<nettime> MW12

["Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net>]

Media front:

CNN is attempting to manipulate global opinion: The chairman of 
CNN has ordered his staff to balance images of civilian devastation 
in Afghan cities with reminders that the Taliban harbors murderous 
terrorists, saying it "seems perverse to focus too much on the 
casualties or hardship in Afghanistan."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A14435-
2001Oct30?language=printer

CNN is largely failing in that attempt:
Media in Western Europe are paying a lot of attention to the plight 
of ordinary Afghan people; Dutch 'Netwerk' TV tonight showed a 
report about Afghan children maimed by US bombardments, the 
lack of hospitals and medicine - using Al Jazeera footage. 
The second item in 'Netwerk' (jointly produced by roman catholic 
KRO, calvinist NCRV and conservative-liberal AVRO TV) about Al 
Jazeera was introduced as follows: "American CNN's domination of 
the news was ended by Al Jazeera, the Arab satellite station 
servicing an audience of 60 million people any time of day or night. 
The interesting news and pictures in the European media no longer 
come from CNN, but from Al Jazeera."
During a discussion about the objectivity of Al Jazeera one of its
editors showed some footage of children maimed in a 
bombardment which the station had received yesterday from one of 
its reporters in Afghanistan; the Al Jazeera editors had decided the 
video was too gruesome to be broadcast (Netwerk briefly showed a 
couple of stills). The twenty-five minutes footage in from 
Afghanistan was edited down to a three minutes item which aired 
last night but did not show the young victims. Netwerk's report also 
showed the anger of Al Jazeera's editors when David Rumsfeld 
cast doubt on the authenticity of the pictures.The report also 
stated: "Much of Al Jazeera's pictures from Afghanistan
do not reach the US public because stations like CNN claim Al 
Jazeera is biassed."  Netwerk's conclusion: There is nothing wrong 
with Al Jazeera's news; the station simply puts more emphasis on 
the suffering of peoples outside the Western hemisphere. 
Frank Tigglear

Home front:

"Group narcissism...is extremely important as an element giving
satisfaction to the members of the group and particularly to those 
who have few other reasons to feel proud and worthwhile." - Erich 
Fromm
The patriotism moves to the corny side:
http://www.topps.com/enduringfreedom.html

And you can drap yourself in American flag while donating money 
to both NYPD and FDNY - regardless that they are now locked in 
bitter struggle (and 12 firemen got detained) over who should work 
at the ground zero, after Giuliani started to prefer NYPD over FDNY:
http://www.internationalmale.com/product.asp?pf%5Fid=DP15zz&d
ept%5Fid=19060&subdept%5Fid=

1147 people were detained - Arab males of the fighting age (the 
same profiling principle that was used in the Balkans wars, as well):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36356-
2001Nov3.html

Green party organizer Nancy Oden was not allowed on AMerican 
Airlines plane for her alleged lack of cooperation with search of her 
luggage:
http://www.greenparty.org/bangor.txt

Overseas front:

Pentagon says that Afghan village was a legitimate target:
http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/central/11/01/ret.afghan.
village/index.html
Also,  US air raids crippled Afghanistan's biggest hydro-electric 
dam complex (Kajaki), cutting electricity to two cities in the 
Taliban's southern heartland just weeks away from winter, a Taliban 
Education Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi told AFP on Thursday.

In response to this here is a chilling report by Ali Bhagdadi for the 
Arab Journal:

All radar control and command centers were over and over again
destroyed, though Afghanistan has no communication systems.  
Afghanis do not depend on orders from anyone but Allah.  "If your 
land is invaded, you must fight back", the Quran, the Muslim Holy 
Book, says.  Anyway, Afghanis, when they encounter uninvited 
"guests" who do not greet them with Assalamu Alaikum (peace be 
with you) and speak with a strange tongue that they do not 
understand, by instinct, they know what to do.

All navy ships were sunk, though Afghanistan has no sea.  The 
entire transportation system was wiped out, which, in Kabul, 
consisted of a couple of broken down buses and trucks left behind 
by the Soviet invaders while running north.  Afghanis prefer horses.  
In a rugged terrain, horses give them mobility.  Horses can also 
make quick turns that no vehicle invented by man can.

All electric, water filtration and sewage treatment plants were 
leveled to the ground, though Afghanistan has no infra structure, a 
country which had been devastated by twenty year war instigated 
and coordinated by the United States.  Afghanis have survived 
without these niceties for thousands of years.  They can wait until 
peace comes to their land. They are in no hurry.

Unlike us, they are not restricted by time constraints!

With remote control and utmost "accuracy", we bombed cities, 
villages, mosques, schools, hospitals, Red Cross depots, food 
storages, UN facilities, and, (don't laught) even our Mujahiden allies 
in the north. With a laser guided missile that cost us over a million 
dollar, we also blasted an Afghani donkey which was caught 
transporting ammunition to the frontlines.  Afghanis do not rely on 
modern science and technology.  If they had to fight, they would 
rather face their enemies man to man, a long standing tradition that 
Afghanis wish to preserve.  No collateral damage, no excuses and 
no apologies!

French Muslim Youth Hail Bin Laden as Symbol of Their Plight
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
2001-11-02 06:14 (New York)
     Paris, Nov. 2 (Bloomberg) -- The only thing 19-year-old
Mounir blames Osama bin Laden for is not slamming a plane into
the Eiffel Tower, too.
     His friend Najib, 18, agrees that bin Laden, named by the
U.S. as the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks on the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon, is a hero.
     ``Bin Laden has already won this war: He struck at
America's heart and exposed its weakness,'' said Najib. ``The
U.S. deserved it. It always acted in an arrogant manner, and
now it reaped what it sowed.''

Backgrounders:
A coonection between Bin Laden and RUF in Sierra Leone - Al 
Qaeda's bloody diamond pipeline:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27281-
2001Nov1.html

The legality of the US war on Afghanistan:
 The Bush administration says the United States is exercising its
legal right of self-defense, but that view is countered by some 
experts.
   "Retaliation is not self-defense," said Francis Boyle, a law
professor at the University of Illinois who has argued before the 
World Court.
   Just as in an ordinary criminal assault, he said, "When the 
attack is all over, you're supposed to go to law enforcement 
authorities. . . .
   Here, the attack ended on Sept. 11." (San Francisco Cronicle)

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