Free At Last
April 16, 2008 by dave
On Nov. 20th of last year I wrote about a photographer in Iraq jailed by US authorities.
http://wavemancali.wordpress.com/2007/11/20/serious-question/
He was freed today.
2 years. All charges dismissed.
Will he see 2 years of pay? Will he ever be compensated for his 2 years of imprisonment? Somehow I doubt it.
He was working to try and bring you a picture of what life is like in a war zone like Iraq. How are you going to help make sure that something like this doesn’t happen again?
Let me preface this by saying I don’t support the war in Iraq. I obviously don’t feel I have enough information/facts to really make judgment on this. I can totally see your point. But doesn’t the US military have an obligation to protect first? That being said, 2 years is a long damn time to make a case.
@Crazedreamer
The guy is an Iraqi citizen. He is a Pulitzer Prize winning photographer well established with the AP, he’s been doing what he does for many years.
They picked him up because he was getting tips on where to be at the right time to get good pictures. They called his satellite phone “bomb making equipment” and tied it to enemy propaganda that they found in his house when he let them use it as an observation post.
Yes the guy actually tried to help the US military by letting them use his house and was rewarded with 2 years in jail.
I want to make it clear that if I was a reporter doing a story on insurgents, I most certainly would have their propaganda for the story.
I understand the military wanting to find his sources, but that’s what investigative work is for. It’s not against the law to receive tips, even in Iraq.
We are not at war with Iraq. We are supposedly at war with “terror”. Quite frankly I find it terrifying that journalists are getting put away for 2 years for taking pictures.
If you want to find this guy’s sources, hell at least illegally tap his phone instead of putting the guy in jail for 2 years to intimidate him.
When the US military has no justification for being in Iraq, I have a hard time with anything they do to protect anyone.
Every reason for the military being there has been a blatant lie. There were no weapons of mass destruction. Al Queda had limited to no presence in Iraq before the US arrived and still even now only make up 8-10% of any engagements that the US has with other troops. Now they are fighting home grown militias of Iraqi citizens and Iranian instigators that want them out of there.
During the Vietnam war the nightly news had pictures and footage every night of US and Vietnamese people dieing and suffering. You saw the coffins of the returning soldiers draped with US flags and the crying parents and families.
Not anymore. The US government has restricted access to journalists so they can no longer get the pictures of the returning fallen. They regularly intimidate foreign journalists with threats of charges, and imprisonment and outright death.
Big companies sympathetic to the US government are receiving tax subsidies and subject to FCC regulation are running the television media. They choose to run Paris Hilton stories instead of showing the horrors of this war that is going on every day.
It’s criminal. I can’t vote. You can. Vote for someone who will get us out of there.
You know what, you are absolutely right. Thanks for all the information. I agree, we have NO business being there and I put full blame on the President and the mess the economy is in right now. Bush is the only one making a shit load of money right now.
We DO have the right to see those pictures and the government has restricted our access. It’s a bunch of crap.
“[television media] They choose to run Paris Hilton stories instead of showing the horrors of this war that is going on every day.”
There is such a thing as freedom of the press, and that means that some of us might not like what the press chooses to say.
I’d be interested in finding out what actual subsidies they receive.
@dmarks
I do agree with you. The press of the nation is free and I do not like what they have to say.
News has turned into infotainment. I’ve written on the topic repeatedly. I have turned away from traditional media sources not out of being a geek but out of necessity.
The television media just doesn’t cover world events anymore in any great amount. BBC news does a decent job and I watch that when I can.
While I was channel surfing this morning I watched a news anchor froth at the mouth practically screaming at one of his guests about a story where an 8th grade science teacher would not take a bible off of his desk in a schoolroom.
I thought the vein on his temple was going to explode.
I think I’d rather see a story on the war than another story on how Christian values are under siege.
There was actually a news anchor screaming about a bible on a desk? You know, I’m getting tired of hearing that they can’t do this or they can’t do that because it’s against their religion. That has to be one of the most hypocritical sentences in the world today. This is what we get when we are forced to be politically correct. To me black is black and white is white, you’re gay, you’re lesbian, your green with yellow polka dots. If you do something someone doesn’t like GOD will smite you (or they will because you insulted them in some way). I’m just plain sick of it. That’s why I’m glad I don’t have a tv anymore. What was that new show? Little Muslim House on the Prairie?
FRUSTRATION. I don’t know…. are we in the latter years of the fall of Rome?