Scoop Feedback 2: War Images The US Wants Censored

Wednesday, 2 April 2003, 11:41 am
Article: Scoop Feedback

The following feedback has been received from Scoop readers in response to our decision to publish graphic pictures from Al Jazeera, ArabNews.com and other sources showing the true horror of war.

Scoop Editorial - Scoop Continues To Publish Reality Of War Images.

Photos - War Images Feature Page (WARNING. GRAPHIC IMAGES MAY DISTURB).

Scoop welcomes reader feedback. Please send your news and views to mailto: mailto:editor@scoop.co.nz or via Scoops ‘mail the editors’ form…

photos of "calatteral" damage- human beings

Why are viewers so dumb as to believe that this war is as they see on TV, These pictures should be published in all media- sanitisation of this war is a disgrace- these photos are the reality-- not the hollywood image served up to the masses as "Breaking News"

Tiara

"Consider who you bomb" images

Good on you for showing these images on your website. Too much of our media is sanitised to the point that they fail to show viewers and readers just what the war means.

Simon

Great web site!

Congratulations to all the team at scoop - I thoroughly enjoy this site and recommend it to all my friends as an excellent source of straight news and comment on both international and national issues.

I'll try to get a paypal donation through as soon as my budget allows!

Good on ya,

Daniel

Your site

Selwyn....Just found your site through Robert Fisk's. Thoroughly agree with your editorial sentiments and I will be promoting your site to all I know in this part of the world.

David Hancock

censorship

I find the reporting of this disgusting invasion of Iraq quite a deal more sickening than the real immages of the effects. If the saying...'we get the gov't we deserve" is true, then we are a terribly stupid and vicious people who have buried the "enlightenment"

Neville

Reality of War

The real face of war with all its ugliness and horrors needs to be shown, especially to the generally ignorant American public. Show them the maiming and killing of their GI's. Rub their noses in the fact that their army is murdering and killing on a scale much larger than what the Iraquis are doing. And remember, the Iraquis have every right to defend their country with EVERY possible means against the invasion by the US and Britain. The sooner Americans have enough of seeing their soldiers killed, the sooner they might be convinced to end THEIR madness.

Peter Mathyssen

war

I cannot believe that our country has been overtaken by thugs with no regard for others

john keegan

Consider . . .

Do you have any pictures of the civilians that have been tortured and died at the hands of Saddam's? Those were intentional injuries and deaths. Or do you conveniently ignore them.

Neil Baker

iraq war

first u.s. casualty of war. "the prince of darkness" richarh perle.

john Cameron

war iraq

Illegal war,illegal president.

john Cameron

Thank you brothers and sisters...

Greetings Scoop brothers and sisters in peace, Thanks you for yours peoples much beloved support in this evil war of aggressions against my innocents country. I will send your honourable prime minister a batch of VX and Sarin for uses against the Austalian aggressor poodles to the northy. Tell her congratulations on getting away with the art fraudstering. My police let me get away with heaps of good shit too, peace and love in Victorys. His Exellency President for Life, Saddam Hussein Sr.

S. Hussein - contact: A bit tricky just now.

thanks for showing the reality of war

i m in canada its hardly to see/hear the reality of war since most of the media are synchronizly banned all extream negative effects of the war.

they just show the small effects and how mighty their(us) military power is.

rody piyasin

Images of casualties from Iraq

I have been genuinely shocked at the images to be found on your website. They are, as you warn us, horrific. The problem is, the people who truly need to see them will turn away and continue to treat this war as a video game. You are performing a service, awful though it is. You are letting people see the reality behind the rhetoric from Washington and Westminster. You must continue.

Ruari McCallion – UK

Civilian Carnage...

Scoop ,must congratulate you for releasing footage obtained from Al-Jazeera.This war is wrong and I have no dought the American administration would ,if they could shut all independant news sources down.Freedom of uncensored Press is essential! I want to see the pictures.GOOD WORK.

Alan Hughes

bombing in iraq- photo essay

Sir/Madam The photos are proof that WAR IS HORRIBLE and can NEVER be justified. This carnage must stop. Rupa Shah.

rupa shah

war photos

The photos of the victims were horrific and you were right to show them. the war against Iraq is a war crime and people everywhere are moved by the Iraqi resistance. Keep shwoing the world what the US is doing.

Peter Horne Edinburgh

What the ??????????

Why don't you show some damn pictures of Saddam's terror. We are there to stop the terror. Assholes like you make money by telling half the story. Let's talk about the root cause in just one god damn article.....

john klink

FREEDOM FOR IRAQ

DEar Editor, We the people of the USA are not the cold hearted people you are making us out to be,we are not trying to kill all of the Iraqi people, we are trying to free them from a ruler who has for years killed more Iraq people than we ever could.Saddam has raped and tortured many innocent people and killed many more than we probably could even count.We are trying to free the people of Iraq so that they may have a better life,one of less hunger and less fear.If Saddam would have just left Iraq then none of this would have happened at all,but he refuses to give up all his power and riches and his ability to control people,not to mention his WMD,which in my opinion no country needs these awful weapons.So on we go through this terrible war, losing many innocent lives on both sides,and we pray just like everyone else that this horror will end soon and the Iraqi people will someday h

renee

The horror

Horror...... fuck and dead America

Antonio

Bias views

why don't you show the american POWs that were executed needlessly? or Iraqi soldiers shooting people trying to flee baghdadd? or the rape rooms, and torture chambers, how quickly you forget history. just a brief view of looking at Iraqi soldiers marching looks EXACTLY like Hiltler, and the actions during this war, paralell same history, hell saddam even looks like Hitler! and democratic? his SONS run the govt? WAKE UP! then torturing a sports team for losing?

prefer not to say

Keep Up!

I am certain you would also be cut off the web, so kindly show the negative aspect of war as soon as possible.

Regards,

Ali Akbar Abbasi

Basra photos

The photos you showed were very disturbing. Shocking. Well done. People need to know the true nature of war. Bush should be made to eat his dinner while looking at these photos.

Tony

Dirty Pool in Iraq?

Sir, I continue to be amazed that news commentators seem surprised at the tactics used by the Iraqis. If the media had paid the slightest attention to what has been happening in Israel during the last two years, it would have been obvious what the US/UK would face. Bush should have had his troops training with the IDF. Iraqi soldiers disguised as civilians or Coalition troops? PLO have continuously used Israeli uniforms, dressed as Chassidic Jews, etc. to disguise themselves for attacks. Iraqis using women and children as human shields? PLO use armed militia behind stone throwing children for attacks on IDF soldiers. Using ambulances for non medical terrorist activities? Palestinian ambulances have been used to transport munitions etc. and to transport PLO terrorists and homicide bombers into Israel. Executing POW's? Remember the slaughter of the Israeli soldiers in Ramallah in the autumn of 2000? These young men were publicly & brutally hung. Remember the slaughter of journalist Daniel Pearl which was videoed? (Italian news group) Locating tanks and large munitions in populated areas? Think Jenin, Nablus, and other Palestinian cities. Murder their own if moderate not extreme? Refugees? Exaggerating the number of their civilians killed? (By their enemy) Remember Jenin where the PLO claimed 3,000 civilians were killed? When investigated by international groups, it turned out that 5 people were killed including suicide bombers and armed combatants. Yes I can easily believe they would rocket their own market place.

Yours faithfully

Peter Parr

Obviously you people have forgotten...

USA from London newspaper: from the Daily Mirror (newspaper in London) No matter what your views on President Bush's statement of upcoming war, this, from an English journalist, is very interesting. For those of you not familiar with the UK's Daily Mirror, this is a notoriously left-wing daily that is normally not supportive of the Colonials across the Atlantic.

Tony Parsons Daily Mirror September 11, 2002

ONE year ago, the world witnessed a unique kind of broadcasting -- the mass murder of thousands, live on television. As a lesson in the pitiless cruelty of the human race, September 11 was up there, with Pol Pot's mountain of skulls in Cambodia, or the skeletal bodies stacked like garbage in the Nazi concentration camps. An unspeakable act so cruel, so calculated and so utterly merciless that surely the world could agree on one thing - nobody deserves this fate. Surely there could be consensus: the victims were truly innocent, the perpetrators truly evil.

But to the world's eternal shame, 9/11 is increasingly seen as America's comeuppance. Incredibly, anti-Americanism has increased over the last year. There has always been a simmering resentment to the USA in this country - too loud, too rich, too full of themselves and so much happier than Europeans - but it has become an epidemic. And it seems incredible to me. More than that, it turns my stomach.

America is this country's greatest friend and our staunchest ally. We are bonded to the US by culture, language and blood. A little over half a century ago, around half a million Americans died for our freedoms, as well as their own. Have we forgotten so soon? And exactly a year ago, thousands of ordinary men, women and children - not just Americans, but from dozens of countries - were butchered by a small group of religious fanatics. Are we so quick to betray them?

What touched the heart about those who died in the twin towers and on the planes was that we recognized them. Young fathers and mothers, somebody's son and somebody's daughter, husbands and wives, andchildren, some unborn. And these people brought it on themselves? And their nation is to blame for their meticulously planned slaughter?

These days you don't have to be some dust-encrusted nut job in Kabul or Karachi or Finsbury Park to see America as the Great Satan. The anti-American alliance is made up of self-loathing liberals who blame the Americans for every ill in the Third World, and conservatives suffering from power-envy, bitter that the world's only superpower can do what it likes without having to ask permission.

The truth is that America has behaved with enormous restraint since September 11.

Remember, remember.

Remember the gut-wrenching tapes of weeping men phoning their wives to say, "I love you," before they were burned alive. Remember those people leaping to their deaths from the top of burning skyscrapers. Remember the hundreds of firemen buried alive. Remember the smiling face of that beautiful little girl who was on one of the planes with her mum. Remember, remember - and realize that America has never retaliated for 9/11 in anything like the way it could have.

So a few al-Qaeda tourists got locked without a trial in Camp X-ray? Pass the Kleenex...

So some Afghan wedding receptions were shot up after they merrily fired their semi-automatics in a sky full of American planes? A shame, but maybe next time they should stick to confetti.

AMERICA could have turned a large chunk of the world into a parking lot.

That it didn't is a sign of strength. American voices are already being raised against attacking Iraq - that's what a democracy is for. How many in the Islamic world will have a minute's silence for the slaughtered innocents of 9/11? How many Islamic leaders will have the guts to say that the mass murder of 9/11 was an abomination?

When the news of 9/11 broke on the West Bank, those freedom-loving Palestinians were dancing in the street. America watched all of that - and didn't push the button. We should thank the stars that America is the most powerful nation in the world. I still find it incredible that 9/11 did not provoke all-out war. Not a "war on terrorism." A real war.

The fundamentalist dudes are talking about "opening the gates of hell," if America attacks Iraq. Well, America could have opened the gates of hell like you wouldn't believe.

The US is the most militarily powerful nation that ever strode the face of the earth. The campaign in Afghanistan may have been less than perfect and the planned war on Iraq may be misconceived.

But don't blame America for not bringing peace and light to these wretched countries. How many democracies are there in the Middle East, or in the

Muslim world? You can count them on the fingers of one hand -assuming you haven't had any chopped off for minor shoplifting.

I love America, yet America is hated. I guess that makes me Bush's poodle. But I would rather be a dog in New York City than a Prince in Riyadh. Above all, America is hated because it is what every country wants to be - rich, free, strong, open, optimistic. Not ground down by the past, or religion, or some caste system. America is the best friend this country ever had and we should start remembering that.

Or do you really think the USA is the root of all evil? Tell it to the loved ones of the men and women who leaped to their death from the burning towers. Tell it to the nursing mothers whose husbands died on one of the hijacked planes, or were ripped apart in a collapsing skyscraper. And tell it to the hundreds of young widows whose husbands worked for the New York Fire Department.

To our shame, George Bush gets a worse press than Saddam Hussein. Once we were told that Saddam gassed the Kurds, tortured his own people and set up rape-camps in Kuwait. Now we are told he likes Quality Street.

Save me the orange center, oh mighty one!

Remember, remember, September 11.

One of the greatest atrocities in human history was committed against America.

No, do more than remember. Never forget.

C Scali

Well done!

Good evening

Congratulations on your site. Found it by chance whilst reading the Medialens message board and 'arrestthatman" was quoting the article written by David Miller "The Development of War Propaganda" and a link led me to you!! Nice to know the kiwis are on to it - of course, Wellington, what more could one expect.

Kind regards and best wishes for continued scoops!

The Bird

NO ONE LIKES WAR !

I hoped it we would not come to this, but it did. So now I hope our troops will come home soon. But looking at what those Iraq's did to our P.O.W's, I'm thinking who ever could believe what they did was right, should be locked up in a mental ward for life. Why do most of the men have there pants down with blood soaked underware, when there wounds of death seem to appear to there foreheads. Also noticed that the blood seemed to be dripping like they were hung upside down. So now it makes me feel that this war is in do justice to save the Iraq people from sick people like Saddam and his little puppet Al-Sahaf. To have that man as your country information minister {Al-Sahaf} has to be terrifing. All, and lets not forget they president won't even pick up a paper to show he is alive. {I would be heading to Jordan too.} Also if Al-Jazeera is not run by Saddam, and they claim to show the

Char

War photos

Why don't you show pictures of coalition POWs with bullet holes in their heads? Pictures of dead children are certain to stir the anti-war folks, but why is there more sympathy for the children killed in Iraq today than for the many more who have died during more than two decades under Hussein's rule? Is this collection of photographs you're idea of balanced coverage?

Rick

Iraq

Is'nt it possible that the Iraqi Army is killing it's own people and blaming it on the Americans so they can get sympathy from the Arab World and people like you. I don't think this war should have been started, as a matter of fact my favorite saying just before it did begin was "If rice was as valuable as oil, then Korea would be in a heap of trouble", but now that it has begun I would like to see our servicemen return safley. What's your opinion on Iraqi soldiers dressing as civilians and prtending to surrender then killing our troops ?????

Jim Berry

Editorial re publising photos from the war

You are right. Keep it up, and thank you.

Deborah Russell

Thanks for the hope

Thank you for showing the reality of war. Your website gives the real view of the sanitized terms that are "Collateral Damage" and "Surgical strikes" used by noth ameriacan medias to keep the nations behind the Crazy Goerge "War" bush and his weaponry industrial friends. The first causualie of war is the truth. As a french canadian who is flooded with the propaganda of the Pentagone (FOX and CNN), your website is a glimmer of hope. The hope that one day, ALL US citizens will realised that their is a planet around America who lives billions of people breathing the same air, drinkink same water with their own hopes and dreams. And for those who trie to justifie this illegal war in the name "Freedom of the Irak nation" , Im only telling you this two sentences: No, freedom is not American's lifestyle and Freedom of somes stops where freedom of others begin. Yvon Faubert, Quebec, Canada.

iraq

I would just like to say that, keep up the good work. your news is not biased and censored as the cnn and bbc's are so thank you and good luck

Cameron

Your Stance

Thank you for your stance on the al jazeera thing, its my belief that the more we know about the reality of war, the less likely we are to engage in it

thanks again Stephen

Keep fighting the propaganda

Thank you for bringing it back to reality for me. The pictures are horrific; so is war and we (everyone) must never be afraid to face it.

Don't let anyone tell you can't tell/show what is really happening

Mike Boyle

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