Iraq

Articles

20 June by  (June 2008)

’I think they’re in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.’

A different picture by Claire Davenport (June 2008)

An American soldier walks into a mosque, aims at an injured civilian and shoots, killing the man instantly. This is television news report number one. In the second report a military unit enters a mosque and patches up the wounded. Then a second unit arrives and speaks to the civilians. One man isn’t responding and fearing the man’s booby-trapped body will explode if he touches it, the soldier shoots the man in self defence.

You don’t have to be an expert in media studies to recognise the handiwork of networks with irreconcilable editorial positions in the presentation of this news item. The first was broadcast by Al-Jazeera Arabic, the second by the American Fox News Channel. How do we know which one is ‘true’? And how should journalists go about their job of reporting in a situation such as Iraq? Claire Davenport spoke to western and Iraqi journalists to gauge some of their views on how the media is reporting the Iraq war and occupation

Iraq’s homophobic terror by Peter Tatchell (December 2007)

Peter Tatchell reports on the plight of gay and lesbian Iraqis targeted for execution by Islamist death squads

Occupation without troops by Becca Fisher (November 2007)

The US and UK governments, the IMF and oil corporations are behind Iraq’s proposed Hydrocarbon Law, which would effectively privatise Iraqi oil. Becca Fisher investigates

Not only about the war by David Moburg (December 2006)

As the Democrats give contradictory signals on Iraq, the US anti-war movement prepares to exert pressure for withdrawal and compensation for war damage. But it’s not only on the military front that Bush is weakened. David Moburg reports

A warrior against the war by Leigh Phillips (December 2006)

Geoffrey Millard, 25, a former US Army sergeant, is president of the Washington DC chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War. He spoke to Leigh Phillips about how he became an activist in the anti-war movement

The road from Iraq and ruin by Oscar Reyes (December 2006)

With the Democrats’ victory in the US elections offering the chance of a change of direction on Iraq, Kamil Mahdi argues that the growing sectarian violence is a product of the occupation – and that only by fixing a firm date for the withdrawal of foreign troops will it be possible for a more peaceful political process to emerge. Interview by Oscar Reyes

Moqtada Al Sadr’s not-so-barmy-army by Katherine Haywood (July 2006)

The Sadr movement in Iraq is typically portrayed as a hard-line sect. But Sheikh Hassan al-Zarghani tells Katherine Haywood that its main goals are a united Iraq free from occupation.

Bridges to peace by Fabio Alberti (July 2006)

Fabio Alberti from the Italian `Bridges to Baghdad’ argues that the peace movement will have to keep Prodi to his commitment to withdraw from Iraq and calls for the government to initiate an international peace conference.

Investors’ rights trump social justice in Iraq by Herbert Docena (October 2005)

The drafting of Iraq’s constitution has been portrayed as a conflict between Sunnis and Shiites and Kurds. Herbert Docena explains how the US got its way in another conflict - that over Iraq’s oil and economy

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