Mike Ferner
Voices in The Wilderness

[Note: This article begins a series of reports titled “War of Terrorism.” While writing the essay, “Terror by Another Name,” I realized that we apply this most potent term in the American political vocabulary very unevenly. We define terrorism as tactics used against us, but deny that it applies to our own actions taken to purposely and unmistakably instill terror. Our denial is compounded daily when the U.S. government promotes and the media report news from a “War on Terrorism.” Our “War of Terrorism” deserves its due.]

ABU HISHMA, IRAQ - This is the farm village that Cliff Kindy, leader of the Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT), refers to as the “razor wire place.” It’s actually a small town, around half of which the U.S. Army has unrolled concertina razor wire, and completed the effect with a checkpoint and curfew. Six CPT members are returning for an update from the residents on the latest U.S. raids and detentions.

On the 30-mile trip from Baghdad, the city falls away as we drive into open countryside. Approaching Abu Hishma, we pass a small house about 150 feet from the road that is now a pile of rubble. Our interpreter, Sattar, said the house was destroyed because “it was too close to the road and coalition forces destroy it.”

Dr Kelly Was Not The Only Source For The Story

THE CHARGE AGAINST GILLIGAN… AND HIS EDITORS
Peter Preston, former editor of the Guardian, writes, ‘Of course the BBC got it wrong. Gilligan, those little demons driving him on, blathered an allegation too far.’ But, ‘this was one lone - and now unemployed - guy, out of nearly 4,000 BBC news division employees, talking off the cuff, letting a single sharp sliver of fact slide out of place on a bleary dawn when his editor was off duty, attending a wedding.’ (Observer, 1 Feb., p. 21)

At the other end of the political spectrum, in the Daily Telegraph, columnist Sarah Sands observed: ‘Of course Andrew Gilligan should have thought about what he was going to say, of course there should have been closer editorial checks but did this offence deserve the annihilation of the BBC?’ (30 Jan., p. 28)

The British Mass Media After The Hutton Report

DECAPITATING THE BBC?
After Lord Hutton’s criticisms of the performance of Andrew Gilligan, the Today programme, and the BBC, in the events leading up to the death of Dr David Kelly, the Director-General and the Chair of the BBC were both forced to resign, and the corporation has had to delay the publication of a key policy document defending the broadcaster’s 10-year royal charter, its licence fee funding formula, and public service remit. (FT, 4 Feb. 2004, p. 3) ‘One BBC journalist, looking around at his battered colleagues busy smearing themselves in ashes, said to me: “RIP the BBC”.’ (Alice Thomson, Telegraph, 30 Jan., p. 28)

The Daily Telegraph comments that there are those in Government who, now they have ‘humbled’ the corporation, want to ‘decapitate’ it - noting that Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell has said that Hutton should figure in the upcoming review of the BBC’s charter, revenues and remit. (30 Jan., p. 29)

Iraq Journal: With Washington on the verge of seeking to destroy an already devastated country, a group of activists - headed by Voices in the Wilderness and the Iraq Peace Team - are breaking ranks with the war chorus. Coordinated by Jeremy Scahill on the ground in Baghdad, Iraq Journal provides a forum for the distribution of independent information and views from Iraq.