Take a good look
So as you may or may not have heard, the editor of Izvestia was pushed out of his post the other day over his paper's coverage of the Beslan hostage crisis.
A few interesting facts:
1. The cries of outrage are over 'graphic' coverage of the outcome of the crisis, including photos of the bodies of some of the many children killed.
2. Izvestia was one of a few papers which contradicted the (false) official line on the number of hostages present. The official reports were around 350. Izvestia, through parents and other interested parties, got a number more like 1,200, and reported it. In the aftermath, they were clearly vindicated in this decision.
3. There are rumours to the effect that the Kremlin was involved in pressuring those who pressed Shakirov (the editor) to quit.
I have about three things to say about this:
1. Yes, pictures of dead people, and especially of dead children are obviously rather upsetting.
2. But what's upsetting (to my mind) is not that someone took that picture. It's that someone killed those children.
3. There is compelling public interest in the coverage. And I'd argue the style of coverage Izvestia adopted is eminently defensible. It was, in fact, quite responsible journalism. I'd argue further that papers and broadcast outfits producing coverage that glosses over the gruesome reality of the siege are really the ones that should be made to answer for it here.
Let me expand, particularly, on that last point. Though it requires a bit of a digression.
Early in the US-lead invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Qatar-based satellite channel Al Jazeera was criticized by official US government sources (among others) for its broadcasting graphic photos of combat injuries and fatalities. One image showed the head of a child, aged about 12, that had been split apart, reportedly in the US-led assault on Basra.
There was outrage in many quarters, including some from the US population. Al-Jazeera's English language website underwent intense denial of service attacks. Someone out there seemed to think that if they didn't want to see those photos, no one should be able to.
But the context is interesting. Or, more to the point, the contrast.
Up until that point, from what I was seeing, much of the coverage of the combat had been far from graphic. If, for example, you were to turn on the major US cable news channels, you'd frequently be treated to footage from 'embedded' reporters traveling with US units. Grainy, night-vision images of moving troop columns. Grainy, telephoto shots of distant explosions, often courtesy of the military, with arcane telemetry numbers alongside. That's what the war looked like, if you stuck to CNN and their competitors.
Also interesting: in one odd event, early in the war, the US forces attempted a cruise missile strike on a residential building in Baghdad, hoping, according to their own statements, to catch a prominent Ba'ath party member--possibly a member of Hussein's family--in the strike.
This is where it gets odd. A number of sources in Baghdad reported that someone had been killed in the strike. The official military sources, commenting on this report, said only, rather obliquely, that you couldn't trust everything you hear from such sources.
Here, I think, are the questions you need to ask yourself at this point:
What, exactly, is a cruise missile for?
Why, exactly, did the military say they fired it?
The answers are, of course, (a) for killing people, and (b) to kill someone.
And yet the official source would like to say that just because they say someone died, there's no particular reason to believe this.
Now, of course, the official is technically correct. They probably couldn't be certain they killed anyone.
But the point is--and the larger point I'm trying to make here is--you really shouldn't be too terribly surprised that they might have.
Because that's exactly what they were trying to do.
I mean, they themselves said so. Granted, they probably said it rather euphemistically. I suppose it might have been a 'tactical strike', or somesuch phrase.
I'm going to make a statement here. A generalization, if you will:
What's obscene is not pictures of dead children and soldiers. What's obscene is saying you're supportive of a war, and then refusing to look at those pictures.
What's obscene is not pictures of dead children. It's killing children. What's obscene is killing them, or seeing them killed in a conflict you're involved in, and then insisting the graphic, horrifying reality of their deaths isn't 'newsworthy'.
What's obscene is not pictures of dead children and soldiers. It's showing a nice colourful graphic of troop movements, when you know those bodies are lying are there. It's showing bouncing steadicam footage of some slackjawed 'embedded' drone reporting on the quality of the US forces' MREs, when you know a twelve-year old child just got their head blown off.
My point here is: this is the reality of the situation. A reality which, really, ought to matter to you.
If you supported that war (and I'm not arguing merely by this that you shouldn't have, and I was rather divided on the question myself, though that's a longer essay, notwithstanding the reality that Dubya and many of his administration really ought to be right beside Hussein in the dock at the International Criminal Court, along with his dad and any of the Reagan staffers that variously helped Iraq out and/or merely looked the other way when they were using chemical weapons against the Iranians and the Kurds), listen, it's merely a matter of integrity that you face its reality. And that's a big part of its reality. Not flashing icons on grainy phosphor screens. Dead children. With their heads split open. Because that's one of the prices paid in getting Hussein and his band of brutal torturers out of there. Notwithstanding that the deposed regime itself was also the author of many such scenes of misery.
There are many, many parallels between these situations--that in Russia, and that in Iraq. And I find my own response to them has many parallels.
For one thing, I find I cannot entirely condemn the US attempt to oust Hussein. That's not what I'm saying here. It's arguable it was a reasonable thing to do. The motivation of Dubya and cabinet I can question. Their utter hypocrisy, I can establish. Their utter unfitness to govern, I'm convinced of. But that doesn't mean the action they took was entirely without merit.
In the Russian situation, as something of a parallel, I have much sympathy for those who were trying to resolve the situation. They didn't take anyone hostage. They would have liked, I'm sure, that no one died.
But merely to show someone did die isn't to condemn the handling of the siege. It's to be honest. Honest about something that matters.
The larger reality of the Chechen situation is also parallel, I'd say, to the Iraq situation, in one particular way: the government that is handling it would rather that its public not be apprised of these brutal realities. They'd clearly prefer--and their preference is made obvious by their actions--that their citizenry be kept at a safe, anaesthetized distance from the brutal, visceral reality of the conflict.
Again, in this situation, I say: this is dishonest. And cooperating with this intent is, in fact, irresponsible. Whether or not you feel the Russian government's response to the Chechen independence movement is appropriate, or that the independence movement's terror tactics have any justification (and, for the record, no I don't, and no I don't)--all of this is irrelevant in terms of this question: if you vote for any of these governments, or need to consider the question of your support for any of these actions, should you know the reality?
And I say, there is no question. You should know. You absolutely should know.
And sure, it's not pretty. But the bodies Izvestia showed, I'm afraid, are a rather big, rather significant part of that reality.
That's one of the pictures that tells the story. Yes, that and grieving parents, young siblings standing at their sides, and mothers and fathers, tears in their own eyes, telling daughters and brothers the person they grew up with, the young child with their life ahead of them, is now gone. They will never see them again.
That's the part the government doesn't want you to see. That's the part the government that claimed the number of hostages was many times smaller than it was doesn't want you to see. That's the part the US and British administrations would rather their citizens not think about. That's the part a lot of your fellow citizens insist they don't want to see.
And that's the part I regret I must insist you do see.
That's all.
(Further reading: Google on Reagan, Iraq, and chemical weapons, or Al Jazeera, photos, and Basra, or do a news search on Izvestia, Shakirov and Beslan--I'm not going to try to pick links from so many).
A few interesting facts:
1. The cries of outrage are over 'graphic' coverage of the outcome of the crisis, including photos of the bodies of some of the many children killed.
2. Izvestia was one of a few papers which contradicted the (false) official line on the number of hostages present. The official reports were around 350. Izvestia, through parents and other interested parties, got a number more like 1,200, and reported it. In the aftermath, they were clearly vindicated in this decision.
3. There are rumours to the effect that the Kremlin was involved in pressuring those who pressed Shakirov (the editor) to quit.
I have about three things to say about this:
1. Yes, pictures of dead people, and especially of dead children are obviously rather upsetting.
2. But what's upsetting (to my mind) is not that someone took that picture. It's that someone killed those children.
3. There is compelling public interest in the coverage. And I'd argue the style of coverage Izvestia adopted is eminently defensible. It was, in fact, quite responsible journalism. I'd argue further that papers and broadcast outfits producing coverage that glosses over the gruesome reality of the siege are really the ones that should be made to answer for it here.
Let me expand, particularly, on that last point. Though it requires a bit of a digression.
Early in the US-lead invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Qatar-based satellite channel Al Jazeera was criticized by official US government sources (among others) for its broadcasting graphic photos of combat injuries and fatalities. One image showed the head of a child, aged about 12, that had been split apart, reportedly in the US-led assault on Basra.
There was outrage in many quarters, including some from the US population. Al-Jazeera's English language website underwent intense denial of service attacks. Someone out there seemed to think that if they didn't want to see those photos, no one should be able to.
But the context is interesting. Or, more to the point, the contrast.
Up until that point, from what I was seeing, much of the coverage of the combat had been far from graphic. If, for example, you were to turn on the major US cable news channels, you'd frequently be treated to footage from 'embedded' reporters traveling with US units. Grainy, night-vision images of moving troop columns. Grainy, telephoto shots of distant explosions, often courtesy of the military, with arcane telemetry numbers alongside. That's what the war looked like, if you stuck to CNN and their competitors.
Also interesting: in one odd event, early in the war, the US forces attempted a cruise missile strike on a residential building in Baghdad, hoping, according to their own statements, to catch a prominent Ba'ath party member--possibly a member of Hussein's family--in the strike.
This is where it gets odd. A number of sources in Baghdad reported that someone had been killed in the strike. The official military sources, commenting on this report, said only, rather obliquely, that you couldn't trust everything you hear from such sources.
Here, I think, are the questions you need to ask yourself at this point:
What, exactly, is a cruise missile for?
Why, exactly, did the military say they fired it?
The answers are, of course, (a) for killing people, and (b) to kill someone.
And yet the official source would like to say that just because they say someone died, there's no particular reason to believe this.
Now, of course, the official is technically correct. They probably couldn't be certain they killed anyone.
But the point is--and the larger point I'm trying to make here is--you really shouldn't be too terribly surprised that they might have.
Because that's exactly what they were trying to do.
I mean, they themselves said so. Granted, they probably said it rather euphemistically. I suppose it might have been a 'tactical strike', or somesuch phrase.
I'm going to make a statement here. A generalization, if you will:
What's obscene is not pictures of dead children and soldiers. What's obscene is saying you're supportive of a war, and then refusing to look at those pictures.
What's obscene is not pictures of dead children. It's killing children. What's obscene is killing them, or seeing them killed in a conflict you're involved in, and then insisting the graphic, horrifying reality of their deaths isn't 'newsworthy'.
What's obscene is not pictures of dead children and soldiers. It's showing a nice colourful graphic of troop movements, when you know those bodies are lying are there. It's showing bouncing steadicam footage of some slackjawed 'embedded' drone reporting on the quality of the US forces' MREs, when you know a twelve-year old child just got their head blown off.
My point here is: this is the reality of the situation. A reality which, really, ought to matter to you.
If you supported that war (and I'm not arguing merely by this that you shouldn't have, and I was rather divided on the question myself, though that's a longer essay, notwithstanding the reality that Dubya and many of his administration really ought to be right beside Hussein in the dock at the International Criminal Court, along with his dad and any of the Reagan staffers that variously helped Iraq out and/or merely looked the other way when they were using chemical weapons against the Iranians and the Kurds), listen, it's merely a matter of integrity that you face its reality. And that's a big part of its reality. Not flashing icons on grainy phosphor screens. Dead children. With their heads split open. Because that's one of the prices paid in getting Hussein and his band of brutal torturers out of there. Notwithstanding that the deposed regime itself was also the author of many such scenes of misery.
There are many, many parallels between these situations--that in Russia, and that in Iraq. And I find my own response to them has many parallels.
For one thing, I find I cannot entirely condemn the US attempt to oust Hussein. That's not what I'm saying here. It's arguable it was a reasonable thing to do. The motivation of Dubya and cabinet I can question. Their utter hypocrisy, I can establish. Their utter unfitness to govern, I'm convinced of. But that doesn't mean the action they took was entirely without merit.
In the Russian situation, as something of a parallel, I have much sympathy for those who were trying to resolve the situation. They didn't take anyone hostage. They would have liked, I'm sure, that no one died.
But merely to show someone did die isn't to condemn the handling of the siege. It's to be honest. Honest about something that matters.
The larger reality of the Chechen situation is also parallel, I'd say, to the Iraq situation, in one particular way: the government that is handling it would rather that its public not be apprised of these brutal realities. They'd clearly prefer--and their preference is made obvious by their actions--that their citizenry be kept at a safe, anaesthetized distance from the brutal, visceral reality of the conflict.
Again, in this situation, I say: this is dishonest. And cooperating with this intent is, in fact, irresponsible. Whether or not you feel the Russian government's response to the Chechen independence movement is appropriate, or that the independence movement's terror tactics have any justification (and, for the record, no I don't, and no I don't)--all of this is irrelevant in terms of this question: if you vote for any of these governments, or need to consider the question of your support for any of these actions, should you know the reality?
And I say, there is no question. You should know. You absolutely should know.
And sure, it's not pretty. But the bodies Izvestia showed, I'm afraid, are a rather big, rather significant part of that reality.
That's one of the pictures that tells the story. Yes, that and grieving parents, young siblings standing at their sides, and mothers and fathers, tears in their own eyes, telling daughters and brothers the person they grew up with, the young child with their life ahead of them, is now gone. They will never see them again.
That's the part the government doesn't want you to see. That's the part the government that claimed the number of hostages was many times smaller than it was doesn't want you to see. That's the part the US and British administrations would rather their citizens not think about. That's the part a lot of your fellow citizens insist they don't want to see.
And that's the part I regret I must insist you do see.
That's all.
(Further reading: Google on Reagan, Iraq, and chemical weapons, or Al Jazeera, photos, and Basra, or do a news search on Izvestia, Shakirov and Beslan--I'm not going to try to pick links from so many).
posted by AJM at 1:47 p.m. (Permanent Link)
