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| ...and the circus of deception killing continues... | ||
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Unspeakable grief and horror
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| Los Angeles Times Editor John S. Carroll delivering the annual Ruhl Lecture, spoke about information given to the American public about the war. In a scathing critique of Fox News and some talk show hosts, such as Bill O'Reilly, Carroll said they were a "different breed of journalists" who misled their audience while claiming to inform them. He said they did not fit into the long legacy of journalists who got their facts right and respected and cared for their audiences. Carroll cited a study released last year that showed Americans had three main misconceptions about Iraq: That weapons of mass destruction had been found; that a connection between al-Qaeda and Iraq had been demonstrated; that the world approved of U.S intervention in Iraq. He said 80 percent of people who primarily got their news from Fox believed at least one of the misconceptions. He said the figure was more than 57 percentage points higher than people who get their news from public news broadcasting. "How in the world could Fox have left its listeners so deeply in the dark?" Carroll asked. (Fox controlling ownership is Rupert Murdoch) |
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| RUSS BYNUM Associated Press SAVANNAH, Ga. - A U.S. soldier who left his unit in Iraq rather than fight for what he called an "oil-driven war" faces a court-martial Wednesday on a desertion charge. Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia, 28, of Miami Beach, Fla., could go to prison for a year and receive a bad conduct discharge if convicted by a military jury at Fort Stewart. He said his war experience made him decide to seek conscientious objector status. He said he was particularly upset over an incident in which his unit was ambushed and civilians were hit in the ensuing gunfire, and another in which he said an Iraqi boy died after confusion over which military doctor should treat him. He also claimed he saw Iraqi prisoners treated "with great cruelty" when he was put in charge of processing detainees a year ago at al-Assad, an Iraqi air base occupied by U.S. forces. Mejia filed the statements March 16, before the Iraqi prisoner scandal at the Abu Ghraib prison became public. Fort Stewart officials said they have forwarded his account to the Army. In his objector application, Mejia said detainees were kept blindfolded and troops were ordered to use sleep-deprivation tactics to aid with interrogations. He said prisoners were kept awake for up to 48 hours at a time, often by yelling at them or having them sit and stand for several minutes. “When these techniques failed, we would bang on the wall with a huge sledgehammer ... or load a 9 mm pistol next to their ear,” Mejia wrote. “The way we treated these men was hard even for the soldiers, especially after realizing that many of these `combatants’ were no more than shepherds.” |
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