The Columbus Institute of Contemporary Journalism (CICJ) has operated Freepress.org since 2000 and ColumbusFreepress.com was started initially as a separate project to highlight the print newspaper and local content.
ColumbusFreepress.com has been operating as a project of the CICJ for many years and so the sites are now being merged so all content on ColumbusFreepress.com now lives on Freepress.org
The Columbus Freepress is a non-profit funded by donations we need your support to help keep local journalism that isn't afraid to speak truth to power alive.
I want to congratulate Harvey Wasserman for a brilliant article on the
military defeat in Iraq. I have been reading nothing but concessions to the
White House lie that America had a military victory in Iraq. Even writers
who are against the invasion are saying, "we may have won militarily
but,..." I think Mr. Wasserman's article should be handed out door to door
in America.
I am in Amman, Jordan, a volunteer at the human shield office. We have over
500 human shields from over 50 countries who have served in Baghdad. The
stories they are bringing out of Iraq are dramatically different than the
ones we see in the mainstream media. They are all, to a person, disgusted
with the slaughter of Iraqis they witnessed. Call it a turkey shoot,
shooting fish in a barrel... it is transparently a huge fat bully slapping
the little skinny kid senseless and smashing his glasses, then bragging
about his superiority. Shameful and pathetic.
Americans should be mourning the loss of life in Iraq, which is 46%
children. Even if they think they had to massacre people to pass along their
plutocratic system, they shouldn't be celebrating when thousands of families
are stewing in grief at their hands. We, on the outside, are witnessing a
terrifying lack of conscience and compassion in the country that threatens
us all.
Our human shields have talked to soldiers who've complained about their
buddies using civilians for target practice. Volunteered in a hospital where
a pregnant mother who was bombed, delivered the baby by cesarean but sobs
inconsolably because both her arms were blown off and she can't hold her
baby. Worked with doctors who sobbed at the pain of the horrific injuries
their patients suffered through days of service with no rest. Shields who
had to admit they were American to fathers and mothers and children whose
whole families were dead. (and they got treated well because of the depth of
Iraqi humanity and hospitality). Saw a father going through a truck load of
dead children looking for his son and finding him. Stopped beside the road
and helped sobbing relatives get through an American military blockade to
the bodies of their dead family that had been rotting for 4 days on the
ground in full view of the soldiers. Saw about 30 Iraqis getting out of an
American military vehicle for the photo shoot of pulling down Saddam's
statue. There were less than 200 present, many of them journalists out of a
population of 5-6 million in Baghdad--not worth mentioning, but beamed
around the world as a triumph. Saw other Iraqis who were not shown in the
photo shoot crying at the spectacle. These are just a few snapshots of what
our shields saw and what they terribly resent. You are right-- any molecule
of American triumphalism the rest of the world has to witness about this
atrocity is stoking the disgust and hatred of the many.
Get your story out to the public!
Sincerely,
Stefa Shaler
Vancouver, Canada and Amman, Jordan
