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[Previous entry: "So you think you know what a war crime is..."] [Main Index] [Next entry: "Fall of Baghdad"] 09 April 2003: "Press corps, meet stepladder - part II"It must be contagious; CNN reports the following: "We are appalled at what happened because it was known that both places contained journalists," said Robert Ménard, secretary-general of Reporters Without Borders.Translation: anybody else, we don't give a toss about, unless we're coming up to filing time and we still don't have a story. "We are concerned at the U.S. Army's increasingly hostile attitude towards journalists, especially those non-embedded in its military units."Yeah, I was wondering about that... Almost a month ago, in an interview on Irish RTE Radio 1, Kate Adie claimed that she was told that the US armed forces were going to bomb independent reporters in Baghdad. I was told by a senior officer in the Pentagon, that if uplinks—that is, the television signals out of... Baghdad, for example—were detected by any planes...electronic media...mediums, of the military above Baghdad... they'd be "fired down" on. "Even if they were journalists, who cares?" said [incomprehensible] Baghdad.If there's one thing I've learnt over the past eight months or so, it's this: any story which is not supported by a direct quote is, by definition, worthless. Any story which does feature a direct quote is probably worthless as well. Even from Kate Adie. (Aside: a colleague of mine at the Tribunal once remarked: "Could there be any single thing that can inspire utter terror in the population of an entire city more effectively than the arrival of Kate Adie with a camera crew?") Now it sounds to me like Kate Adie was talking with some junior birdman off the record, and he said something along the lines of: We intend to aggressively prosecute active satellite uplinks in order to negatorily affect the enemy's C3I capability; given limitiations to our ability of distinguishing between modalities of satlink, this means we may inadvertently prosecute such satlinks as are being operated by non-combatants, such as media personnel, and may degrade, wholly or partially, such personnel in doing so.Translation: "we're going to bomb satellite uplinks which look like they're being used by the Iraqi government; since we can't tell who's actually operating any such uplink, we may hit some journos." But the war's been on for three weeks by now, and not a single media satellite uplink has been shot at, let alone hit. But somehow, this media meme that the US armed forces have got it in for journalists has endured, despite the lack of any evidence whatsoever to support the veracity of this notion. Instead, there is a constant stream of "the vehicle was clearly marked as a media vehicle" as if the fedayeen wouldn't know how to spell out "TV" in duct tape on a Landcruiser door. Reporters Without Borders also said film shot by a French TV station shows the surrounding neighborhood was very quiet at the time and that the "U.S. tank crew took their time, waiting for a couple of minutes and adjusting its gun before opening fire."Here's the way it works, ladies: Infantry advances up the street. Infantry takes fire from shooters in building. Infantry falls back. Infantry squad leader whistles up armour support, and points out suspected location of sniper. Armour rolls up and, unhindered by sniper fire (on account of it being a tank), carefully zeroes in on the suspected location of the sniper, and blows the room to bits. Are there any questions? Yes, you, [six-gun gesture] the self-important Australian git. Yes, I think you'll find that at a distance, a video camera on a tripod looks remarkably like an anti-tank missile launcher—say, a Russian-made Kornet-E—especially because of the lenses, and certainly to a tank commander who's a bit rushed because he's anxious not to get a missile smashing through his nice clean turret roof. You may find that a tank crew, when faced with what looks like an anti-tank missile launcher, will shoot first and ask questions later. Anything else would be suicidal behaviour on their part. Next? [six-gun gesture] You. Yes, when seen head-on, a shoulder-mounted camera may be quite easily mistaken for an RPG-7 or other anti-tank rocket launcher. See above. Next. Yes, it is entirely possible for a combatant to not be using tracer rounds. Snipers especially are sneaky buggers who try not to be seen; to this end, they avoid using tracer rounds. Since most of you pricks don't seem to know the first thing about combat—which is to look out for number one at all times—I won't assume any of you would know outgoing small arms fire if you were in the room with the shooter. Are there any other questions? No? Good. Now go and pick up your stepladders from the quarterbloke in building 14. You can spend the afternoon practicing getting over yourselves. |
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