What Eason Jordan Said

and what Eason Jordan was trying to say:

Yes, it is a war. And, yes, in war there is "collateral damage." But there has been a lot of (at the very least circumstantial) evidence that journalists are more at risk in this war than others. An inordinate number have been killed--many from Arab media outlets.

The right-wing media claim Jordan's scalp, and perhaps they're right about "taking him out." But this begs the question about Jordan's statements, whether they were taken out of context, or misinterpreted, or whatever. Was he, in fact, accusing American troops of assassinating journalists? Or passing on stories from other journalists who believe that they as a group are threatened by American forces?

On the face of it, nothing Jordan said sounded particularly shocking to me--what was shocking was that he momentarily lost control and said it. A lot of what is going on in our country is about control, and control of information is no small part of it. If it were American policy to control information coming out of Iraq by threat of violence, would anyone in this administration admit it? Of course not. The only answer is for someone--and, traditionally, this would have been the role of journalists--to investigate these charges. The US has not been investigating them.

Here are some facts:

• In March 2003, ITN correspondent Terry Lloyd was killed, ostensibly by "friendly fire" from US Marines. He was taken by a private, civilian van to a hospital in Basra. Eyewitnesses claim the van came under fire by a US helicopter. Two other colleagues, Hussein Othman and Fred Nerac, also wounded in the first "friendly fire" attack, are missing and presumed dead.
• The US Army's Alpha 4-64 Armor Company blasted Baghdad's Palestine Hotel in April 2003 killing two journalists, Reuters cameraman Taras Protsyuk and Jose Couso, cameraman for Spanish television channel Tele 5 . No charges were filed against any GIs.
• In April 2003, al-Jazeera cameraman Tarek Ayyoub was killed when two bombs dropped during a US air raid hit the satellite station's office in the Iraqi capital. No charges were filed.
• Also in April 2003, American forces also opened fire on the offices of Abu Dhabi television, whose identity is spelled out in large blue letters on the roof.
• US soldiers killed Reuters cameraman Mazen Dana in August 2003 in Baghdad. No charges were filed against any GIs.
• In March of 2004, two al Arabiya journalists, cameraman Ali Abdel-Aziz and reporter Ali Al-Khatib were killed by US gunfire near the Borj al-Hayat Hotel although there their vehicle was clearly marked "TV." No investigation.
• In April of 2004, a journalist and a driver for al Iraqiya (the coalition-funded TV station) were killed by gunfire as they were filming a US base.
• In September 2004, Mazen Al-Tomaizi, a Palestinian television journalist working for Saudi news channel Al-Ekhbariya and Arab satellite channel Al-Arabiya, was killed by a US missile in Baghdad.
• In November 2004 Dhia Najim, an Iraqi freelance cameraman, was killed by a sniper in Ramadi. Reuters claimed that US snipers had taken up positions in Ramadi at the time in anticipation of a clash with insurgents. There was no fighting going at the time of Najim's killing, however. There has been no US investigation.
  

In addition, allegations have been made that journalists have been subject to arrests without cause and other harrassment:

Eliminating journalists

"The images from last month's siege on Falluja came almost exclusively from reporters embedded with US troops. This is because Arab journalists who had covered April's siege from the civilian perspective had effectively been eliminated. Al-Jazeera had no cameras on the ground because it has been banned from reporting in Iraq indefinitely. Al-Arabiya did have an unembedded reporter, Abdel Kader Al-Saadi, in Falluja, but on November 11 US forces arrested him and held him for the length of the siege. Al-Saadi's detention has been condemned by Reporters Without Borders and the International Federation of Journalists. 'We cannot ignore the possibility that he is being intimidated for just trying to do his job,' the IFJ stated.

"It's not the first time journalists in Iraq have faced this kind of intimidation. When US forces invaded Baghdad in April 2003, US Central Command urged all unembedded journalists to leave the city. Some insisted on staying and at least three paid with their lives. On April 8, a US aircraft bombed al-Jazeera's Baghdad offices, killing reporter Tareq Ayyoub. Al-Jazeera has documentation proving it gave the coordinates of its location to US forces.

"On the same day, a US tank fired on the Palestine hotel, killing Jose Couso, of the Spanish network Telecinco, and Taras Protsiuk, of Reuters. Three US soldiers are facing a criminal lawsuit from Couso's family, which alleges that US forces were well aware that journalists were in the Palestine hotel and that they committed a war crime. "