Rosalea Barker: Dahr Jamail On Lebanon

Sometimes, living in the United States, I feel like tribespeople living in the highlands of Papua New Guinea have a better chance of getting coverage of world events than I do. Nonetheless, I do my best, even if it means I have to sit in a drafty old ex-church and watch a slideshow.

Click for big version
Dahr Jamail playing an audio clip of an interview he did with President Emil Lahoud of Lebanon at New College of California, San Francisco, May 11, 2007

Dahr Jamail’s dispatches from the Middle East became a very important source of news coverage from the time in late 2003 that this former park ranger and social worker went to Iraq to report on the war, something he did out of sheer weariness at the US media’s failures, he explains on his website at www.dahr.org

As one of the most well-known of the DIY journalists who started out by posting their work on the Web, Jamail now supplies a number of news outlets with reports. The cachet that brings him means he is able to get interviews with politicians, such as President Lahoud of Lebanon, who are often overlooked by the mainstream US media because they don’t express opinions favoured by the current US administration.

But first, a word about the sponsors of the event: New College of California and the National Radio Project. San Francisco-based New College has been in existence for 35 years, providing education for social change, including an MA in Media Studies. The National Radio Project is based in Oakland and produces a syndicated radio show, now carried on 200 stations, called “Making Contact”.

http://www.studyusa.com/factshts/newcoll.asp
http://www.radioproject.org/

In this audio clip, John Garfield and Lisa Rudman explain what the two organisations are about.

• Listen To Stream - Download MP3
  http://img.scoop.co.nz/media/audio/0705/Hosts.mp3

Dahr Jamail is working with the National Radio Project to produce a radio documentary that will be out in June or July, and he’s also working on a book called “Beyond the Green Zone”, which has a tentative release date of October.

Both sections of his presentation—one on Lebanon, one on the Iraqi immigrant population in Syria—began with statistics. The one set of statistics that most interested me was that during last year’s attack on Lebanon, more than 1 million cluster bombs were dropped by the Israelis, much of that total in the last 72 hours after a ceasefire had been announced but had yet to take effect.

Back in September of 2006, I wrote to Senator Dianne Feinstein to ask what she thought of a news report published online at the Israeli news website Haaretz.com, in which the opening paragraphs were:

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"What we did was insane and monstrous, we covered entire towns in cluster bombs," the head of an IDF rocket unit in Lebanon said regarding the use of cluster bombs and phosphorous shells during the war.

Quoting his battalion commander, the rocket unit head stated that the IDF fired around 1,800 cluster bombs, containing over 1.2 million cluster bomblets.

In addition, soldiers in IDF artillery units testified that the army used phosphorous shells during the war, widely forbidden by international law.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/761781.html

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

In reply, Sen. Feinstein wrote that “on September 5, 2006, I introduced an amendment to the Department of Defense Appropriations bill for fiscal year 2007 together with Senator Patrick Leahy, to prevent the use, sale, and transfer of cluster bombs unless there are assurances that they would not be used in civilian areas (attached is a recent statement that may be of interest to you). Unfortunately, the Senate did not pass this amendment. Please know that I will continue to work hard in the United States Senate on this important issue.”

Feinstein and Leahy—along with Senators Sanders and Mikulski--have introduced a short Senate Bill regarding cluster munitions, the text of which can be read at www.thomas.gov by searching for Senate Bill S.594.IS. It is currently referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations. The equivalent House bill, H.R.1755.IH, was introduced by Reps McGovern, McCollum, and Issa, and stands referred to the House’s Committee on Foreign Affairs. Read them and weep.

Here is Dahr Jamail’s report on being with a Belgian de-mining team in Southern Lebanon in April of 2007, in which he explains how slow the effort is and how the de-mining teams are over-flown by Israeli unmanned drones and sometimes even F16s, both in violation of international law:

• Listen To Stream - Download MP3
  http://img.scoop.co.nz/media/audio/0705/Demining.mp3

rosalea.barker @ gmail.com

--PEACE—

© Scoop Media