Chris Slee, Melbourne
Speaking to at least 500 people at a public meeting at Melbourne University on March 11, British freelance journalist Yvonne Ridley detailed the lies and manipulation of the media by the US and British governments during the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Ridley — who has worked for the News of the World, the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Times, the Observer and the Independent — was working for the Daily Express when the US-led invasion of Afghanistan took place in late 2001.
She told the meeting, which was organised by the Islamic Information Centre of Australia, that scenes of Afghans celebrating the "liberation" of Kabul had been staged by desperately poor Afghans in return for money offered by Western journalists.
Fake documents were also sold to journalists. In one case, supposed documents on alleged al Qaeda weapons of mass destruction turned out to be pages torn from a physics textbook!
Today, she said, the mainstream media largely ignores the ongoing war in Afghanistan and the atrocities being committed there by US Special Forces.
During the invasion of Iraq, the US Army combined the use of "embedded" journalists with threats against, and actual attacks on, independent journalists. The Qatar-based Arabic-language satellite television station Aljazeera, whose Kabul office had been bombed by the US during the war on Afghanistan, had its Baghdad offices bombed by the US during the Iraq invasion. Ridley does not believe either of the bombings were accidental.
She said that, while Aljazeera has played a "heroic" role in recent years, it is now succumbing to US influence and pressure. In November 2003 she was sacked from her position as Aljazeera's British editor with no explanation.
When she sought a reason, she was eventually told that it was a question of "national security", though it was unclear which nation's security she was supposedly threatening.
Ridley noted that the government of Aljazeera's home-base, Qatar, has growing links with the US, including a large US military presence.
She argued that many people are not fooled by the mainstream media, citing the 15 million people around the world who marched on the February 14-15 weekend last year against the invasion of Iraq.
She urged people to challenge media distortions through letters to the editor and phoning talk-back radio, while also seeking out alternative media.
From Green Left Weekly, March 17, 2004.
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