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"The Face of Sacrifice": Another Example of The New York Times' Service to Imperial Power

By Paul Street at Dec 29, 2005

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Here's a little new wrinkle in the story of the corporate-liberal New York Times' servility to imperial power. Last Monday's Time's contained an outwardly progressive item: a two-page photo essay on civilian casualties (what the paper calls "The Face of Sacrifice") in Iraq ("The Face and Voice of Civilian Sacrifice in Iraq: Photographs by Adam Nadel," NYT, 26 December 2005, pp. A16-A17). "In Iraq," the Times says, "nobody knows, and few in authority seemed concerned to count, just how many civilians have been killed and injured. Soon it will be three years since the American-led invasion. The estimates of those killed run into the tens of thousands, the numbers wounded two or three ... ...times the number who lost their lives. Even President Bush, estimating recently that 30,000 civilians may have been killed, acknowledged that was no more than an abstraction from unofficial calculation, not a Pentagon count." Of course, people on the left have been talking about --- and trying to put a human face on ---- Iraqi civilian casualties since even before the murderous and illegal occupation was launched. Maybe the Times' willingness to see and show some of that that Iraqi civilian face is better late than never.... But there's a curious and revealing problem with the Times' photo essay. It relates seven incidents in which Iraqis have been violently killed or injured since March 19, 2003 (day 1 of "Operation Iraqi Freedom"). And who did the killing in the small number of such incidents it chose to report? In 3 of the 7, the killers are technically unindentified. Regarding these 3 cases, readers learn only that the damage was done by "a bomb" that somehow exploded, though the suggestion is strong that anti-occupation forces ("terrorists") were the agents. In another 3 of the 7 incidents, the Times clearly identifies the occupation resisters ("terrorists") as the perpetrators of violence against Iraqi civilians. And in the last incident, located at the bottom right of the second page (A17), the Times shows a surviving husband who claims to have lost a wife and a daughter when his family's car was shot up by the American "liberators." According to the Times, Ahmed Moayda "said his family was fired upon by an American convoy as they were traveling by car from Baghdad to Jordan." The Times makes no such source qualification in regard to any of the other incidents related in Monday's photo essay. In the 3 attacks attributed to anti-occupation forces, the perpetrators' identity is simple stated as an uncontested matter of fact, without any "he said/she said" prelude. Interesting. Just for the record, Iraq Body Count (IBC)'s recently published "Dossier of Civilian Casualties in Iraq, 2003- 2005" (www.iraqbodycount.org.press/pr12.php) reports that 1 in every 1000 Iraqis was violently killed between March 20, 2003 (the day after the beginning of the U.S. invasion) and March 19, 2005. By projecting from readily available data on Iraqi marriage and childbirth rates, IBC infers that "tens of thousands of Iraqi women and children have lost a husband or father to violence since March 2003, a loss which will have long lasting psychological and economic consequences for the bereaved families." Iraqi families are also dealing with crippling injuries resulting from wartime violence. By IBC's tabulation, 42,500 Iraqis have been wounded during the occupation. By IBC's meticulous account, based on multiple verifiable media reports, anti-occupation forces have killed less than 10 percent of the total number of the nearly 25,000 dead for whom the killers can be identified. "Criminal elements," who have thrived in the lawless environment created by the destruction of Iraqi civil authority, killed 8,935 or 36 percent. The biggest killers have been the U.S.-led armed forces, which violently ended the lives of 9,270 Iraqis or 37.3 percent. In separate databases that include real-time accounts from reporters in Iraq, IBC presents a number of accounts of Iraqis killed by American "liberators." IBC's "Falluja Archive" contains (to give one among many examples) an April 2004 Associated Press (AP) story relating how more than 600 Iraqis, "mostly women, children, and the elderly," were butchered during Uncle Sam's massive "retaliatory" (after the resistance killed U.S.-funded Blackwell Security mercenaries) campaign in Falluja. "Iraqis in Falluja," the AP noted, "complained that civilians were coming under fire by U.S. snipers." One such civilian was mentioned in an especially chilling account quoted in the Falluja Archive. "One of the bodies brought to the clinic," wrote Nation correspondent Dahr Jamail in The Nation, "was that of a 55-year old man shot in the back by a [U.S.] sniper outside his home, while his wife and children huddled wailing inside. The family could not retrieve his body for fear of being shot themselves. His stiff corpse was carried into the clinic, flies swarming above it. One of his arms was half raised by rigor mortis." That would have been a good picture for the Times to have taken and included at the top, not the bottom of its photo essay. If accurate indication of the violence's agents had been a value in the construction of its story, at least two of the Times' photos should have portrayed victims of direct U.S. violence. At least two should have portrayed victims of criminal violence relatred to America's destruction of Iraqi civil authority. No more than one should have portrayed victims of those resisting the occupation. There's certainly more people in Iraqi authority than in American authority that are "concerned to count just how many many civilians have been killed and injured." And it was General Tommy Franks of US Central Command who said the following when asked how many Iraqis had died in the initial phases of the U.S. invasion: "We Don't Do Body Counts." How odd and revealing for the Times to say that "even Bush" can give only an abstract estimate of Iraq's casualty number and "not a Pentagon count."

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Re: "The Face of Sacrifice": Another Example of The New York Times' Service to Imperial Power

By Victor_wood, Vwood at Jan 13, 2006 12:08 PM
Frederick You and I are in violent agreement. My point was not intended to slam the average American Joe for not getting off his couch. My point was that Joe has been the victim of a deep and long-lasting psychological campaign that has left him with a false sense of America and with little will to open his mind to reality. Indeed, it has left him in a state that he actually defends and promotes this. And has left Americans confused as to why their country, THE guiding light of the world, THE center of democracy and THE defender of evil in the world should be so shunned and despised by so many in the world. The authors Ziauddin Sardar and Merryl Wyn Davies in their book American Dream/Globl Nightmare present 10 "Laws of American Mythology" that I believe are worth reading to get a grasp on what has happened since the foundation of the United States. I would encourage you to have a read if you haven't. The authors concentrate upon the affects of mass media and especially the movies in projecting this false image of America and Americans, but I would also add to their stack the influence of sports in America as well, the emphasis placed upon it by our society, and its ability to provide escape for the average American, an escape from reality very much akin to that provided by other forms of mass entertainment. The old Roman method of keeping the masses fed and entertained was no accident. And I am convinced that it is no accident in our day as well.

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Person

Re: "The Face of Sacrifice": Another Example of The New York Times' Service to Imperial Power

By Ess, Shyela at Jan 03, 2006 13:07 PM
Adam, first, The second photo in the group, FADHILAA HAMZA ABED, is stunning. Beautiful work. Then thank you for your personal clarification of your intentions. However, the text by John F. Burns, at least to me, contradicts your intention of focusing on a few individual lives. Here is the text I'm thinking of: Their portraits and their stories compel attention, not because they have endured worse than others, but because their miseries are so commonplace, because they stand for what thousands of Iraqi families have endured, directly or through ties of community and tribe. In his or her own way, each of these survivors is a totem for all, in a war where nobody has an exemption from the bombs and the bullets and the carelessness, or mischance, that determines who lives and who dies." Burns is saying the individuals are archetypes of the entire population of Iraq. (His choice of the word "totem", usually defined as an object, is disconcerting.)

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Person

Re: "The Face of Sacrifice": Another Example of The New York Times' Service to Imperial Power

By Nadel, Adam at Jan 03, 2006 03:43 AM
Adam Nadel - guy who took the pic for the Times story - just wanted to say in was interesting reading your comments. One point that must be realized when thinking about the images is the difficulties of working in Iraq. Because of this the attempt was not to portray the entire conflict but to make the readers better understand life of some individual peoples in Baghdad. I think this is a valid approach.

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Re: "The Face of Sacrifice": Another Example of The New York Times' Service to Imperial Power

By Victor_wood, Vwood at Jan 01, 2006 12:51 PM
Paul There are always a significant number of people in any population base who see things differently, who question government actions and demand answers before falling in line. But I find that on the whole, Americans, when faced with crisis situations (government contrived or not), tend to shoot first and ask questions later. Yes, a lot of people questioned the Iraq War, but think back - how many questioned the larger "War on Terrorism" soon after 9/11? How many really questioned the destruction of Afghanistan in the heat of revenge? How many questioned how the WTC was brought down in the first place - what it would really take to do something like that? How many rose up against US "victories" such as Panama and Grenada - wars taking a minimum of American lives and over quickly? Not many. Some - mostly on the left. But few others. Even with the first Gulf War, people only questioned it when the US pulled back and didn't go all the way into Baghdad. I really don't intend my remarks to be dark, but I have to say what I see. Perhaps I see it wrong. But I see a country where the government and the elite have cultivated a population that is nearly incapable of any thought deeper than wondering when the commercial is going to come on so they can grab a beer. I know. I was raised that way. Remember when religion was called the opiate of the masses? No more. Now it's TV, sports and entertainment. But that's another discussion.

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By Street, Paul at Jan 01, 2006 01:41 AM
VWood I find your comments too dark (coming from me that's saying something). What is "the American psyche?" We must always distinguish between the American rulers and the American people. And the phrase "American people" also deserves disaggregation. Some American people (including my family and its friends and many others) really did want the U.S. out of Vietnam because they knew the war to be an atrocity against the Vietnamese. Such concern was hardly irrelevant to the antiwar movement. I for one include concern for the victims of our empire in the symptoms of the "Vietnam syndrome" that our rulers so badly want Americans to work our of their systems. shyela is in my opinion right to criticize the Times's use of the word "sacrifice" to describe the murder of innocents. If I'd had a bit more time when I wrote the article on which this post is based I would have said a thing or two on that. The other terrible thing in the Times I didn't mention is that the biggest photo it gives comes with a commentary snidely suggesting (between the lines) that that the real cause of an Iraqi family's poverty is excessive pregnancies. The victim-blaming homeland ideology on domestic poverty pops up in the imperial coverage.

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Re: "The Face of Sacrifice": Another Example of The New York Times' Service to Imperial Power

By Victor_wood, Vwood at Dec 30, 2005 17:57 PM
Shyela said: "I wouldn't use the word "sacrifice" to describe the murder of civilians,the massacre of the innocents." Nor would I. Murder is murder. But I would describe the act of allowing one's son or daughter to go to war, even an illegal war, to be killed in action a sacrifice. And I would call those on the receiving end of this illegal aggression whose sons and daughters were killed as making a sacrifice, an unwilling sacrifice, but nevertheless a sacrifice. The question is, a sacrifice for what (or whose) cause?

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Re: "The Face of Sacrifice": Another Example of The New York Times' Service to Imperial Power

By Ess, Shyela at Dec 30, 2005 14:09 PM
I wouldn't use the word "sacrifice" to describe the murder of civilians,the massacre of the innocents.Coincidentally,I was looking at my book (Anthony Blunt) about Picasso's Guernica last night. This mass bombing of a civilian center in May 1937 was the the first example of what has become commonplace. The NYT's article doesn't question the slaughter, passively accepts this "strategy" almost like a natural disaster, and in it's conclusion, says these Iraqi people aren't concerned with the political questions,but can still have hope for a better future. The message, their hearts and minds being destroyed,we won. On Guernica: http://homepage.mac.com/dmhart/WarArt/StudyGuides/Picasso.html

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Re: "The Face of Sacrifice": Another Example of The New York Times' Service to Imperial Power

By Victor_wood, Vwood at Dec 30, 2005 12:06 PM
Actually, Vietnam is an excellent example of the American psyche at work. The American people demanded removal of their troops, not because they suddenly realised the illegality of their war, and not because of the barbarous genocide taking place there was revealed to them (which they already knew about), and only indirectly did they leave because of the numbers of troops killed there. No, the Americans quit only when they came to realise through the anti-war movement, that they could not win that war. History tells us that America will sacrifice as many young men and women as necessary to win, but that they will retreat when faced with the possibility of defeat. The Iraqi resistance is quite sensitive to this fact, and being well-armed, well-funded, and well-supplied with a continuing stream of fighters, will leverage this knowledge to the hilt. And it's having its affects. Already there are those in Congress who having once strongly approved this adventure, suddenly have cried out for withdrawal. And the people are at last beginning to question why we are there in the first place, being all too eager to at first believe this treacherous Administration about WMDs and the like. If the American public could see ultimate victory, they would allow the murder and rape of Iraq to continue until the bitter end. Bush knows this, and that's why he proclaims Victory is in sight - just hang in there. And that message appears to be working.

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Re: "The Face of Sacrifice": Another Example of The New York Times' Service to Imperial Power

By Street, Paul at Dec 30, 2005 02:15 AM
Yes VWood I am old enough to recall the nightly Vietnam body count on the national news. As I recall, it was usually about 35 "enemy" dead to 10 or so Americans or something like that. They wanted us to know that "we" were winning that terrible war by their miserable statistical measure. What I didn't know watching my nation's war media in operation as a grade-schooler was that they were often including civilian casualties in their "enemy" count, consistent with the Pentagon rule that "if they're dead they're VC." It's worth noting that this current war is widely unpopular in the U.S. when we are at just 2100 US dead and 30,000 (well, really more than 100,000 with a more comprehensive account than IBC's understandably [and usefully] cautious approach) Iraq dead. Yes, none of these deaths should have occurred. But mass American disgust at the Johnson administration's "crucifixion of Southeast Asia" (N. Chomsky's excellent phrase) didn't emerge until the U.S. body count was 40,000 and certainly more than a million Vietnamese had been murdered by their American "liberators."

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Re: "The Face of Sacrifice": Another Example of The New York Times' Service to Imperial Power

By Victor_wood, Vwood at Dec 29, 2005 11:51 AM
During the Vietnam War, we received daily reports splattered all over the news expounding on the day's "body count" and the total since the War began (at least as Americans perceived it began). Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense much of that time, was obsessed with statistics, so they became an integral and infamous part of the daily war reporting, even though many of the stats were wild estimates anyway, a means of satisfying "expected targets". The military never recovered from the blasting it took, first from anti-war groups, but then from the general public over these inhumanely and persistently presented numbers. Since then, the military has been instructed to keep the numbers to itself to avoid bad publicity. Now they are accused of hiding the numbers, or not caring about the numbers. What's overlooked by the media in both cases is that the "numbers" represent real people, people with families, children who deserved mothers and fathers torn from them and a future free from starvation and injury, older folks who deserved to live out their last days in peace, mothers who lost their sons and daughters and husbands and fathers to distant and disembodied American pilots engaged in carpet-bombing...the list goes on. The numbers always add up the same...dead and wasted lives to serve our (yes, friends, our) corporate interests, to maintain our standard of living and to feed the egos of those in power.

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