a benchmark for prices in Iraqi, thereby becoming the standard.
The sudden influx of dollars is likely to impact the perceived worth of Iraq's existing two currencies. In Afghanistan, for example, the local currency dropped dramatically in value after dollars entered the economy via aid agencies. Let the dollarisation of Iraq begin!

0 Replies

The US, UN & Iraq III

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know