Watch the Video CBS NEWS won't put on TV

Even though CBS’s Senior Foreign Correspondent in Baghdad, Lara Logan pleaded for them to air this video report from Iraq (may take a while to load so be patient), they were only willing to place it online at the CBS website. When you watch it you will see why. It doesn’t fit the Bush/Cheney narrative to which the cowed (or complicit) corporate media news organizations have acquiesced.

Read Lara Logan’s frustrated email about her bosses’ refusal to air her report on any CBS newscast, and her plea to the online community to promote her story and provide links to it (via media channel dot org and this post by Atrios) here:

From: lara logan
Subject: help

The story below only appeared on our CBS website and was not aired on CBS. It is a story that is largely being ignored, even though this istakingplace verysingle day in central Baghdad, two blocks from where our office is located.

Our crew had to be pulled out because we got a call saying they were about to be killed, and on their way out, a civilian man was shot dead in front of them as they ran.

I would be very grateful if any of you have a chance to watch this story and pass the link on to as many people you know as possible. It should be seen. And people should know about this.

If anyone has time to send a comment to CBS – about the story – not about my request, then that would help highlight that people are interested and this is not too gruesome to air, but rather too important to ignore.

Many, many thanks.

Watch the video of her report on the current violence on Haifa street in Baghdad, then pass the link on to all your friends. Especially send it to any who still support the war, and claim that the media censors the “good news” from Iraq. The truth is just the opposite, as Laura Logan’s battle to get her report aired demonstrates.

Update [2007-1-25 20:5:49 by Steven D]: Another video from Britain’s Channel 4 which you should also see (on You Tube) below the fold:

6 Comments

idredit on January 25, 2007 at 7:45 pm

Good we can read and or view it elsewhere in the UK. Quick, tell CBS, there’s Al-Jazeera english. Have they forgotten? Guess they’re still scared cats, and after Wolf’s interview with Cheney

Patrick Cockburn’s front page story in The Independent, UK

Inside Baghdad: ‘This is mayhem beyond the comprehension of George Bush and Tony Blair’

“Baghdad is paralysed by fear. Iraqi drivers are terrified of running into impromptu checkpoints where heavily armed men in civilian clothes may drag them out of their cars and kill them for being the wrong religion. Some districts exchange mortar fire every night.[.]

Many Iraqis who watched the State of the Union address shrugged it off as an irrelevance. “An extra 16,000 US soldiers are not going to be enough to restore order to Baghdad,” said Ismail, a Sunni who fled his house in the west of the city, fearing he would be arrested and tortured by the much-feared Shia police commandos…
[..]

almost four years after US forces captured Baghdad, they control so little of it. The outlook for Mr Bush’s strategy of driving out insurgents from strongholds and preventing them coming back does not look good.

Mr Bush’s speech is likely to deepen sectarianism in Iraq by identifying the Shia militias with Iran. In fact, the most powerful Shia militia, the Mehdi Army, is traditionally anti-Iranian.

It is the Badr Organisation, now co-operating with US forces, which was formed and trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. In the Arab world as a whole, Mr Bush seems to be trying to rally the Sunni states of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan to support him in Iraq by exaggerating the Iranian threat.[.]”

Mr Bush’s supposedly new strategy is less of a strategy than a collection of tactics unlikely to change dramatically the situation on the ground. But if his systematic demonising of Iran is a precursor to air strikes or other military action against Iran, then Iraqis will once more pay a heavy price.

(emphasis added)

Ed J on January 25, 2007 at 8:00 pm

and she’s been the best reporter in Iraq for a while now.

Here’s part of another account of the Haifa street surge. This from the NYT:

In a miniature version of the troop increase that the United States hopes will secure the city, American soldiers and armored vehicles raced onto Haifa Street before dawn to dislodge Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias who have been battling for a stretch of ragged slums and mostly abandoned high rises. But as the sun rose, many of the Iraqi Army units who were supposed to do the actual searches of the buildings did not arrive on time, forcing the Americans to start the job on their own.

When the Iraqi units finally did show up, it was with the air of a class outing, cheering and laughing as the Americans blew locks off doors with shotguns. As the morning wore on and the troops came under fire from all directions, another apparent flaw in this strategy became clear as empty apartments became lairs for gunmen who flitted from window to window and killed at least one American soldier, with a shot to the head.

Whether the gunfire was coming from Sunni or Shiite insurgents or militia fighters or some of the Iraqi soldiers who had disappeared into the Gotham-like cityscape, no one could say.

Steven D on January 25, 2007 at 8:06 pm

Corrected. Thanks. I always need an editor.
- Ed J on January 25, 2007 at 8:32 pm
  
  If you had an editor, your stuff would read like most of what’s on CBS.
  - michaelmt on January 25, 2007 at 8:44 pm
    
    This is the power of the Net. This video may reach more people this way than any other way. Time to flex the muscle of the Netroots and make sure that the truth is disseminated.
    
    A few years ago only a small fraction of computer users had broadband. Now the majority do. Once, the monopolistic network news agencies were people’s main source of information. Now, for people under 30, there are many alternatives. The is their main source–with Jon Stewart and YouTube struggling for dominance!
    
    In the 2008 elections, MSM will not be able to control the news. Time to practice.

eodell on January 25, 2007 at 9:14 pm

I wish I hadn’t seen that Channel 4 video. But I also wish every cocksucker out there who keeps blathering about supporting the troops was required to see it.

I don’t support these troops. Leave them in Iraq. I don’t want these fuckers coming back to live in my neighborhood. Let them rot in the desert.

idredit on January 25, 2007 at 7:45 pm

Good we can read and or view it elsewhere in the UK. Quick, tell CBS, there’s Al-Jazeera english. Have they forgotten? Guess they’re still scared cats, and after Wolf’s interview with Cheney

Patrick Cockburn’s front page story in The Independent, UK

Inside Baghdad: ‘This is mayhem beyond the comprehension of George Bush and Tony Blair’

“Baghdad is paralysed by fear. Iraqi drivers are terrified of running into impromptu checkpoints where heavily armed men in civilian clothes may drag them out of their cars and kill them for being the wrong religion. Some districts exchange mortar fire every night.[.]

Many Iraqis who watched the State of the Union address shrugged it off as an irrelevance. “An extra 16,000 US soldiers are not going to be enough to restore order to Baghdad,” said Ismail, a Sunni who fled his house in the west of the city, fearing he would be arrested and tortured by the much-feared Shia police commandos…
[..]

almost four years after US forces captured Baghdad, they control so little of it. The outlook for Mr Bush’s strategy of driving out insurgents from strongholds and preventing them coming back does not look good.

Mr Bush’s speech is likely to deepen sectarianism in Iraq by identifying the Shia militias with Iran. In fact, the most powerful Shia militia, the Mehdi Army, is traditionally anti-Iranian.

It is the Badr Organisation, now co-operating with US forces, which was formed and trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. In the Arab world as a whole, Mr Bush seems to be trying to rally the Sunni states of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan to support him in Iraq by exaggerating the Iranian threat.[.]”

Mr Bush’s supposedly new strategy is less of a strategy than a collection of tactics unlikely to change dramatically the situation on the ground. But if his systematic demonising of Iran is a precursor to air strikes or other military action against Iran, then Iraqis will once more pay a heavy price.

(emphasis added)
Ed J on January 25, 2007 at 8:00 pm

and she’s been the best reporter in Iraq for a while now.

Here’s part of another account of the Haifa street surge. This from the NYT:

In a miniature version of the troop increase that the United States hopes will secure the city, American soldiers and armored vehicles raced onto Haifa Street before dawn to dislodge Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias who have been battling for a stretch of ragged slums and mostly abandoned high rises. But as the sun rose, many of the Iraqi Army units who were supposed to do the actual searches of the buildings did not arrive on time, forcing the Americans to start the job on their own.

When the Iraqi units finally did show up, it was with the air of a class outing, cheering and laughing as the Americans blew locks off doors with shotguns. As the morning wore on and the troops came under fire from all directions, another apparent flaw in this strategy became clear as empty apartments became lairs for gunmen who flitted from window to window and killed at least one American soldier, with a shot to the head.

Whether the gunfire was coming from Sunni or Shiite insurgents or militia fighters or some of the Iraqi soldiers who had disappeared into the Gotham-like cityscape, no one could say.
- Steven D on January 25, 2007 at 8:06 pm
  
  Corrected. Thanks. I always need an editor.
  - Ed J on January 25, 2007 at 8:32 pm
    
    If you had an editor, your stuff would read like most of what’s on CBS.
    - michaelmt on January 25, 2007 at 8:44 pm
      
      This is the power of the Net. This video may reach more people this way than any other way. Time to flex the muscle of the Netroots and make sure that the truth is disseminated.
      
      A few years ago only a small fraction of computer users had broadband. Now the majority do. Once, the monopolistic network news agencies were people’s main source of information. Now, for people under 30, there are many alternatives. The is their main source–with Jon Stewart and YouTube struggling for dominance!
      
      In the 2008 elections, MSM will not be able to control the news. Time to practice.
eodell on January 25, 2007 at 9:14 pm

I wish I hadn’t seen that Channel 4 video. But I also wish every cocksucker out there who keeps blathering about supporting the troops was required to see it.

I don’t support these troops. Leave them in Iraq. I don’t want these fuckers coming back to live in my neighborhood. Let them rot in the desert.

Watch the Video CBS NEWS won’t put on TV

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