Posted on 05/09/2005 7:41:47 PM PDT by finnman69
We spent 10 months in Iraq, working on a story, understanding who the people are who are fighting, why they fight, what their fundamental beliefs are, when they started, what kinds of backgrounds they come from, what education, jobs they have. Were they former military, are they Iraqi or foreign? Are they part of al-Qaida? What we came up with is a story in itself, and one that Vanity Fair ran in July 2004 with my text and pictures. [My colleague Steve Connors] shot a documentary film that is still waiting to find a home. But the basic point for this discussion is that we both thought it was really journalistically important to understand who it was who was resisting the presence of the foreign troops. If you didn't understand that, how could you report what was clearly becoming an "ongoing conflict?" And if you were reading the news in America, or Europe, how could you understand the full context of what was unfolding if what motivates the "other side" of the conflict is not understood, or even discussed?
http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050508/OPINION04/505080346/1054/OPINION
more: ABOUT THIS SPEECH
This article is adapted from a speech given by photojournalist Molly Bingham at Western Kentucky University last month. Bingham, a Louisville native, was detained in 2003 by Iraqi security forces and held in Abu Ghraib prison from March 25 to April 2, 2003. Eighteen days after her release, she returned to Iraq to pursue stories for The New York Times, The Guardian of London and others. Taking a short break during the summer of 2003, Bingham had the idea of working on a story to explore who was involved in the nascent resistance that was becoming apparent throughout Iraq. She scanned the papers that summer, looking for an article that would show some journalist had reported the story, had gone deeper to find out the source of the new violence. No one had. So in August 2003, Bingham returned with British journalist Steve Connors and spent the next 10 months reporting the story of the Iraqi resistance. Her account was published in Vanity Fair magazine in July 2004; Connors shot a documentary film on the subject. This speech was a challenge to journalists, and Americans, to speak up and be sure their comments, questions and thoughts are heard, and that the First Amendment is celebrated in all its strengths. Bingham began her career as a photo intern for The Courier-Journal and Louisville Times.
We here at Free Republic think it's really journalistically important that you LEARN TO WRITE before we'll even attempt to digest your tripe. Ugh!!
Well, who are we fighting in Iraq? The journalist doesn't tell us. We have been told it is mostly disaffected Sunni Moslems with a some foreign jehadis thrown in. I wasn't given any info that would change that conclusion. Seems like a totally inane article to me. Just give us the facts if you know something new buddy and stop the needless propaganda.
Vanity Fair seems to be a reliable source of anti-American talking points.
Another article by her from December about the elections:
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/12/15/why_elections_wont_quell_iraq_resistance?mode=PF
Why Elections Won't Quell Iraq Resistance
December 15, 2004
THE COMPOSITION of the Iraqi resistance is not what the US administration has been calling it, and the more it is oversimplified the harder it is to explain its complexity.
I spent from August 2003 until June this year in Baghdad researching the resistance. That's obviously not a comprehensive study, but it does provide a more complete picture of the resistance than the administration's. My objective is not to romanticize the fighters or their fight, but merely to better understand what our realistic choices are in Iraq and the Middle East.
Here are some myths about the Iraqi resistance that need to be dispelled.
The resistance only began after months of America "botching" the occupation.
While three of the fighters I spoke to had waited several months to "join" the resistance, the bulk of those involved decided within days of the end of the "ground war" on April 9 that they would fight. Only three had done voluntary military service, and only one of them was still on active military duty.
Of the five fighters I spent the most time with, all of them had begun organizing resistance cells within a week of April 9. They started small with friends. One man, a teacher, had neither been a member of the Ba'ath party nor an admirer of Saddam. He started as a guide for foreign fighters and later looked for a group of like-minded men he could work with. With no military experience, he soon became a weapons procurer for an ever widening group of cells.
The resistance in Iraq is made up of Ba'athi dead enders, regime loyalists, common criminals, Islamic extremists, and driven by a vast number of foreigners with contacts to Al Qaeda.
While there are certainly those elements involved, it is misleading to describe the resistance in those terms. I met no one who had recently been released from prison or who knew of any connections with Al Qaeda, and I only met one foreign fighter. (I would not, however, be surprised if Al Qaeda or other militant Islamic movements have become active in Iraq since I left.) I met Shia and Sunnis fighting together, women and men, young and old. I met people from all economic, social, and educational backgrounds.
The original impetus for almost all of the individuals I spoke to was a nationalistic one -- the desire to defend their country from occupation, not to defend Saddam Hussein or his regime.
However, two things should be noted. First, after the capture of Saddam a year ago, I sensed the growing power of Islam within the fighters. Second, in the absence of a solid government or civil structure it is not surprising that a Muslim community would revert to Koranic law, even if only temporary.
The Iraqi resistance is a monolithic, tightly organized structure with a leadership that can be obliterated and a fixed number of fighters who can be eliminated.
The many levels of violence in Iraq after the US attack on Fallujah last month reveal the absurdity of this myth. Of the 15 resistance members who told me about their lives, most were from the same small neighborhood of Adhamiya in Baghdad, but were not necessarily in the same cell or command structure. By the end of 2003, these cells had grown while maintaining their independence. They were no longer carrying out attacks in their own home turf but were traveling to other areas of the country. The rise in attacks over the past year has been attributed as reactions to the transfer of power to the Allawi government in July 2004, or to the elections in January. However, more likely, it is simply an indication of improved funding, coordination, and resources.
Attacking Fallujah neither decapitated the resistance nor eliminated its support. Rather it is a powerful recruiting poster for Iraqis not yet engaged in the struggle and for foreigners motivated to join what they view as a Jihad.
Nationwide elections will provide Iraq with a legitimate government, and the violence in the country will subside significantly.
The notion that after elections the resistance will have nothing left to fight against is untenable. There is no government that can emerge from the current process that will be viewed as legitimate in their eyes. The resistance will continue until American influence has disappeared from Iraq's political system.
The political dead end described above is the fate the resistance has chosen. They view themselves, and are viewed by others, as Iraqis and Muslims, declaring their fight to be for their homes, their nation, their honor, and their faith against the imposition of a political structure by a foreign nation. Their struggle against us is not much more complicated than that, and it seems to me that the violence will remain until we are gone.
You don't say.
Or do I need to start facing the reality that all I love and believe in is simply self-delusion?
I'm just sorry Miss Molly did not have the chance to watch a father being killed in a human shredder. Then Miss Molly would have had the journalistically important opportunity to ask a son how he felt watching his father die. Miss Molly could have had the thrill of being able to relate to us the killer's education, background, religion, how he felt....
And Little Missy Molly asks us to look in the mirror!!!!
Western Kentucky University invites Molly Bingham and University of Hawaii invites Ward Churchill. I shake my head!!!
These are Molly Moonbat's thoughts on the "Iraqi Resistance", y'know the beheaders, carbombers, etc. She should team up with Michael Moore. "They're the Minutemen!!"
I think I'm gonna hurl.
She could teach a graduate course called "Used 101:How the media is manipulated to pass on enemy propaganda"
She may not have started out as such, but this woman is a moral relativist--there's no difference between a US Marine guarding a schoolhouse and a terrorist sawing the head off his victim. She had to adopt this bankrupt "worldview" to excuse what she was doing, like so many leftists that champion terrorists.
Look around at your fellow leftist traitors, Molly. Does Hanoi Jane look particularly happy? She looks like she's got hellhounds on her trail, doesn't she? Something to look forward to later in life, Molly.
To paraphrase: "I am not saying that the Iraqis fighting against us are necessarily fighting for democracy, but they are fighting for democracy."
Huh? Whom does she hope to persuade with such convoluted arguments?
classic comments on this woman:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=15796_The_Media_Are_the_Enemy#comments
-She sounds like Mary Mapes, who sounde like
Sgrena whatshername.
-Imagine if the average American or Canadian, or Brit, had taken this attitude when dealing with the Nazis or Tojos hords. We'd all be Heil Hitlering or sending our daughters to be comfort women about now. This is the Left at its Looniest, and most dangerous. It's sheer insufferable self-made victim-hood, in the name of introspective thought and higher understanding.
-Lesson One: Many journalists in Iraq could not, or would not, check their nationality or their own perspective at the door.
And that is different than any journalist anywhere covering anything how? Have you heard of the book Bias?
"Recent actions indicate that the U.S. military will detain and/or kill any journalist who happens to be caught covering the Iraqi side of the militant resistance, and indeed a number of journalists have been killed by U.S. troops while working in Iraq."
Would you care to cite even ONE case of that happening, just for my own edification, please?
"let me take this moment to say that I have the utmost respect and sympathy for the American soldiers overseas right now, particularly in Iraq. They have been sent on a most difficult mission, to quell a population that will not be quelled,"
The population is too busy setting up a new government to have time for an insurgency, moron. Most of the terrorists (yes, honey, terrorists, not insurgents) are not Iraqis.
I also happen to believe that, in fact, that is the highest form of patriotism -- expecting our country to live up to the promises it makes and the values it purports to hold
As opposed to the UN, where 14 different resolutions are passed only because those voting in favor of them don't beleive for a second that they will ever actually try to enforce them.
-"Recent actions indicate..."
"This behavior seems..."
Nothing like backing up blood libel with evidence and documentation.
Journalistic weaselese. Try these next time:
How about: Sources have informed us...
How about: Many believe...
How about: It is widely accepted...
How about: Some feel...
How about: Others have stated...
What a POS. What a waste of ink and oxygen.
JWM
-"Recall Patrick Henry's famous speech encouraging the Second Virginia Convention, gathered on March 20, 1775, to fight the British, "Give me liberty or give me death!" Why is it that we, as Americans, presume that any Iraqi would feel any differently?"
Amazing Bring up the American Revolution and compare it to Iraq.
I ask, Who's "liberty" are these insurgents fighting for? Certainly not the major horde of Iraqi's that VOTED for a new government (and their children) - they happen to be the targets of these "freedom-fighter's" this so-called journalist admires.
-I often find myself wishing that clueless dopes like Molly Bingham would embed themselves with people like Ted Bundy, Jeffery Dahmer, the BTK guy and try to get into their heads. Maybe we need to understand these guys too. We shouldn't rush to judgement. After all, they have a story to tell too. The only difference between the terrorists and your garden variety serial killer is method and body count.
Chances are the story would be published posthumously.
-Where to start, so much to criticize in this article.
"One of the hardest things about working on this story for me personally, and as a journalist, was to set my "American self" and perspective aside. It was an ongoing challenge to listen open-mindedly to a group of people whose foundation of belief is significantly different from mine, and one I found I often strongly disagreed with.
We would never walk in to cover a union problem or political event without seeking to understand the perspective from both, or the many sides of the story that exist. Why should we as journalists do it in Iraq?"
I don't recall many journalists seeking to "understand the perspective" of Tim McVeigh or any other mass murderers.
"and let me take this moment to say that I have the utmost respect and sympathy for the American soldiers overseas right now"
meanwhile she's spreading propaganda for those whose mission it is to kill American soldiers.
"There were so many journalists working with the American soldiers that we believed that that story would be well told. More practically, if we were seen by the Iraqis going in and out of the American bases, we would be tagged immediately as spies, informants and most likely be killed."
CNN used this same logic wth Saddam, which translates into "we're so scared of you we will do what you say and spread your propaganda".
"The intimidation to not work on this story was evident. Dexter Filkins, who writes for The New York Times, related a conversation he had in Iraq with an American military commander just before we left. Dexter and the commander had gotten quite friendly, meeting up sporadically for a beer and a chat. Towards the end of one of their conversations, Dexter declined an invitation for the next day by explaining that he'd lined up a meeting with a "resistance guy." The commander's face went stony cold and he said, "We have a position on that." For Dexter the message was clear. He cancelled the appointment. And, again, this is not meant as any criticism of the military; they have a war to win, and dominating the "message," or the news is an integral part of that war."
"resistance guy" WTF? "Sorry Colonel, I can't join you for a beer tomorrow got a prior with a resistance guy, you know one the boys who've been planting all those mines your men keeping driving over, I'll tell him you said hello". The reference to "a war to win" also suggests she's totally oblivious to the fact that war is not a game to be won or lost, its about killing the other guy before he can kill you.
This whole article disgusts me.
-the American military was the law, and it seemed to me that they were pretty much making it up as they went along.
She is an absolute disgrace....
After her comparison of Americans fighting the Revolutionary war against the British and Arab "terrorist" I couldn't read any further - she is atop the stupidity food chain - Stockholm Syndrome - no different than Tokyo Rose, Jane Fonda - it's a disgrace - Maybe if they sawed off her head she would really know how they felt!
-We should be asking ourselves: why does Hitler hate us? He must have legitimate grievances, and, as journalists, we must have the courage to keep asking the tough questions, because only then can we hope to stop the cycle of violence...
blah. blah. blah.
-"...many American journalists often refer to those attacking Americans or Iraqi troops and policemen as "terrorists." Some are indeed using terrorist tactics, but calling them "terrorists" simply shuts down any sense of need or interest to look beyond that word....."
Ummm...if you're using terrorist tactics, that does make you a terrorist.
Like someone else said, I've rarely heard anyone in the media call them terrorist.
"And with a sense of duty to history, I needed to just get on with reporting the story."
The only people you met with were the terrorist, I have to wonder how many plans to attack American soldiers you over heard. But since you never spoke to our guys, how many died or were injured. But then again, you have a duty to history not your country.
-Its hard nowadays to figure out who they are talking about when they(the moonbats) say foreign troops. They talk about their own country and their own military as if it is a foreign, alien country, as if they are not even a part of it.
-well, there are five lessons here that this "journalist" needs to learn
#1 our military keeps you from having to have learned German, Japanese, Russian and is now trying to keep you from learning Arabic
#2 you admit going into the story with a pile of prejudices, so obviously the words "independent" and "journalist" do not belong together in a sentence
#3 journalists never cover "our side" and you are a prime example of this lesson
#4 from your lesson #3
journalists collaborate with the enemy
standard operating practice
#5 I too am afraid of my own country, when your party is in control, which thankfully they are NOT !
-"One of the hardest things about working on this story for me personally, and as a journalist, was to set my "American self" and perspective aside. It was an ongoing challenge to listen open-mindedly to a group of people whose foundation of belief is significantly different from mine, and one I found I often strongly disagreed with."
So exactly which "group of people" are you referring to --- the Americans or the "insurgents"? The way you put it, it looks like it could've been either.
"wipe the smirk off my face or continue to listen through a racial or religious diatribe that I found appalling"
I hope you found it in yourself as an objective journalist not to censor out that "appalling diatribe" in your report just so you could make the "resistance" look good.
"How many times was the risk that our own government might come in and rifle through our apartment, our homes or take us away for questioning in front of our children a factor in our decision not to do a story?"
How many times did all this happen to Michael Moore, Ward Churchill, Noam Chomsky, Maureen Dowd, etc.?
"We soon learned that they had the U.S. bases so well watched that we had to abandon our idea of working on the U.S. side of the story"
Is this because you were more afraid (and likely) of being killed by the "insurgents" than by the U.S. military? Were you more intimidated by the "insurgents" watching you than by the U.S. military watching you?
"Then why is it that this story of human effort for self-determination by violent means cannot be told in America?"
Go ahead, tell it....I'll read it (and don't leave out the "appalling diatribe").
But know this....a lot of us would also like to hear another story rarely seen, i.e. the up-close, personal stories of human effort of the thousands of the Iraqi police and military, and the reasons why THEY risk their lives to fight the "insurgents" alongside the Americans. Include, if you can, the stories of the millions of brave Iraqi voters as well. Their desire for self-determination can't be any different than that of the "insurgents". Care to investigate that side for us, too?
"We need to wake up as individuals and as a community of journalists and start asking the hard and scary questions."
I just asked a few of them.... the ones above.
-So, for her next article, will she go undercover with the KKK? Hopefully, she can get lots of insight into attacking non-white minorities. It is always heartwarming to read a balanced report on the Klan. Or, maybe a serial killer? I bet Ted Bundy had things to teach us about how women can be so enticing. Thank goodness for balanced journalism. My life is worthless if the press is unbalanced.
-Send her ass to a North Korea or China where they will undoubtly "dissapear" her, as she claims the US military would do, for writing such drivel. Poor little girl had to tuck tail and come home to the USA where she knew she would be safe. Not even brave enough to flee to Europe where she would be a hero.
She is too delusional for her own good. She describes current day America as if it were the USSR. She also compares the colonists of the 1700's in America to Baathist thugs and fanatical Islamists of the Middle-East.
IDIOT-gahh!
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