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AMIRA HASS
Journalistic Courage, Integrity, and Excellence
Words can become suns
words can become rivers
words can open gates
and built bridges
words can overthrows tyrants
if enough of us
arm ourselves with words
Speak speak
it is our duty
to those who spoke
while they still
had lips
Helga Henschen
Mid-East
Realities - MER - www.MiddleEast.Org - 3 July 2004:
The first annual Anna Lindh award has been given to Ha'aretz journalist/reporter Amira Hass. Ms. Lindh was Sweden’s
impressive Foreign Affairs Minister assassinated last year
who championned an open and civil society where human rights are truly respected and everyone is free
to express their opinions and be treated with respect, regardless of
their
ethnic origin, gender and religion. Ms. Hass is an extraordinarily
courageous Israeli journalist who has lived with and boldly reported about
the Palestinian people and Israel's increasingly severe repression and
dispossession of them. The above poem by Swedish poet Helga Henschen
was chosen to highlight the award.
|
Amira Hass acceptance speech in Stockholm
for first Anna Lindh award
Dear Mr. Bo Holmberg,
Dear members of the board,
Dear guests and friends.
The composition of the first sentence of any article or a feature
is for me the most difficult, sometimes even agonizing. It's doubly
difficult now for me to locate the most suitable first words in this
ceremony. After all, this ceremony should have never taken place, the
memorial fund never been established, as the life and career and plans
of Anna Lindh should have continued normally, should have not been cut
so cruelly and abruptly by a murderer.
How then can I express my words of thanks for the encouragement and
appreciation your award represents, while each of you wishes it never
had to be announced and given?
So it's almost needless to explain why I stand here with mixed feelings.
Moreover, there are three other reasons for the mixed feelings I
have, when I stand here, accepting with gratitude your generous award.
The irony has not escaped my attention: here I find myself
benefiting from a bloody conflict, from the reality of an on-going
ruthless Israeli occupation and an apartheid sort of domination that my
state, Israel, exercises over the Palestinians, a domination which robs
them of their chances of free human development, and endangers the
normal future of my people, the Israelis. I benefit from the fact that
I report about and from the midst of a shattered Palestinian society,
which became infamous and marginalized because of the suicide bombers
and the cult of death it has been producing, a society which has so
many varied, rich and wise voices but fails to make them heard and
allows for two kinds mainly to dominate: that of victimhood and that of
religious fanaticism. I benefit, then, from a miserable situation.
Another reason for my mixed feelings stems from a bitter awareness
that my reports and articles are noticed, widely read and truly
comprehended in the outside world much more than among the Israelis. A
colleague of mine, whose views are closer to the popular and official
Israeli version of the conflict, is candid and cynical. He told me just
recently that the more does the "outside" readership welcome me, the
more marginal and irrelevant I am considered at home. It's not that I
am concerned with popularity or lack thereof. I am troubled that my
words - and the words of quite a few other Israeli reporters, social
and political critics and activists are not reaching their natural
address.
A third reason is a related sense of frustration that I experience
especially in the last few weeks. Again, it's personal frustration and
a collective one, at the same time. A debate within the Israeli
community of military Intelligence has reached the media, especially
thanks to my Haaretz colleague, Akiva Eldar. It's the debate around the
truthfulness or falsehood of the Israeli explanations of the causes of
the present round of bloody conflict, since September 2000.
The official Israeli version, propagated by the political echelons
around the former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak of Labour, and
adopted by a great part of the Israeli Jews, ran as follows: Arafat
planned, initiated and orchestrated the armed conflict from the start;
Arafat did not accept the generous offers of Barak at Camp David, Camp
David talks reached a deadlock because of Palestinian insistence to
demand the Right of Return of all Palestinian refugees; Arafat is
anyway aiming at the gradual destruction of the state of Israel; from
the start of the present Intifada Palestinians resorted to using arms
against the Israeli soldiers; Palestinians who were killed were killed
in armed clashes between the two parties.
Each such statement, which was actually accepted, if not presented,
as a purely objective fact, has been contradicted and challenged by
articles and reports published by Israeli papers. I well remember an
article which the Israeli political scientist, Menahem Klein, published
in Haaretz. By the way he is a religious Jew who teaches at Bar Ilan
University, and he participated in negotiations over Jerusalem. It was
a few weeks after the outbreak of the Intifada. He offered the solidly
logical argument, that had Arafat really secretly plotted to eventually
destroy the State of Israel, he would have accepted Barak's offers at
Camp David, and proceeded from there, gradually, to his final goal.
Arafat, wrote Klein, could not accept Barak's offer as a final deal,
because he genuinely clung to the two states’ solution, along the
borders of June the 4th, 1967.
An exceptionally poignant writer is Bet Michael - another observant
Jew, who has a weekly column in Yediot Aharonot, which enjoys the
largest circulation in Israel. What he derives from Judaism and Jewish
thought is a deeply moral logic. Sometime during the first year of the
current bloodshed he commented about the military and the intelligence
boasting that their assessments about Arafat and Arafat's plan to
escalate the bloodshed had proven correct. If I am not mistaken, he
referred directly to the present Chief of Staff, Moshe Yaalon. He wrote
the unforgettable sentence: "He (Yaalon) did not foresee the future. He
created this future". Danny Rubinstein, also of Haaretz, who has been
reporting about Palestinians and the occupied territories since the
early seventies, added his impression, analysis and information about
the spontaneous character of the uprising, about Arafat's wish to
resume negotiations and lack of control over the street. Tireless Eldar
kept bringing information - from highly positioned Israeli and
diplomatic sources - that refuted the official presentation, or should
I say now - myths.
Palestinian activists were interviewed by several Israeli writers.
Marwan Barghouti, now in prison, was interviewed, among others, by
Gideon Levy of Haaretz and Yigal Sarna of Yediot Aharonot. He - and
others - reiterated their support of the two states’ solution, he
insisted the Intifada started spontaneously. He reminded the Israelis
that during the previous years Palestinians had warned over and over
again that by failing to progress with withdrawals, by the continuous
construction of settlements etc. Israel was pushing the Palestinians to
a new revolt. Ben Kaspit, of Maariv - maybe the Israeli Hebrew daily
most loyalist to the government - published a year after the outbreak
of the uprising a huge article, where he analysed the military conduct.
Among other issues, political and military, he studied the conduct of
the army from day one. He referred to the astronomical number of
bullets that the Israeli soldiers used from the start, in no proportion
to the quantity and quality of arms that the Palestinian had. In other
words - one could conclude that the escalation was triggered by an
excessive Israeli use of power.
This list is long. I was part of it. I reported from the field:
from the first demonstrations in Ramallah and Gaza, where hundreds or
thousands of people marched to Israeli military positions: some tens of
youngsters threw stones, many stood near by - chanting slogans,
chatting, discussing the corruption and ineffectiveness of the
Palestinian Authority. And from distant positions, the Israeli soldiers
were shooting live bullets, wounding and killing. The soldiers obeyed
their officers' orders, who in their turn acted upon the clear
political directive and assurance from above - at the time, of the
Labour rule.
From the third day, Palestinian and Israeli human rights health
organizations commented that the number of injuries in the upper parts
of the body was proof that the order was to kill. They also claimed
that the army was targeting children. I published their commentary in
one of my early reports. An interview I held with an Israeli
sharpshooter confirmed these claims. Amnesty International made a very
good and urgent study about the events: it commented that the clashes
started when Palestinian civilians marched in protest towards "symbolic
sites" of the Israeli occupation - military positions, mostly near the
Israeli colonies. I published a summary of their report, which
concluded that the army inflamed the atmosphere by using excessive use
of deadly power.
It would take days to cite the reports from the field - by me and
others - that refuted the Israeli official military presentation of
events. If you check the archives, you'll find them. True, all the
papers, including Haaretz, and more so the radio and TV channels,
didn't give many reports the prominence that the official versions
received. But whoever wanted to get a broad picture and more facts -
could have done so. Yet people comment today to the debate and its
content as if they were exposed now to totally new facts. My
frustration could sound vain: so early on did I offer facts that now,
three and two and almost four years after are taken as common
knowledge, proven by important officials and commentators. Well, I AM
vain, - I don't shy at saying that I published those facts very early.
But my frustration is about the wasted lives, the blood that might
have not been shed, the destruction that followed. If only people
concluded early enough that their army and politicians added tons of
fuel to the flames, that they treated a tiny match-fire as fire in a
forest.
So you understand my mixed feelings.
My frustration did not start in September 2000. Long before then I
used my advantage, living among Palestinians, and offered facts which
contradicted the common assumption that a peace process was going on
and that every one was and should be happy. I referred to Israel's
policies on the ground, which were in stark contrast with concepts of
peace: such as settlements, such as the developing policy of closure,
which is the Israeli version of the apartheid pass system. I had
interviews with Palestinians intellectuals who warned that the
situation was volatile, at the brink of an explosion. I made sure to
publish it. I could not guarantee that it would be read. Even less
could I guarantee for the logical conclusions to be drawn. For example,
that Israel was not working in order to make peace, but in order to win
the Peace: that is, to use the negotiations period as an opportunity to
expand the settlements and guarantee an enfeebled, nonviable
Palestinian State.
My experience and frustration allowed me to consolidate my concepts
about Journalism. Journalism's main task is to monitor Power, to locate
Domination and to follow its characteristics and effects on the people,
to observe the relations developing between Power and the Subjugated.
Even between these two ends there is always a dialogue, an exchange of
behaviours, opinions, emotions, habits, influences. Power is never a
one-track, one direction action. In schools, teachers and the education
system as a whole are the centre of Power, but aren't students playing
with them a game of shifting places? Still, men hold the positions of
Power in our societies, but aren't they required to permanently alter
their forms of domination because of women's conscious demand or
implicit aspiration for equality and permanent sense of
dissatisfaction? In class relations between the employed and the
employer the permanent conversation between the two unequal parties is
being expressed in a thousand forms: not just strikes or negotiations,
raise of salaries or cuts, but by flattery to the boss and sabotage,
laziness and telling of lies or jokes, bringing psychologists to spy or
offering benefits and weekend excursions.
Monitoring Power is a voluntarily adopted mission of journalism, I
believe, in a centuries-old development of the media and its social
contract with the society in which journalists operate.. It's not the
only role - but it is the most important one. I believe the mission of
journalism is to scrutinize the actions of Power: not to overlook the
relations of dialogue, and yet to question the motives of those in
power and their acts: because they'd do anything possible to retain
power and deepen it, because they hold the means to perpetuate the
false equation between the ruler's good and the public's good, or
portray their Power as God-sent and natural. By monitoring Power, the
media is contributing to the dialogue between the sides. They are not
equal, not symmetrical, and still they converse. The media reports
about this conversation, but it also participates in it, by the very
publication. It mediates information and by doing so it helps develop
the dialogue. And the media should do the impossible: scrutinize itself
as to what extent it silences or not the voice of the disadvantageous
party in the relations of dialogue.
Going back to the Israeli-Palestinian angle, Israel is the Holder
of Power. No doubt about that. Which does not imply that the
Palestinians have lacked or lack initiative, responsibility, share or
influence on the state of affairs.
Here, the Israeli media is in a tricky double position: It should
monitor Power, that is Israeli occupation. But as an Israeli
foundation, it's part of Power. It's part of and represents the
dominating society, which has an interest to prolong and eternalise its
privileges vis-à-vis the Palestinians: here are some of these
privileges: control over water sources, control over land, determining
demographic processes, containing the pace of development of the Other
in order to secure Jewish hegemony.
But the Israeli media is indeed free: nobody threatens us - our
lives, our jobs - if we follow the first commandment of journalism at
the expense of our objective position as part of Power. It's not that
facts were not presented to the Israeli public, early enough, by
various journalists. Haaretz especially and for many years was
carefully monitoring and scrutinizing Israeli power. But facts have
melted away, evaporated within the natural process of socialization. By
socialization I mean the imitation of each other, the adoption of
beliefs and concepts which infiltrate from the top and on down, but
then circle around as the independent fruit of autonomous and
individual contemplation and knowledge. By socialization I refer to the
thin line between the fabrication of a consensus and the consensus
created naturally between people of common ethnic origin, or religious.
We, Israeli journalists who cover the Power relations between
Israel and the Palestinians, are caught then in the interplay between
our freedom of expression and our natural identification with the
society, which keeps the centre of Power. It's not censorship, it's not
direct official intimidation that marginalizes our facts or silences
us, at times. It's the deafening noise that the process of
socialization creates.
By socialization I refer to the need to safeguard ones privileges -
be they as miserable as the privileges of Israelis who live in poor,
under-developed cities and neighbourhoods. The common ethnic and
religious origin and the natural pursuit of comfort explain why 66% of
Israeli Jews say they are not affected by reports on the suffering of
Palestinians whose houses were demolished. A similar rate of Israeli
Jews believe that the Separation fence is inflicting a negligible
damage to Palestinians. And they refer to this dreadful set of
fortifications which breaks Palestinian territory and society into
disconnected isolated enclaves; so many facts were published about it.
Facts about these scandalous, merciless figures and numbers were
published in Haaretz.
Ending is difficult too. I thought of several endings for this
presentation, and could not make up my mind about any. After all, it's
a thank you speech. And indeed, I am grateful for your generosity. It,
in its turn, allows to show my gratitude to some of my friends in Gaza
and Rafah. I owe them so much for my understanding of Palestinian
society and the Israeli occupation, the understanding that you defined
as "courageous journalism".
Amira Hass
- Stockholm 18.06.04
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July 2004
Target IRAN (July 31, 2004)
But regardless of outcome, just as soon as the U.S. election contest is decided, if not before, this huge historic issue looms large for the world. And it may well explain why the Israelis are moving toward a 'National Unity Government' again, something they traditionally do in times of war. Indeed, as these articles suggest, much is already happening to push public opinion, and no doubt behind-the-scenes where the political and military planners really operate there is much planning and anxiety underway.
Bush on Drugs for depression and paranoia? (July 30, 2004)
"President George W. Bush is taking powerful
anti-depressant drugs to control his erratic behavior, depression and paranoia."
Israel expands West Bank settlements and grab still more land (July 29, 2004)
Months after Ariel Sharon announced his dramatic plan to pull Jewish settlers out of Gaza, portraying it as a sacrifice for peace, the government is grabbing more land for West Bank settlements.
The last 10 exclusive MER articles and FlashBacks. (July 28, 2004)
These are the last 10 exclusive MER articles and FlashBacks as of 28 July 2004
Arafat's Pickle + Barak's Choking (July 28, 2004)
Professor Edward Said: "It really doesn't matter whether he declares a Palestinian state or not, because he'll have a state without real borders -- they're controlled by the Israelis -- no real
sovereignty, no real country -- it will be cut up into cantons and he won't have east Jerusalem. He won't be able to get rid of the settlers and won't have control over the water, air or sea. Aside from all that, he'll have a state of sorts... [It's] a sign of both exasperation and weakness.''
July 2000
Saudi Money and Influence in Washington (July 27, 2004)
In the 1980s and 1990s the Saudi Royals and their associated business cronies and oil companies were extra busy throwing around, and in most cases grossly overpaying or wasting, their money in the United States, especially in Washington. The main goal of course was to purchase both influence and protection. The secondary goal was to purchase good 'public relations' by having a cabal of those on the take they could count on for everything from some pro-Saudi spin, to a good Op Ed, to some behind-the-scenes fixes.
Please support MER now (July 23, 2004)
Roots of Israeli Apartheid (July 23, 2004)
The roots of what has become Israeli Apartheid and now the widely-condemned nearly 500 kilometer long "Wall" are in this approach to the Palestinians long known as "Revisionism Zionism" and long the underlying philosophy of those who today rule Israel and attempt to speak for American Jewry.
U.S. Presbyterian Church Acts To Divest from Israel (July 22, 2004)
Finally, one of the Christian denominations in the United States has acted in a principled and courageous way. Will this "most censorious decision ever embraced by any Christian denomination in the United States against Israel" just taken by the American Presbyterian Church now open the door for others to follow?
Israel's Weapons of Mass Destruction (July 20, 2004)
True to character in contemporary Washington, not one word about how it is Israel's possession of a vast arsenal of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, including submarines to deliver these weapons by missile throughout the greater Middle Eastern and south Asian regions, that has greatly fueled the race for such weapons in past decades.
Kerry Pledges More for CIA, Pentagon, Israel (July 19, 2004)
The Democratic Candidate for President and his top surrogates has not only called for more troops for Iraq Kerry has now called for doubling again the number of CIA agents and spies worldwide. And he's sent his Jewish brother Cam to Israel and American Jews pledging more support for Israel as well.
Allawi shot inmates in cold blood, say witnesses (July 17, 2004)
Iyad Allawi, the new Prime Minister of Iraq, pulled a pistol and executed as many as six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station, just days before Washington handed control of the country to his interim government, according to two people who allege they witnessed the killings.
Iraqi's Uniting in 'War of Liberation' Against American Occupiers (July 17, 2004)
...a combining of the Iraqi nationalist populations and religious groups in an escalating 'war of liberation' against the U.S. occupying forces of the Pentagon and CIA. This is now the greatest challenge not only to the American occupation but to the essentially puppet government installed with a fast secret hand-shake by Paul Bremer (who then ran even faster to the airport) and now run by disguised remote control by Ambassador Negroponte.
Senior Sunni Cleric Calls for Holy War Against U.S. Occupation Forces (July 16, 2004)
Of course they'll never say so in the open, but the Americans and the Israelis prefer an Iraqi civil war, or at least the further breakdown of the country into distinct Kurdish, Shiite, and Sunni areas, rather than a combining of the nationalist Shiite and Sunni groups in an escalating war against the U.S. occupying forces of the Pentagon and CIA.
NewsFlash! US-chosen-protected 'Interim Iraqi PM' personally executed six (July 16, 2004)
The explosive claims in tomorrow's Sydney Morning Herald and Age newspapers allege that the prisoners were handcuffed and blindfolded, lined up against a courtyard wall and shot by the Iraqi Prime Minister. Dr Allawi is alleged to have told those around him that he wanted to send a clear message to the police on how to deal with insurgents. Two people allege they witnessed the killings and there are also claims the Iraqi Interior Minister was present as well as four American security men in civilian dress.
Hitler Name Resurfaces In Washington (July 16, 2004)
"In a way that occurred before but is rare in the United States...somebody came to power as a result of the illegitimate acts of a legitimate institution that had the right to put somebody in power. That is what the Supreme Court did in Bush versus Gore. It put somebody in power.... That is what happened when Hindenburg put Hitler in."
Judge of Second Circuit Court of Appeals
Iraq Teeters (July 15, 2004)
"The war was fought to weaken Iraq permanently, and
if possible to break it up into separate 'statelets', so as to prevent it ever again challenging Israel or US oil and strategic interests in the Gulf."
'What's his accomplishment? That he's no longer an abnoxious drunk?' -Reagan on Bush (July 14, 2004)
At an unprecedented early stage in the political campaign George Bush has in effect been forced to become his own attack dog. That's because his Vice-President and his Secretary of Defense are already damaged goods...
Emergency U.N. Session Maybe Friday (July 13, 2004)
The issue is whether the Arabs and those who truly care about justice and international law are finally going to have the guts -- which they have never had in the past in view of threats from the U.S. and Israel what would be done if they dared -- to confront the U.S. in the Security Council and then to demand the General Assembly take the one major action that is within its power, suspension of the G.A. membership of Israel.
Osama Strikes Again (July 12, 2004)
And now...the truly 'unthinkable' for Americans. From his hideing place whereever that may be Osama Bin Laden has U.S. officials, and now the American people, actually contemplating and chatting about 'postponing' The American election...if...
We're now on an 'unthinkable' roll; and much more 'unthinkable' can now be expected in the months and years ahead.
New Version MiddleEast.Org now available (July 11, 2004)
Covering Up The Truth - The "Intelligence", WMDs, and 9/11 Coverups All Proceed. (July 11, 2004)
COVERING UP the TRUTH -- The "Intelligence", WMDs, and 9/11 Coverups All Proceed.... "And fourth the U.S. government knew then, and knows now, of the unprecedented level of Israeli-Jewish lobby penetration of key government positions in a way that seriously skews perceived U.S. national interests and security concerns to align with those of Israel."
Israel - Sanctions Now (July 10, 2004)
But the General Assembly does have a kind of super moral power. It was exercised against South Africa in the days of apartheid. It now should be exercised against Israel. Until there is a real and sovereign Palestinian State, and until Israel's apartheid policies are ended once and for all, the U.N. General Assembly should now act to remove the credentials of the Israeli delegation and suspend Israel from the General Assembly.
CDA - Central Disinformation Agency (July 9, 2004)
If there is regime change in the U.S., one can bet that much of the most incriminating actual evident, the crucial paper trails, are already being hidden and in the days right after the election will be taken, shredded, and 'disappeared' in one way or another. The top ranging neocons at the Pentagon and the White House, and the Vice-President and his top aides, have the most to fear and no doubt are working overtime to protect their asses.
Top US 'Peace Negotiator' Now Works Directly for Israelis (July 8, 2004)
Remember now, this is the very same 'Ambassador' Dennis Ross whom the 'even-handed' Americans insisted be the top 'peace process negotiator' for a decade or so between Israel and the Palestinians. Remember as well that the much flaunted and constantly lied about 'peace process' Ross directed erupted in recent years -- as MER had predicted all along by the way -- into the worst mayhem and bloodshed ever. It also has brought worse than apartheid conditions to the Palestinian people and a great escalation in hatred and what the Americans love to simply call 'terrorism' regardless of causes, distinctions, places, and realities.
Amb Dennis Ross, 'Peace Process Chief (July 8, 2004)
Remember now, this is the very same 'Ambassador' Dennis Ross whom the 'even-handed' Americans insisted be the top 'peace process negotiator' for a decade or so between Israel and the Palestinians. Remember as well that the much flaunted and constantly lied about 'peace process' Ross directed erupted in recent years -- as MER had predicted all along by the way -- into the worst mayhem and bloodshed ever. It also has brought worse than apartheid conditions to the Palestinian people and a great escalation in hatred and what the Americans love to simply call 'terrorism' regardless of causes, distinctions, places, and realities.
Top U.S. 'Peace Process Negotiator' Now Works for Israelis (July 7, 2004)
Remember now, this is the very same 'Ambassador' Dennis Ross whom the 'even-handed' Americans insisted be the top 'peace process' 'negotiator' for a decade or so between Israel and the Palestinians. Remember as well that the much flaunted and constantly lied about 'peace process' erupted in recent years (as MER had predicted all along by the way) into the worst mayhem and bloodshed ever as well as today's worse than apartheid conditions for the Palestinian people.
Pentagon Neocon Corruption and Israeli-Connections (July 7, 2004)
The American media, especially the Washington-based American media, isn't going to take on this one about the neocons and the Israeli-Jewish lobby. There will be no Washington Post exposee of this quite possibly worse than Watergate situation. The major foreign media with the resources and manpower now should.
Debacle Looms in both Afghanistan and Iraq (July 6, 2004)
Everywhere the Bush Administration is proclaiming success and courting disaster. Both the economic and political policies pursued by the U.S. in recent years are heavily mortagaging the future and will make American leadership and supremacy in world affairs far more difficult and costly in the not so distant future. The real price to be paid for all the excesses, all the lies, all the deceptions, all the unprecedented overpaying and overpromising, is not now...but some years ahead for the American Empire.
Saddam's Huge Statue - More Lies and Deceptions (July 5, 2004)
But now read how this made-for-TV drama was conceived, carried out, and orchestrated by U.S. Marines with, in all likelihood, the advance planning and assistance of the CIA which now has its largest operations station in the world not far from Firdos Square where the huge statue once stood.
"Independence Day" - In the US and Iraq (July 4, 2004)
It's Independence Day in the USA. But that's little consolidation to the Iraqis, to the Palestinians, or to the Chechnyans or Afghanis and so many other miserably oppressed peoples -- politically, economically, militarily, and culturally -- throughout today's troubled bleeding world.
Amira Hass Speech in Stockholm (July 3, 2004)
Amira Hass is an extraordinarily courageous Israeli journalist who has lived with and boldly reported about the Palestinian people and Israel's increasingly severe repression and dispossession of them. The above poem by Swedish poet Helga Henschen was chosen to highlight the award.
From Vietnam to Iraq and Abu Ghraib (July 2, 2004)
Few in Washington these days have time or interest or reason to connect these historical dots. Bbut they are in reality crucial to a full understanding of how things have gotten to where they are...and the direction things are still heading.
Bremer and his 'Israeli Flag' Gone from Iraq (July 1, 2004)
If these guys have been making policies and decisions about the future of Iraq and the Middle East in the same way they did about a new Iraqi flag....well then the chaos, incompetence, corruption, and miserable failures all need be underscored even more that we had previously realized. And that is saying a lot!
How Bremer Slinked Away on Monday (July 1, 2004)
But judge for yourself after a little more insight. For real journalism these days is often not what you find on the front-page... Read this inside the paper analysis story about what actually happened in Baghdad on Monday -- not about the tag lines and rhetorical hyperbole the Americans love to sucker the media with. And after doing so it's even harder than ever to imagine this is all going to have a happy ending.
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