[antimedia] antimedia: When I read stuff like this....

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Posted by antimedia:
When I read stuff like this....
http://www.antimedia.us/posts/1205099168.shtml


   ....it makes me [1]so angry I could spit. I want to strangle someone.
   It's so outrageous it demands the strongest response possible.

     I had joined the Fifth U.S. Marines as they fought their way into
     Communist-occupied Hue. The road from their staging area at Phu Bai
     Airport was strewn with the bodies of men, women and children, all
     festively clad to welcome the New Year, and all shot through the
     head by the northern invaders.
     There were so many that the leathernecks had to move them out of
     the way to avoid driving over these corpses with their tanks,
     trucks and armored personnel carriers. This scene flashed back into
     my mind as Ton That spoke about his family.

   This sort of scene is not at all unfamiliar to anyone who has
   witnessed the results of totalitarian rule. In fact, some of our
   military have to fight becoming jaded about seeing the bodies, because
   they see so many of them. (If you wonder where PTSD comes from, it's
   not just the acts that soldiers commit -- it's witnessing scenes like
   this that haunt a man for a lifetime.)
   Iraq has been the same way. Al Qaeda operatives have committed the
   most horrendous, inhumane acts you can possibly imagine to other human
   beings.

     We journalists were housed in the local compound of the U.S.
     Military Assistance Command. We slept on concrete floors under
     paper body bags. A demented goose had fled into this stark place.
     Every time we heard exchanges between American M-16 and Soviet-made
     AK-47 assault rifles nearby, the crazed animal crept under our
     covers. Often we heard volleys from the area just north of us. Now
     I know: This was the area where grandfather Ton That lived.
     I never went in this direction, though. I went south along Le Loi
     Boulevard to the bleak university housing estate where German
     friends of mine lived. They were Horst-Günther Krainick, a
     pediatrician who had founded the Hue medical school, his wife
     Elisabeth and his colleagues Raimund Discher and Alois Alteköster.
     I learned that they had been on long lists bearing the names of
     educators, intellectuals, civil servants, priests and other
     notables drawn up in Hanoi. Eyewitnesses told me that North
     Vietnamese agents took these lists from house to house, arresting
     these people and hauling them before kangaroo courts for 10-minute
     âtrials.â
     Most were executed instantly; others carted out of town and killed
     later. The corpses of the German doctors were later found in a
     shallow grave close to the imperial tombs southwest of Hue.
     I donât know what happened to Ton Thatâs father, uncles and
     cousins. Their bodies were not in any of the mass graves found in
     and around the imperial city. I stood at one of those burial sites.
     South Vietnamese soldiers had discovered it when they spotted the
     beautifully manicured hands of women sticking out from the ground.
     It was obvious that they had been buried alive and tried to claw
     their way out.
     With me was the late Washington Post correspondent Peter Braestrup.
     Pointing to the women, children and old men who had either been
     shot or clubbed to death, Braestrup asked a U.S. television
     cameraman, âWhy donât you film this scene?â The cameraman replied,
     âI am not here to spread anti-Communist propaganda.â
     This episode seemed unfathomable but it was not unique; it simply
     reflected a pervasive mindset, which manifested itself most
     glaringly when actress Jane Fonda traveled to Hanoi and had herself
     photographed on an anti-aircraft gunnerâs seat mockingly aiming her
     sights at what would have been American planes had they been around
     when this picture was shot.

   Now you know why My Lai is seared into Americans' memories yet no one
   knows about what happened in Hue.
   Now you know why Haditha matters more to our media than the hundreds
   and hundreds and hundreds of tortures and beheadings and executions
   and disembowelments and slaughters by bombing committed by Al Qaeda in
   Iraq.
   The truth is, our media doesn't give a damn about the truth. Only one
   thing matters to them -- advancing their agenda. "All the news that's
   fit to print" really means "All the news that fits (our not-so-hidden
   agenda) to print".
   This country cannot survive a press corrupted by political agendas.
   Unless we change it, and soon, there will be no point in talking of
   "the land of the free and the home of the brave".
   The reality is that our media still sets the agenda by their
   reporting. Their "truth" is the received truth. While we battle
   furiously in the blogosphere to get the truth out, most Americans
   remain blissfully unaware and still believe that the media reports
   truth.
   Unless it changes America is doomed.
   Tags: [2]media [3]lies [4]agenda [5]failures

References

   1. http://atlantic-times.com/article.php?recordID=4
   2. http://technorati.com/tag/media
   3. http://technorati.com/tag/lies
   4. http://technorati.com/tag/agenda
   5. http://technorati.com/tag/failures