As more information comes to light about the possible atrocities committed by American soldiers in the Iraqi town of Haditha, I thought I would mention that one of the main journalists that helped bring the story to light is Aparisim Ghosh, chief international correspondent for Time magazine. It was back in March of this year that whispers first began to emerge about what may have happened in Haditha:
Since the revelation this [March 2006] week that U.S. Marines may have been responsible for the death of 15 civilians in the western Iraq town of Haditha, first reported by TIME, there has been a major outcry but little action. But now that the Haditha tragedy is out in the open, the U.S. military must act quickly and decisively to reassure Iraqis that the killing of innocents by American arms will not be lost in the fog of war.
In an environment where insurgents and terrorists routinely massacre civilians without remorse or restitution, it is vital that Iraqis know the U.S. military holds itself to a higher standard — that when American soldiers kill (by accident or intention) non-combatants, the military investigates the matter rigorously and punishes anybody guilty of wrongdoing. This is what separates the good guys from the bad guys…It will not be easy to persuade Iraqis that a cover-up is not already under way. After all, the Marines’ first report of the incident claimed that the civilians had been killed by a roadside bomb, and not by the Marines themselves. Nor does it help that the military waited months before launching a serious investigation. But every effort must be made to undo that damage and allay suspicions. [Link]
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p>In the last couple of weeks the words in the article above by Ghosh have been viewed as almost prophetic. He continues to produce outstanding articles from the war zone, such as this insightful one titled Inside the Mind of an Iraqi Suicide Bomber:
One day soon, this somber young man plans to offer up a final prayer and then blow himself up along with as many U.S. or Iraqi soldiers as he can reach. Marwan Abu Ubeida says he has been training for months to carry out a suicide mission. He doesn’t know when or where he will be ordered to climb into a bomb-laden vehicle or strap on an explosives-filled vest but says he is eager for the moment to come. While he waits, he spends much of his time rehearsing that last prayer. “First I will ask Allah to bless my mission with a high rate of casualties among the Americans,” he says, speaking softly in a matter-of-fact monotone, as if dictating a shopping list. [Link]
There is also this most recent one about the savageness of the sectarian violence in Iraq:
To understand just how brutal the war in Iraq has become, spend a day at work with Sheik Jamal al-Sudani. A Baghdad mortician, he travels to the holy city of Najaf every Friday to bury the capital’s unclaimed and unknown dead–the scores of bodies that turn up every day, bearing no identifying characteristics save the method by which they were murdered. On a typical trip to the Wadi al-Salaam cemetery last month, Sheik Jamal and a small band of volunteers unload the grim cargo they have brought 100 miles from the Iraqi capital in an old flatbed truck. Sheathed in powder-blue body bags are the remains of 72 men, many of them bearing signs of terrible torture–holes in the skull made by power drills, mutilated genitals, burns. They are the signature of the shadowy Shi’ite groups that have been kidnapping and murdering hundreds of men and boys, most of them Sunnis, in a campaign that has terrorized Baghdad’s neighborhoods. [Link]
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p>Ghosh was recently interviewed by radio personality Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!:
Aparisim Ghosh: Haditha is a small town northwest of Baghdad, a very, very dangerous place. It’s in the heart of what’s known as the Sunni Triangle, and Marines and soldiers who operate in that area are under constant threat. On the morning of the 19th of November, a four-Humvee patrol going through town was hit by an I.E.D., an improvised explosive device, which sheered off the front of one of the Humvees, killed one of the soldiers inside. What happens next is a matter of some debate, as you pointed out. Initially the Marines claimed that a total of 23 people were killed on the spot, 15 of them innocent civilians, all of whom the Marines said were killed by the I.E.D., and eight of them, enemy combatants who were shot by the Marines.
Amy Goodman: In addition to the 15?
Aparisim Ghosh: In addition to the 15. We looked into this case, and the more we dug, the more we thought that something didn’t quite add up. And when we finally got our hands on this videotape, it became very clear to us that these people could not have been killed outdoors by an explosive device. They were killed in their homes in their night clothes. The night clothes are significant, because Iraqi women and children, especially, are very, very unlikely to go outdoors wearing their night clothes. It is a very conservative society.
When we first approached the Marines with this evidence, they responded in quite a hostile fashion. They accused us of buying into enemy propaganda. That aroused our suspicions even further, because it seemed to be excessively hostile on their part. And we dug even more. We spoke to witnesses. We spoke to survivors of this incident. And then we became quite convinced that these people were killed by the Marines. What is left to be seen is whether they were killed in the course of the Marine operation as collateral damage or by accident, or whether the Marines went on a rampage after one of their own had been killed and killed these people in revenge.
Amy Goodman: You are very graphic in the piece, “One Morning in Haditha.” Describe what the survivors say happened when the U.S. military went into the nearby houses around where the roadside bomb had exploded. [Link]
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p>Of course, reporting about Haditha isn’t going to make everyone happy. Just take a look at the ridiculous title of this article which attempts a character assassination of Ghosh:
Questions Arise About Time “Massacre” Reporter, The Terror Friendly Aparisim Ghosh
June 2, 2006 – San Francisco, CA – PipeLineNews.org – As detailed in a cached google entry from the old RedStates website by a poster named GOPINION, Time reporter Aparisim Ghosh, co-author of the article that launched the Haditha “massacre” investigation has an extremely close and questionable working relationship with al-Qaeda and the insurgents.
Time reporter Aparisim Ghosh interviewed suicide bomber in training Marwan Abu Ubeida (a pseudonym) in Baghdad. The Time Magazine World Inside the Mind of an Iraqi Suicide Bomber article opens with:
“One day soon, this somber young man plans to offer up a final prayer and then blow himself up along with as many U.S. or Iraqi soldiers as he can reach. Marwan Abu Ubeida says he has been training for months to carry out a suicide mission. He doesn’t know when or where he will be ordered to climb into a bomb-laden vehicle or strap on an explosives-filled vest but says he is eager for the moment to come.”
So, Aparisim Ghosh managed to track down a suicide bomber who plans to kill as many americans as he can. This bomber claims he is part of al-Zarqawi’s Al Quaeda group in Iraq.
The kicker is not that they interviewed him, but rather that they interviewed him and made no effort to track him down in order to stop him from carrying out his attack or to find out where he trains. [Link]
By the way, for those of you who like me are students of counter-insurgency operations I recommend that you read this article by Sidney Blumenthal in Salon (especially the second half). Particularly in light of what Ghosh helped to uncover you can see how close the edge of the precipice may be.
I don’t think this topic will interest anyone; I predict a maximum of 7 comments including mine:)
UMM:
how can you say that? this isn’t just interesting, it’s essential reading! cheer up comrade more people have a heart than you think. we’re not just about the kaavya- and m.i.a-dissections.
thanks for putting it up abhi. a friend gave me a subscription to ‘time’ as a gift and ghosh is a very talented journalist. it’s a shame however that the zarqawi issue is getting much more attention than haditha, though sadly this isn’t predictable. for some who mix their AOL/Time Warner news-ing with indymedia and alternet the time cover with the ‘shocking’ story of haditha just looks kind of ironic.
wake up, us administration! you’ve done so many peacekeeping missions, don’t let that be overshadowed by mi lai part 2.
*unpredictable. oopsies
also since we’re looking for typos, what’s with ‘somber’? Or is that American spelling for sombre.
America, you have no idea why the world hates you. You are like a blundering, arrogant, farting, blind bull on steroids kicking and shitting everywhere you go. Guantanamo Bay, dropping bombs on Baghdad, now shooting children in the head. For what? Nobody sane disagreed with the need to oust the Taliban after the ipso facto act of war of 9/11. Since then, America has behaved like a curse on the world, an arrogant and ignorant blight. You have lost all the goodwill that was yours after the New York massacre, and killed thousands of innocents so your cowboy President could finish off the job for his daddy. America, you once stood for something, now you stand for selfish arrogant self-absorption and a shining beacon of ignorance.
Hi Tashie, That was my feeble attempt at some tongue-in-cheek humour; I’ll keep working on it and perhaps, get through to you someday:)
Suzy:
Get a grip. I’ll happily concede that the Iraq War was a mistake, and if Haditha happened the way Ghosh describes those Marines should (and will) spend the rest of their lives making small rocks out of big ones. But hysterical posts about “America being a curse on the world” and “why the world hates us” are about as useful as the proverbial mammaries on the metaphorical boar hog. Idiot reflexive anti-Americanism is just as bad as idiot reflexive pro-Americanism, in that they’re both perpetrated by idiots.
SPeedy
UMM:
think there was a mizcommunication there…i know you were trying to be funny but also detected a bit of throwing up arms in the air, so did not mean in a bitchy way just as a bit of good cheer 🙂 there are more people than you think who would comment on this rather than yet another ayn rand story.
there just may be more than one UM around even if they aren’t the full UMM…
and this is officially the 8th comment on the post 🙂
This weird attitude of reporters has always puzzled me. They treat their interviewing of some homicidal sociopath with the clinical disconnect of a scientist conducting a lab experiment. If Mr Ghosh had staked out a bar and interviewed a drunk about to get into his car and drive off into traffic, for a story on drunk drivers, would he feel no responsibility in calling the police ? Am curious if he traded any military operational information to obtain his story. One wonders what Mr Ghosh would have done if he had obtained leaked information about the Zarqawi operation.
Speedy
Introspection and understanding why the world is suspicious of America and why people disbelieve the high claims America makes for herself is the first step to making friends with people. Until America gets some perspective (the latest example of American ‘enlightenment’ being the US Army general who described the three suicides in Guantanamo as being a PR stunt and an example of ‘asymmetrical warfare against the USA’ – how can crassness and stupidity exist in such close proximity to power?) people are always going to watch in horror as the USA kills more and more innocent people by the tens of thousands and still seeks to proclaim its good intentions. Calling me an idiot for pointing this out misses the point somewhat. Like I said, America to the rest of the world ‘looks like a blundering, arrogant, farting, blind bull on steroids kicking and shitting everywhere you go’. Shooting children in the head so that the President could finish his daddy’s job makes American claims of benignity ring as hollow as pumpkin on halloween.
it should be surprising if this isn’t a popular thread! it’s certainly interesting to be aware of the hostility journalists face – especially given the amount of us vs. them rhetoric about, it takes courage to keep digging..
First of all, I don’t think this is a ‘wierd’ attitude necessarily. It’s the only attitude which can accomplish the task at hand: namely, to interview and understand the mindset of a suicide bomber. Well, I guess a reporter has to earn some amount of trust from the source, how would this kind of reporting be possible otherwise? In any case, what could he have done? Tell the US army, ‘Hey, there’s a suicide bomber in Baghdad who wants to kill you guys tonight’ ? Very helpful, yeah. There might also be more immediate concerns, such as his personal safety and stuff.
I’d be sympathetic to Ghosh’s predicament in this situation. Journalism is a job which involves not-so-pleasant subjects sometimes.
While Ghosh is a solid writer, and is undertaking personal risk, the criticism that Vikram makes has merit. Change the venue – say Ghosh is stationed in the UK, and is following a bunch of rowdy, drunken English youths who are on their way to torch a mosque during prayer – would you hold the same view that Ghosh should not warn the authorities?
KXB
Sure he should (how do you know that he did not, in this case?). My point is that such information might not be very valuable, given the precautions which the insurgents would naturally take before agreeing to an interview like this, unless he managed to obtain specific information on the time/location of the attack. It is a fallacy to assume that someone talking to the opposing side is automatically sympathizing with them.
Yeah, you might say ‘ he should have pulled out a gun and shot the guy’, which would be a brave but stupid thing to do.
It would be easy enough for Ghosh, like so many other ‘journalists’, to sit in the cozy comfort of the American zone and write the normal mainstream stuff. I think I’d commend him on trying to take some risks and do something more substantial, while facing the inevitable predicaments and criticism.
It is a fallacy to assume that someone talking to the opposing side is automatically sympathizing with them.
Perhaps – which is why I never said he sympathized with them. What I said, is that if Ghosh or anyone for that matter, bears witness to the preparation and eventual commission of a crime, is it enough to say “I am a journalist” and thus take no steps to prevent the harm that will come to innocents? After all – journalism is not psychiatry, with an established practice of confidentiality.
Yeah, you might say ‘ he should have pulled out a gun and shot the guy’, which would be a brave but stupid thing to do.
Again – a facile argument. No one is suggesting that journalists need to take up arms and fight alongside troops.
So where is the line drawn ? This starts skating on thin ice about the ethics of prior knowledge of a potential criminal act. If Ghosh had interviewed McVeigh or Bundy would he feel he needed to keep their “trust” too ?
If some other reporter on the front lines interviewed terrorists revealing their intentions to kidnap and behead a Time magazine reporter without warning, and didn’t inform him, would he feel the same way ? Oh wait… that would be “different” somehow.
I agree with Vikram. Ghosh and all reporters should carry guns with them so they can kill the terrorists after they interview them. I mean dont we all wish that Peter Bergen had killed Osama when he interviewed him in Afghanistan.
But what about Judith Miller? She was hardly painted as supporting terrorism during the Valerie Plame affair. That was also an issue of national security and she chose to hide her source. Of course its not as sexy as “reporter lets suicide bomber get away” but I kinda see a double standard here. Revealing her source’s location probably wouldn’t have put her in mortal danger either. Yes, yes, I like dredging up ancient history 🙂
I agree. Arming journalists is really the only next sensible step in modern warfare. Especially these days, when journalism in the United States so famously failed the nation in its role as the fourth estate. The ability to interview a suicide bomber or someone who expresses virulently anti american behavior and then to shoot him in the head is not just patriotic, it is also such an obviously efficient way to fight the war. We can then simply say ‘screw you’ to the Islamists and put up posters of a deceased Judith Miller, who after writing so many bogus stories about Iraq’s nuclear program, bomb centrifuges and large, non-existent caches of WMDs did the only useful and right thing in her storied career by shooting an unemployed Jordanian truck driver and now uber jihadist in the ear. Many could follow. Imagine the possibilities…Bill O Reilly, Geraldo, maybe even Oprah, the new trump cards of the U.S. armed forces in dealing with these sick, deranged islamic lunatics who don’t have the decency to stop using such nakedly sensational tactics in fighting wars such as suicide bombs and er…well…suicide.
I’d pay to see that idiot Katie Couric having a close encounter with an IED on the frontlines…
Wow – lampooning an argument that no one made – the arming of journalists. I hope we’ll soon see clever takes on how ESPN anchors should strap on the pads and get in the games they cover, if they really care about the home team.
It’s a strategy…a journalist who ‘rats out’ his source will develop that reputation and will have a hard time gaining access to interviews in the future. So it’s the teach a man to fish mentality. Doing a profile of a suicide bomber may bring awareness to the issues underlying individual suicide attacks – namely societal and psychological reasons for such behaviour. And somehow this would be more helpful long term – in the mind of this reporter – than nabbing hisself a suicide bomber. Besides journalists are not soldiers or police. It’s a really hard line to draw though, every journalist and newsroom struggles with the ethics of this issue ALL the time (yup journalists have ethics too – shocking I know.) It’s the ‘do I shoot or help’ question.
A classic Colbert technique… pulling the old specious ploy of “I pretend to agree with you while lamely attempting to lampoon your comment with something unconnected” . 😉
A classic Colbert technique
Colbert is amusing at times – but he’s really just a less annoying Mark Russell without the piano playing.
What I find puzzling is the right winger’s unconditional support to everything that US foreign policy establishment. What I find more puzzling is that they dont see the irony, when they criticize Islamists for giving other Islamists unconditional support.
I agree with this quote 100%. What I find interesting is that Cheney preached Boyd’s maneuver warfare concepts and implemented them in the conventional warfare phases, but completely ignored it and the basics “Art of War” or Von Clausewitz type stuff (fundamentals) when things changed. The battlefield changed, but his leadership did not adapt to the dynamics. Bush and his team are static fixtures and are unable to leverage the appropriate psychological operations from a poltical and diplomatic standpoint.
Fallujah is a case study in how our troops were willing to do their parts, but from a psychological warfare standpoint the insurgency gained the higher ground. A successful insurgency isn’t necessarily one that is militarily successful, but one that is politically. The USMC wanted to tread lighlty and use the appropriate COIN operations after the 4 blackwater contractors were murdered. They believed the worse had already been done, and reacting to it in a heavy handed manner would only worsen things. They did. Bing West’s No True Glory describes this in detail as do many other articles.
Instead of procuring high price items such as the F-22 (I have reversed my position on this. Talking to people who used to be on the program gives you a different perspective), Virginia class subs, DDX, two years into the insurgency we needed mine/IED defeating vehicles such as the RG-31 Nayala, Cougar, Buffalo, Dingo which are already deployed by other nations. Up armoring HMMWVs doesn’t defeat IED’s (the primary killer of our troops). The V shaped hulls deflect the blast rather than trying to fight it. Not only would these save troops, but also deny the enemy a psychological warfare tool that keeps the pressure on troops and gains headlines when they kill some, sending news all over the world.
Haditha needs to be dispositioned in the courts immediately and transparently to gain any ground. Any violators of UCMJ should be punished accordingly.
I found a recommendation on Professionalsoldiers.com, a website run by former and current United States Army Special Forces (aka Green Berets): Human Factors Considerations of Undergrounds in Insurgencies as essential reading. I’m definitely adding it to the list. Great discussions and information there.
NOTE: If you decide to sign up and join this website, tread lightly. Read all the rules first and lurk before getting a feel of the place. They’re some serious folks.