Journalists seem to be shedding, with quite a vengeance, their post 9/11 image as subservient/embedded pen-pushers. The Iraqi TV journalist reached the other extreme by using shoes instead of pen. Now a British scribe has made a deadly attack on top British and US political leadership.
Sample the ‘ballistic missile’ from Matthew Norman: “Throwing footwear at the front man for the perpetrator-in-chief, the limitlessly disgusting Dick Cheney, is a splendid way to express revulsion and let off steam. Next to sticking Messrs Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Mr Tony Blair in a dock at The Hague, however, and banging them up for the rest of their days, it doesn’t quite cut it.
“In that naive but heartwarming fantasy, Gordon Brown would be in Holland with them. Any sane reading of collective responsibility, not to mention what Nuremberg decided about the efficacy of obedience to orders as a war crimes defence, would ensure that he and everyone else who rubber-stamped this neo-imperial adventurism take equal responsibility for the crime itself and for the horrors that stemmed from it.
” ‘We leave Iraq a better place,’ our Prime Minister (Gordon Brown) declared yesterday. Yet while he rightly paid tribute to the 178 British dead, he had nothing to add about Iraqi fatalities. No one knows precisely how many there have been, but a recent estimate of 650,000 seems far from outlandish.
“There is, needless to say, a much larger slice of infamy that belongs to him, and we can only pray that history takes vengeance because only history now can. The war soon to end for Britain was as shocking an act of international criminality as we have seen from western democracies in at least a generation.
More here…
Patrick Cockburn has this to say: “Britain’s long campaign in Iraq achieved almost nothing. The 46,000 UK troops who took part in the initial invasion in 2003 helped to overthrow Saddam Hussein – but this would have happened even if they had stayed at home. More here…
Swaraaj Chauhan describes his two-decade-long stint as a full-time journalist as eventful, purposeful, and full of joy and excitement. In 1993 he could foresee a different work culture appearing on the horizon, and decided to devote full time to teaching journalism (also, partly, with a desire to give back to the community from where he had enriched himself so much.)
Alongside, he worked for about a year in 1993 for the US State Department’s SPAN magazine, a nearly five-decade-old art and culture monthly magazine promoting US-India relations. It gave him an excellent opportunity to learn about things American, plus the pleasure of playing tennis in the lavish American embassy compound in the heart of New Delhi.
In !995 he joined WWF-India as a full-time media and environment education consultant and worked there for five years travelling a great deal, including to Husum in Germany as a part of the international team to formulate WWF’s Eco-tourism policy.
He taught journalism to honors students in a college affiliated to the University of Delhi, as also at the prestigious Indian Institute of Mass Communication where he lectured on “Development Journalism” to mid-career journalists/Information officers from the SAARC, African, East European and Latin American countries, for eight years.
In 2004 the BBC World Service Trust (BBC WST) selected him as a Trainer/Mentor for India under a European Union project. In 2008/09 He completed another European Union-funded project for the BBC WST related to Disaster Management and media coverage in two eastern States in India — West Bengal and Orissa.
Last year, he spent a couple of months in Australia and enjoyed trekking, and also taught for a while at the University of South Australia.
Recently, he was appointed as a Member of the Board of Studies at Chitkara University in Chandigarh, a beautiful city in North India designed by the famous Swiss/French architect Le Corbusier. He also teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students there.
He loves trekking, especially in the hills, and never misses an opportunity to play a game of tennis. The Western and Indian classical music are always within his reach for instant relaxation.
And last, but not least, is his firm belief in the power of the positive thought to heal oneself and others.