21 April 2009: Haji Wasi Ahmed was shot and killed by a sniper in Khuzdar the other day. He was the highly respected correspondent of Daily Azadi and Daily Balochistan Express. President of the local newspaper hawkers Association also sustained bullet injuries in the murderous attack. Haji Wasi was an honest, straightforward and upright journalist commanded deep respect from the entire society in which he was residing. Haji Wasi had left behind five teenage children and a wife to mourn his death. He was shot from a close range with a criminal intention to kill him. He received two deadly bullet wounds in his abdomen and died in hospital after three days of bleeding. Balochistan lost an honest and upright citizen who served the Baloch people with complete dedication. Most of the Baloch leaders and political paid him great respect for his services to the cause of Baloch society. It was a far better man than any corrupt official or a minister.

26 March 2009: Raja Asad Hameed, senior reporter for Waqt TV and The Nation daily newspaper was shot four times by attackers outside his home in Rawalpindi. He died in hospital. Connection between the murder and his professional work is not yet clear. So far no trace has been found, but journalists and PFUJ own him and protesting to trace culprits.

23 March 2009: Malik Tariq Javed of DawnNews was killed by robbers in the Defence Housing Authority Lahore. Police said the journalist was going on foot, along with a Waqt TV reporter, when two robbers stopped them and asked them to hand over cash and cell phone. When Tariq resisted, the outlaws opened fire and escaped. Tariq suffered severe injuries and was taken to the National Hospital Defence where he was pronounced dead. Tariq, who was living in a rented house in the area, did his masters in International Relations from the Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, and worked for ARY TV for about four years. He was on medical leave after suffering injuries in a road accident near Jati Umra and was scheduled to resume work.

18 February 2009: Musa Khankhel, reporter for The News International and GEO TV went missing on February 18 while reporting on a series of public events addressed by senior cleric Maulana Sufi Mohammad. His bullet-ridden body was discovered hours later in the same area.

24 January 2009: Aamar Wakil, reporter for Awami Inqilab was shot in the back next to his home. He worked for “The People’s Revolution”, a regional daily based in Kohat, south of Peshawar.

04 January 2009: Mohammad Imran, reporter for Eitedal and Saleem Tahir Awan reporter for Apna Akhbar were killed in a suicide bomb attack at the site of an earlier explosion which police, forensic scientists and journalists were investigating. Five people were killed and 25 injured in the attack. According to information available here, Muhammad Imran was a trainee cameraman working for express tv but not yet confirmed either own by TV channel.

(1) Qari Shoaib Mohammad:

On Nov 8. Shoaib, a correspondent for PPI news agency and local paper Azadi was killed by security forces in Mengora, Swat while he was coming home after visiting his daughter in the hospital. Security forces admitted he was killed by “mistake.” PFUJ demanded inquiry into the incident and condemned the brutal killing.

(2) Abdul Aziz:

On August 29, Abdul Aziz of daily Azadi, Swat was killed during an attack on Taliban’s hideout in the nearby areas of Swat on Friday, two days after he was abducted by a group of militants and urged the authorities to take measures for the safety and security of the journalists. According to information collected by the Union, Aziz, who works for a local daily Azadi and also an for some other newspapers was allegedly abducted by a group of Taliban three days back and was kept in a private jail.

(3)Azeem Leghari:

On August 10, Azeem Leghari, a correspondent for local leghari for local Sindhi tv channel, Darthi tv was killed while sitting with some local tribesmen, doing a strory on the ongoing dispute between the two tribes. Five people were killed in the incident.

(4) Mohammad Ibrahim:

On May 21, Ibrahim, 45 has been sending reports for Express TV, and was coming after a high profile interview of Maulvi Umar, chief of Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, when unidentified gunmen killed him from close ranger. PFUJ strongly condemned the incident.

(5) Khadim Hussain Sheikh:

April 14, Sheikh was on his way to the office from his house alongwith his brother Ishaq on a motor-bike when unidentified gunmen intercepted them and shot him from close range. He died on the spot while his brother also recieved bullet injuries and has been admitted in the hospital. Sheikh was the bureau chief of Urdu daily, Khabrein and also an stinger of Sindh tv, in Hub.

(6) Sirajuddin Ahmned:

On Feb. 29, a local journalist Sirajuddin was killed when a sucidi bomber blown himself at a funeral killing 42 people.

(7) Dr. Abdus Samad alias Dr. Chishti Mujahid, columnist, Akhbar e Jahan

On 10 February 2008, Renowned journalist Dr. Abdus Samad alias Dr. Chishti Mujahid, a senior columnist and photojournalist of Akhbar-i-Jehan was killed by a gunman in Satellite Town area, Quetta. He was 55. Mirak Baloch, the BLA spokesman called at the offices of several Quetta-based newspapers via a satellite phone said, “Mujahid was as a partial journalist, he wrote several articles against the Baloch struggle and late Nawab Akbar Bugti for which he was punished.”

(8) Mehboob Khan, freelance, April 28, 2007, Charsadda

Photographer Khan was killed in a suicide bomb attack aimed at Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao. The minister escaped with minor injuries, but 28 people died in the attack at a political rally in the small town of Charsadda in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province.

Three other journalists were injured: ATV cameraman Arif Yousafzai; Siddiqullah, a reporter for the Urdu-language paper Subah; and reporter Ayaz Muhammad of the Associated Press of Pakistan.

Khan, a 22-year-old who had recently begun his journalism career, had contributed photos to local and national publications. He was believed to be working at the time.

Follow-up reports said the bomber was believed to have been a teenage male, and that security at the event may have been lax. The federal and provincial governments were investigating the attack, the Daily Times Web site reported.

(9) Kamil Mashhadi, TV Journalist

On 31 December 2007, TV journalist Kamil Mashhadi was shot dead in Karachi. He received two bullets wounds, one to the head and the other to the chin and died on way to the Lady Reading Hospital. According to eyewitnesses, two men came to his house in Mohalla Hajian on Circular Road and called him out to receive his salary. As he emerged from the door they shot at him with a pistol. The 45-year-old journalist, who worked for a private TV channel, leaves six children to mourn his death. His son Syed Hamaat told reporters a family dispute was behind the murder.

(10) Ehsan Ali alias Commando Mazaari, correspondent, Daily Khabrain

Ehsan Ali Daily Khabrain correspondent alias Commando Mazaari, died in the Karachi blast. Deceased was correspondent of the daily Khabrain at Mureed Shakh, Obarro.

(11) Hamid Ali, Photographer, Daily Ummat

Hamid Ali a photographer of daily Ummat was crushed to death on 07 of August, 2007 by a speeding bus in Al-Asif area of Karachi.

(12) Rab Nawaz Chandio, reporter of Daily Halchal

A reporter of Daily Halchal, Hyderabad Rab Nawaz Chandio was gunned by unknown assailants in Khursheed Colony on 07th of September 2007. No case was registered by Kotri Police till the filing of report in paper.

(13) Azhar Abbas Haidri, staff reporter, The Post

The Post staff reporter Azar Abbas Haidri (27) was shot dead on 17 October 2007, by unidentified killers in Qila Kot Police Station (Karachi) precincts on the Eid day. According to the Station House Officer Qila Kot Sultan, Azar Abbas Haidri was living with his paternal uncle Zahid Abbas in 4-Tara Building Noor Elahi Road Karcahi. The SHO said on the day of the incident the Azar left the house at around 8pm telling his uncle that he was going to the Lee Market. He said at around 2am some passer-by informed the local police that a Rickshaw driver had suddenly decamped after throwing a dead body from the three-wheeler near Shedi village Road. Police reached the spot after the information and found Azar Abbas dead with bullet injuries. Police report claims there was a disagreement on his plans of marriage. However, police sources say that might not be the actual cause of the murder. Police also do not rule out the possibility that some criminals might have tried to loot him and on his resistance might have fired at him.

(14) Makhdoom Rafiq, Editor ‘Nijaat’, Khairpur, Sindh

Makhdoom Mohammad Rafiq, chief editor of Sindhi newspaper Nijaat, was killed by unidentified men, apparently in a dispute over property, in Khora Town Gambat Taluka on Saturday 13th January 2007. Two motorcyclists shot him at a flourmill near his house and fled. Rafiq was taken to Taluka Hospital in Gambat, where he died. Residents of the area said Rafiq was involved in a property dispute with people of the Channa clan. The disputed plot is situated near Abul Wah in Khora. A case has not been registered so far but police have raided houses of several men from the Channa clan and arrested a number of suspects whose names they did not reveal. Rafiq will be buried on Saturday night or Sunday morning. He is survived by three widows, four sons and three daughters. Late Hashmi single-handedly brought out daily Nijaat in 1974-75 from Sukkur and managed its administration and reporting throughout the years.

(15) Noor Hakim Khan, Daily Pakistan, June 2, 2007, Bajaur

Khan, a correspondent for the Daily Pakistan and a vice president of the Tribal Union of Journalists, was one of five people killed by a roadside bomb in the Bajaur region of the North-West Frontier Province, near Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.

Behroz Khan, the Peshawar-based reporter for The News, confirmed news reports that Hakim was returning from covering a jirga, a traditional court. He had been invited to witness the demolition of a house belonging to the perpetrator of a February car bombing that had killed a local physician. The demolition was part of the disposition of the court case. Khan was traveling with a local official and a tribal chief who had taken a role in the case, according to news reports. Their car was third in a convoy returning from the area, reports said, and it might have been specifically targeted.

(16) Javed Khan, Markaz and DM Digital TV, July 3, 2007, Islamabad

Khan, a photographer for the Islamabad-based daily Markaz and a cameraman for U.K.-based DM Digital TV, was shot in the chest and neck while caught in crossfire between government forces and the students of Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in Islamabad, according to media reports. Four other journalists were wounded in the clashes.

News reports said gunfire came from both sides in the standoff. The source of the fatal shots was not immediately clear. Pakistani security forces had surrounded the mosque in an effort to end a months-long standoff. The mosque, generally seen as pro-Taliban, had been the center of efforts to remove what leaders saw as undesirable activity such as massage parlors and music shops.

(17) Muhammad Arif, ARY One World TV, October 19, 2007, Karachi

Arif was among more than 130 people killed in an October 19 bombing in Karachi, which took place during a political rally held to celebrate former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s homecoming. The cameraman, who was on assignment, was survived by his wife and six children.

(18) Zubair Ahmed Mujahid, Jang, November 23, 2007, Mirpur Khas

Mujahid, correspondent for the national Urdu-language daily Jang, was shot dead while traveling on a motorcycle with another journalist in the city of Mirpur Khas in the southern province of Sindh, according to local news reports. He was targeted by unidentified gunmen, also traveling by motorcycle.

Local journalists believed their colleague was slain because of his investigative reporting, according to Owais Aslam Ali, secretary-general of the local media group Pakistan Press Foundation. Mujahid was known for his critical writing on a variety of issues—including alleged mistreatment of the poor by local landlords and police—in his Jang weekly column, “Crime and Punishment.” His coverage of alleged police brutality had led to arrests and suspensions of police officers, Ali told CPJ.

Mujahid was survived by a wife and four sons. No arrests were immediately reported.

A total of five journalists were killed in tribal areas alone from 2000 to 2006 and not a single perpetrator has been arrested, prosecuted or convicted.

(19) Hayatullah Khan, AFP : He was abducted in October, 2005 and his body was found in July 2006. Later, his wife and brother were also killed.

(20) Amir Nawab Khan, APTN;

(21) Allah Noor Wazir, Khyber TV;

(22) Ubaidullah Azhar, Online news agency

(23) Nasir Afridi, Khabrain.

(24) Muhammad Ismail Malik, PPI :

In November 2006, Islamabad-based, Muhammad Ismail Malik, the Pakistan Press International (PPI) Resident Editor, was found dead in a roadside jungle, near a busy super market of the federal capital. Police registered an FIR against unknown persons. After noisy protests by journalists, police came up with an accused allegedly tutored to confess to “revenge- killing” and make embarrassing allegations pertaining to moral conduct of the victim. Officials admit that such confessions made before the police are not admissible in the court of law and in the absence of additional evidence, like medical check up of the accused, he may even be acquitted. The journalists’ community and family members of the victim are shocked, embarrassed and apparently silenced by this tactics of administration. In these circumstances, the real culprits may go scot-free and the real motives may never be known. One accused and a co-accused have now been sent to jail by a court order pending a trial.

(25) Maqbool Siyal (Online news service), Dera Ismail Khan

In September 2006, Dera Ismail Khan-based Maqbool Siyal of Online news wire service was murdered by unknown people. D.I Khan Police Station, City registered an FIR but having failed to investigate the murder it has not moved the court so far. The investigation is currently closed and no suspects have been arrested. The Chief Minister, Punjab and leader of opposition in the National Assembly granted Rs. 300,000/- (Three Hundred Thousand) as compensation to the victim’s family. Federal Information Minister, Akram Durrani has announced compensation of Rs. 200,000/- (Two Hundred Thousand rupees), which is yet to materialize.

(26) Munir Sangi, a photographer of daily Kawish, Larkana, Sindh

In May 2006, Munir Sangi, a photographer of daily Kawish, Larkana, Sindh, was killed in a cross fire between two battling tribes of Sindh province. 15 other people had died in that clash. He was filming the gun battle. Munir Sangi, 28, a photo-journalist working for Daily Kawish in Larkana, was murdered in outskirts of Larkana city on May 29, 2006. FIR was registered with Taluka Thana, Larkana, and two persons – Abdul Karim and Mullah Madaho – were arrested. Presently the case is in Additional Session Court in Larkana and the judge has ordered a judicial inquiry into the murder. During his recent visit to Larkana on December 9, 2007, Sindh Chief Minister presented a cheque to three hundred thousand rupees (Rs300,00/-) to the widow of the deceased.

(27) Mian Khalid Mahmood, Daily Inqilab

In the murder, in December 2005, of Lala-Musa-based Mian Khalid Mahmood, former president of Lala Musa Press Club, police has registered an FIR against unknown people. Police Station, City, Lala Musa has closed its investigations and no arrests have so far been made, hence the case is yet to reach the court. The victims family and police is said to be under tremendous pressure from local influential, including those from neighboring Gujrat city. The victim is survived by a widow and two daughters of the age of 3 and 2. No compensation has been given to the victim’s family.

(28) Sajid Tanoli, Daily Shumal, Abbottabad

In the murder, in 2004, of Mansehra-based Sajid Tanoli, of Daily Shumal, Abbottabad, Police is reluctant to arrest the accused, Khalid Khan who is Nazim of Mansehra City – 2 and who is now an absconder. The case continues to be tried by Session Court Mansehra. No compensation has been granted by the government to the victim.

(29) Amir Bux Brohi, Kawish Television Network (KTN)

Amir Bux Brohi, correspondent of daily Kawish was murdered in Shikarpur on September 2, 2003. The murder FIR was registered in Lakhi Dar police station and five persons – Shahnawaz Brohi, Zulfikar, Ghulam Nabi, Waheed and one unidentified — were nominated as killers of Brohi. Four of them were arrested, however two – Shahnawaz and Zulfikar – bailed out while two others are still under arrest and one is at large. The case has been pending in the ATC-II Sukkur since then. There was no compensation given by the government while Brohi’s family has left Shikarpur and is on the run after threats by the accused persons. Brohi’s lawyer Nizam Baloch said that his father – Haji Elahi Bux – is not in his contact and is reportedly gone to Karachi or Hyderabad after threats by the accused persons and their families

(30) Jaffar Khan, Daily Pakistan

In 2002, Head-Marala (near Sialkot)-based journalist Jaffar Khan working for Urdu language daily newspaper, Pakistan, was target murdered by a 15-member police party led by police inspector, Rana Basharat at his house under the pretext of raiding a hideout of dacoits. Victim’s wife was injured in the attack. During three years of the trial before the session court, the accused inspector and his colleagues remained in jail and afterwards reached an out-of-court settlement with heirs of the murdered journalists through a payment of about Rs30,00,000/- (Three million rupees). The compromise was reached in a Jirga like setting comprising police officials, elders, lawyers and victim’s family. The session court disposed of the case after the compromise.

(31) Shahid Soomro, Daily Kawish

Shahid Soomro, correspondent of daily Kawish in Kandhkot, was murdered on October 20, 2002. Three persons were nominated in FIR that was lodged with Kandhkot police station. However the families of the victim and accused settled the case and the accused family, according to a decision by tribal jirga, paid compensation of 1.6 million to the victim’s family after which the case was withdrawn from the court. The victim’s family was also given three hundred thousand rupees by the government of Sindh. The victim is survived by two sons and 3 daughters, all below 14 years.

(32) Rana Akram, daily Pakistan, Lahore

In 2001, at Daska, Punjab-based, Rana Akram, working for Urdu language daily Pakistan , Lahore got killed as he wrestled with a terrorist outside his office and a grenade exploded. Police Station City , Daska, closed the case within three months by declaring the killed terrorist as unidentifiable. Two surviving sons and two daughters of the dead journalist could not pursue the case that has now been closed.

(33) Najmul Hasan, Ziaul Haq, Sajid Mehmood (Nawa-e-Waqt), Karachi

The Karachi office of the national Urdu-language daily Nawa-e-Waqt was hit by a bomb attack in November 2000. Three of the paper’s employees died from injuries sustained in the blast: Najmul Hasan Zaidi, the newspaper’s advertising manager; Ziaul Haq, assistant circulation manager; and Sajid Mehmood, a computer operator. The Soldier Bazaar police station officials arrested an accused, who confessed and was sentenced to life imprisonment by the session court. The decision was overruled by the Sindh High Court and accused was acquitted for lack of evidence. The decision has not been appealed against before the apex court by the government due to lack of evidence. Under the law police can reopen the case with fresh evidence and a different accused, something which has not been since the acquittal of previous accused two years ago.

(34) Sofi Muhammad Khan of Daily Ummat, Karachi

All four accused arrested in murder, in May 2000, for the murder of the Thar based Sofi Muhammad Khan of Daily Ummat, Karachi , were acquitted by the session court after four years of trial, for lack of evidence. The appeal against his acquittal is pending before Sindh High Court, Hyderabad Bench since early 2005, and having been admitted, it is yet to be finally decided since then.

Released by,
,
PFUJ

However, rather than giving themselves that expensive pat on the back, the major U.S. media organizations might have done something to show remorse for their complicity in the Bush administration’s propaganda that justified the invasion of Iraq.

As freelance journalist Peter Dyer notes, prosecutors at the Nuremberg Tribunals deemed such journalistic support for war crimes to be a capital offense:

October 16 is an anniversary that should hold considerable interest for American journalists who have written in support of “Operation Iraqi Freedom” – the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Sixty-two years ago, on Oct. 16, 1946, Julius Streicher was hanged.

Streicher was one of a group of 10 Germans executed that day following the judgment of the first Nuremberg Trial – a 40-week trial of 22 of the most prominent Nazis.

Each was tried for two or more of the four crimes defined in the Nuremberg Charter: crimes against peace (aggression), war crimes, crimes against humanity, and conspiracy.

All who were sentenced to death were major German government officials or military leaders. Except for Streicher.

Julius Streicher was a journalist.

Editor of the vehemently anti-Semitic newspaper Der Stürmer, Streicher was convicted of, in the words of the judgment, “incitement to murder and extermination at the time when Jews in the East were being killed under the most horrible conditions clearly constitut(ing) … a crime against humanity.”

Presenting the case against Streicher, British prosecutor Lieutenant Colonel M.C. Griffith-Jones said: “My Lord, it may be that this defendant is less directly involved in the physical commission of the crimes against Jews. … The submission of the Prosecution is that his crime is no less the worse … that he made these things possible – made these crimes possible which could never have happened had it not been for him and for those like him. He led the propaganda and the education of the German people in those ways.”

The critical role of propaganda was affirmed at Nuremberg not only by the prosecution and in the judgment but also in the testimony of the most prominent Nazi defendant, Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering:

“Modern and total war develops, as I see it, along three lines: the war of weapons on land, at sea and in the air; economic war, which has become an integral part of every modern war; and, third, propaganda war, which is also an essential part of this warfare.”

Two months after the Nuremberg hangings, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 59(I), declaring:

“Freedom of information requires as an indispensable element the willingness and capacity to employ its privileges without abuse. It requires as a basic discipline the moral obligation to seek the facts without prejudice and to spread knowledge without malicious intent.”

The next year another General Assembly Resolution was adopted: Res. 110 which “condemns all forms of propaganda, in whatsoever country conducted, which is either designed or likely to provoke or encourage any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression.”

Although UN General Assembly Resolutions are not legally binding, Resolutions 59 and 110 carry considerable moral weight. This is because, like the United Nations itself, they are an expression of the catastrophic brutality and suffering of two world wars and the universal desire to avoid future slaughter.

Propaganda Crimes

Most jurisdictions have yet to recognize propaganda for war as a crime. However several journalists have recently been convicted of incitement to genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

Because there is stiff resistance, especially from the United States, the effort to criminalize war propaganda faces an uphill battle.

However in legal terms it seems relatively straightforward: if incitement to genocide is a crime, then incitement to aggression, another Nuremberg crime, could and should be as well.

After all, aggression – starting an unprovoked war – is “the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole,” in the words of the judgment at Nuremberg.

Criminal or not, much of the world now sees incitement to war as morally indefensible.

In this light and in light of Goering’s three-part recipe for war (weapons, economic war and propaganda) it is instructive to look at the role which American journalists and war propagandists have recently played in bringing about and sustaining war.

The Bush administration began to sell the invasion of Iraq to the American public soon after 9/11.

In order to coordinate this effort President Bush’s chief of staff, Andrew Card, established the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) in the summer of 2002 expressly for the purpose of marketing the invasion of Iraq.

Among the members of WHIG were media figures/propagandists Karen Hughes and Mary Matalin.

WHIG was remarkable not only for its recklessness with the truth but for the candor with which it acknowledged it was running an advertising campaign. A Sept. 7, 2002, New York Times article entitled TRACES OF TERROR: THE STRATEGY; Bush Aides Set Strategy to Sell Policy on Iraq reported:

“White House officials said today that the administration was following a meticulously planned strategy to persuade the public, the Congress and the allies of the need to confront the threat from Saddam Hussein….

” ‘From a marketing point of view,’ said Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff who is coordinating the effort, ‘you don’t introduce new products in August.’ ”

It was as if the “product” – the unprovoked invasion of a sovereign state – was a consumer good, like a car or a TV show. The sales pitch was the manufactured “imminent threat” of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

In other words, the business of WHIG was incitement to aggressive war primarily through the propaganda of fear.

Along those lines WHIG’s most prominent member, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, invoked the specter of an Iraqi-generated nuclear holocaust in a Sept. 8, 2002, CNN interview with Wolf Blitzer:

“We do know that there have been shipments going into Iran, for instance – into Iraq, for instance, of aluminum tubes that really are only suited to – high-quality aluminum tools that are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs. … The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”

The smoking gun/mushroom cloud images were among the most memorable of all the White House war propaganda. They were generated just a few days earlier in a WHIG meeting by speechwriter Michael Gerson.

The existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was central to the Bush administration’s campaign for war. Other important elements were Saddam Hussein’s ties with Al Qaeda and the strongly implied association of Iraq with the tragedies of 9/11.

All were false. In propaganda, though, selling the product trumps truth.

Unquestioning Submission

The role played by American mainstream media during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq was marked by widespread unquestioning submission to the Bush administration and abandonment of the most fundamental journalistic responsibility to the public.

This responsibility is embodied not only in Resolution 59 but in the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics as well, which states: “Journalists should test the accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent error.”

The failure of influential American journalists, such as the New York Times’ Judith Miller, to test the accuracy of information played a critical role in the Bush administration’s successful effort to incite the American public to attack a country which was not threatening us.

Though she was far from alone in selling the case for war, Miller — through her seemingly uncritical reliance on dodgy informants — was probably responsible to a larger degree than any other American journalist for spreading the fear of nonexistent Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

As such she and other influential journalists who failed in this way bear a share of moral, if not legal, responsibility for hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees and all the other carnage, devastation and human suffering of “Operation Iraqi Freedom.”

Some prominent American media figures, however, went considerably further than simple failure to check sources. Some actively and passionately encouraged Americans to commit and/or approve of war crimes, before and during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Prominent among these was Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly who – regarding both Afghanistan and Iraq – advocated such crimes forbidden by the Geneva Convention as collective punishment of civilians (Gen. Con. IV, Art. 33); attacking civilian targets (Protocol I, Art. 51); destroying water supplies (Protocol I Art. 54 Sec. 2) and even starvation (Protocol I, Art. 54 Sec. 1).

Sept. 17, 2001: “The U.S. should bomb the Afghan infrastructure to rubble: the airport, the power plants, their water facilities, and the roads” in the event of a refusal to hand over Osama bin Laden to the U.S.

Later, he added: “This is a very primitive country. And taking out their ability to exist day to day will not be hard.  … We should not target civilians. But if they don’t rise up against this criminal government, they starve, period.”

On March 26, 2003, a few days after the invasion of Iraq began, O’Reilly said: “There is a school of thought that says we should have given the citizens of Baghdad 48 hours to get out of Dodge by dropping leaflets and going with the AM radios and all that. Forty-eight hours, you’ve got to get out of there, and flatten the place.” [See Peter Hart's "O'Reilly's War: Any rationale—or none—will do" Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, May/June 2003]

Collective Punishment

Another tremendously influential journalist, Pulitzer Prize winner and former executive editor of the New York Times, the late A.M. Rosenthal, also advocated attacking civilian targets and collective punishment in regard to waging war against Muslim nations in the Middle East.

In a Sept. 14, 2001, column, “How the U.S. Can Win the War”, Rosenthal wrote that the U.S. should give Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria and Sudan three days to consider an ultimatum demanding they turn over documents and information related to weapons of mass destruction and terrorist organizations.

During these three days, “the residents of the countries would be urged 24 hours a day by the U.S. to flee the capital and major cities, because they would be bombed to the ground beginning the fourth day.”

Right-wing media figure Ann Coulter, on the Sean Hannity Show on July 21, 2006, called for another war and more punishment of civilians, this time in Iran:

“Well, I keep hearing people say we can’t find the nuclear material, and you can bury it in caves. How about we just, you know, carpet-bomb them so they can’t build a transistor radio? And then it doesn’t matter if they have the nuclear material.”

This pattern of the major U.S. news figures advocating aggressive wars even predated 9/11. Three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas Friedman published a strident call for war crimes including collective punishment of Serbs and the destruction of their water supplies over the Kosovo crisis:

“But if NATO’s only strength is that it can bomb forever, then it has to get every ounce out of that. Let’s at least have a real air war. The idea that people are still holding rock concerts in Belgrade, or going out for Sunday merry-go-round rides, while their fellow Serbs are ‘cleansing’ Kosovo, is outrageous. It should be lights out in Belgrade: every power grid, water pipe, bridge, road and war-related factory has to be targeted.

“Like it or not, we are at war with the Serbian nation (the Serbs certainly think so), and the stakes have to be very clear: Every week you ravage Kosovo is another decade we will set your country back by pulverizing you. You want 1950? We can do 1950. You want 1389? We can do 1389 too.” [New York Times, April 23, 1999]

These casual — even joking — comments about inflicting war on relatively weak countries came from American journalists and media figures at the very top of their profession. Each was addressing an audience of millions. It is difficult to overstate their influence.

Over the past decade alone, the massive destruction and carnage wreaked by American pursuit of “the supreme international crime” of aggression has been enabled by negligent, reckless and/or malicious use of this influence.

Sadly, the words of Nuremberg Prosecutor Griffith-Jones concerning the propaganda of German journalist Julius Streicher hold considerable meaning today for some of the most prominent journalists in the country which, 60 years ago, provided the guiding light at Nuremberg:

Streicher “made these things possible – made these crimes possible which could never have happened had it not been for him and for those like him.”

In 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 127 in which “the General Assembly … invites the Governments of States Members … to study such measures as might with advantage, be taken on the national plane to combat, within the limits of constitutional procedures, the diffusion of false or distorted reports likely to injure friendly relations between States.”

Unfortunately, 60 years later, little progress has been made. War propaganda is still legal and very much alive – flourishing, in fact, as demonstrated by periodic calls for one more invasion of a country which has never threatened the U.S.: Iran.

As matters stand today, with the United States still the world’s preeminent military power, the American propagandists who enabled Operation Iraqi Freedom and other wars of aggression have little need not worry about their legal responsibilities under the Nuremberg principles.

A strong case can be made, though, that they have blood on their hands.