she knew what was going on it was informing russia through the representation of russia in vienna and was trying to do what it could but there were only eight observers that were there so with eight observers there's not very much she could do unfortunately many member states had asked for there to be more members before but russia had veto that russia did not want there to be more than a very small group of observers and south of said you so i would actually say that no there should be a chance for international monitoring both in south said to an opposition thank you thank you very much both and just a reminder that my guest on the show today andrei your profound stuff political scientist and sabine prize in who is the program director of the international crisis group and that's it for now from all of us here if you want to have your say and spotlight just me life would be back with more first hand comments on what's going on in and outside russia until then stay on r.t. and take care thank you.

the news today is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. china operations around the day. in india. the move to join. the gateway to the ground in period truly was to.

run this in the kennel was toto as a retreat. in the russian capital good to have you with us here on our teeth these are your headlines the family of the alleged russian illegal arms dealer. for his life extradited to the u.s. after a thai court dismisses fresh charges brought by washington who could face life in prison if convicted in the states. the u.k. ministry of defense comes under fire for routinely deleting records of its campaign in afghanistan making it impossible to investigate cases of misconduct by soldiers . standard practice to delete some documents after the employment but anti-war advocates say it smacks of

a cover up. and an advertising campaign backfired. campaigners trying to cut carbon emissions major backers have now pulled their support and expressed disappointment over the senate most dropped the commercials that featured bloody images only hours after they were released. up next our special report exploring contrasts between the mass media's coverage of the invasion of iraq and independent reports of the brutal realities on the ground stay with us. you know world changes by the way turn to c.n.n. headline news in the future updates on america's new war that it states is beginning to show its military muscle in the media environment where the average sun bite is what eight or nine seconds what can you say and that amount of time you can say saddam hussein is like hitler and you're ready for prime time everyone

knows what you mean but if you have something else to say something a little outside the box say u.s. officials are guilty of war crimes. well that actually fits into the soundbite but no one knows what you're talking about they think you're crazy they haven't heard that before you need to explain yourself what are war crimes what are the geneva conventions one of the nuremberg principles that takes more than eight seconds and you don't have time for that and then they say it's not a political ad it just don't fit in to the mainstream for freedom and freedom of communication were birth twins in the future united states they grew up together and neither has fared very well in the other's absence democracy cannot exist without an informed public and these mega media companies are not informing.

the. public. it's a war of ideas and and the people who control. the world in this twenty first century would be the people who control the ideas bush could not have done it alone if he had a megaphone on the steps of the white house yes some people would have believed there were weapons of mass destruction but he had something much more powerful the pentagon had something much more powerful more powerful than any more powerful than any meso the pentagon deployed the us media. the media to brace for war actually in this segment it's the media go into training for war for the past several months all four major branches of the us military have

offered bootcamps of a sort for american journalists to prepare them for what might lie ahead in iran is moving ahead with plans to allow more than five hundred news reporters and photographers to accompany u.s. troops as they prepare to invade iraq by the end of the week. more than two hundred news organizations have to notify the pentagon whether they will accept invitations to quote and then with u.s. troops the pentagon has all but it mid its new attitude towards the press is part of an aggressive strategy to deploy the media as part of a p.r. campaign according to the weekly standard the military wants positive stories about the grit and resolve of its troops. it is for. sure deep in the desert. is already. secure to use chests the difference between independent

journalism and embedded journalism is for starters embedded journalism if you're going to do that you have to go sign paperwork sensually says i will follow all orders of my superior officer so even from the very start you allow yourself to be indoctrinated into this unit become one with these people so any idea of journalism is would sign your name to to do the programming that's out the window and that my great. great free. market. for it making matter. how white or. what there were in the burning of billions we have like the stockholm syndrome when your life becomes dependent upon these people how can you possibly not be heavily heavily influenced by that in your writing and then of course we have the very very real censorship that is extremely

intense in iraq now so any journalism produced by an embedded journalist even if it is attempting to show both sides of the story it's going to be censored a newspaper for example catches tremendous heat for simply showing flag draped coffin. finn's and then of course the government takes it a step further that we don't even want to call them coffins we'll call them transfer to us so completely disassociating the reality of war with what's actually happening i really wouldn't have that much trouble with the imbedding approach if there was also i'm betting of equal proportions not from where the missiles are fired but from where they land the motion of the bed in a dramatic attack on freedom of the press now there were none of that it were but the media i go out and actually speak with iraqi people and when i enter whenever i have had interaction with soldiers it's not while i'm in bed it so i can report

what they say no one's going to censor it there were times when i was the only american an embed reporter their best case scenario now is far as american independence maximum there's like two or three of us there at one time and usually one and sometimes not. many journalists for a few see get in bed with the army and went to a doctor's independent reporters they bring us the stories from the ground in iraq and show us the brutal reality of war in doing so they risk their lives the u.s. strikes also killed a journalist from the arab t.v. network al arabiya the network broadcast harrowing food each of its correspondent mas an. reporting from the scene when he was hit by shrapnel doubles over and his blood splatters on the camera lens as he screams i'm a journalist i'm dying i'm dying moments later he was pronounced dead he was

twenty six years old it's been very dangerous for reporters in iraq in a fourteen month period alone during the occupation. more reporters were killed in iraq than during the entire vietnam war most of them are independents it's called shooting the messenger you have people on imbedded who risk their lives to go to iraq people like. april eighth two thousand and three reporter for al-jazeera had just come over from jordan and the u.s. military strafed the area he immediately died his wife in jordan at the funeral said he breeds hate who is engaged in terrorism now. al jazeera had given the coordinates of the office several times to the pentagon maybe that was their first mistake later the same day the u.s.

tank shot at the palestine hotel where around one hundred international journalists were staying the attack killed jose couso a camera man for the spanish tell us cinco and titus a veteran reuters cameraman. the wrong number. thirty one. i have a friend a colleague who was at the palestine when it was shot when the reuters office was shot by the take which the u.s. military claim that they take had drawn fire i've personally seen these tapes they showed the tape for several minutes before fire there was no gun fire anywhere everyone knows that the palestine is the journalist hotel that whole compound is for journalists the real message through actions from the pentagon is that we will make your life more hazardous and it's not just you know independent journalists

and people on the left who have made this charge we've had many mainstream organizations like the committee to protect journalists expressing concerns sending letters having meetings with pentagon officials and the real question is why is the pen. god intimidating harassing and shooting journalists here in this country there is hardly been a peep dozens of journalists have died many of them an embedded international a top journalists talk about the concern of targeting of the out embedded they torie clarke who is the spokesperson for the pentagon who came from the big p.r. firm helen knowlton extremely effective who held the embedding process is a spectacular success said about the killings that day baghdad is an unsafe place they shouldn't be there but that's our role as journalists to go to where the silence is to bear weight.

and all of this discussion that goes on about inspections and weapons of mass destruction and the violation of u.n. resolutions and all of this there's very little discussion of who is going to die in this war who's going to be wounded in this war how many people are going to be blinded how many children are going to lose their limbs there is no. human rigid picture of what the result of this war will be. there sorry. ali ali my son ali oh

my son ali his legs my son in war people die large numbers of people die but we don't show you who dies the war is organized on american television the way under the principle of all about us it's all that americans it's all about what happens to us it's all about dangers to us it's all about what we need and what our wants sarin anybody else doesn't matter iraqi people not important so we don't see one hundred thousand iraqi casualties iraqi children half the population of iraq with children we never heard that we never knew that. the use of weapons that are prohibited cluster bombs depleted uranium. barely covered in the american media the images are getting out because of independent media. we show them on democracy now we see them on european asian arab television

networks but not in the united states very much but i really do think that independent media putting them out ultimately has an effect we interviewed aaron brown at c.n.n. talking about it being a matter of taste. well i think it's war that's tasteless it's not our job to sanitize it. it's our job to present it and then people make their own decision i just want to ask you to just to bring it into very practical terms to give an example of some tough questioning of one of the generals that you've had on the show on the issue of the killing of civilians on the issue of the use of cluster bombs the issue of the use of depleted uranium munitions just give us an example of some tough questioning that you've done of a general that's appeared on newsnight or on any of the shows that you're involved with as to. the questions of collateral damage we've talked a lot actually

a buyout overselling the notion of precision the precision is different than perfection and sometimes the tank is the schoolhouse it is a journalistic question it's a question of taste it's a very to be the very difficult decisions to make for me at the civilians in this sort of an afterthought on almost every night i think every major network in america the civilian toll is an afterthought in all of this you know not something that has been a primary focus well i don't you know we did not see the footage of the of the little girl in the basra hospital with half of her head blown off and her brains whizzing out and quite frankly there's no such thing as a tasteful civilian casualty that term shouldn't even be in the realm of journalism no it's just a question of how what shot you choose to show to it about the accurate shot that shows this is what happens to people on the u.s. troops missiles on that at the date any people say the picture in vietnam of the little vietnamese girl who is napalmed helped to turn the water around there's no question in my mind that picture would be shown today later no question in my mind

that that picture would be shown today and yet we are seeing picture after picture and broadcasting onto accuracy now on our show i know of children like that and we are not seeing them on c.n.n. well but. be careful here about what you say you see that female and what your dog because you're not really right. we didn't you know little there are some practical limitations when you go back to vietnam there are pictures that. help to end the war might the picture of the naked girl burning with napalm running down the street i think if we saw for one week babies dead on the ground women with their legs blown off if we watch that for one week i think people in this country would say no to war people say war is not an answer to conflict in the twenty first century i think the coverage of the tsunami proves that december twenty sixth this

natural catastrophe some of the media raced over and they showed us the pictures of people suffering what people cared about as seeing orphans is seeing women and men struggling and those that didn't make it and they poured out their hearts and their pocketbooks in this unprecedented generosity global generosity because the media focus the spotlight where it mattered and showed people suffering that's the role of the media we can do something about that. instead though the media doesn't usually do that and so people are cut off especially in the united states. don't be afraid there's nothing here. just to say. hold on hold what is wrong with you. this

is an information war so many people in america believe what they believe because they simply do not have the correct information i want to focus on full loser because it encapsulates the whole occupation i went into during a quote unquote cease fire according to the military and according to the us ambassador paul bremer and so that was one reason i felt ok of taking the risk to go in i win it and it was anything but a ceasefire this is what i saw in the clinic and the lose it these are the terrorists and. when i interviewed a doctor in fallujah he said not less than sixty percent of the dead were women and children you can go see the graves for yourself a doctor working in a temporary emergency clinic during april see posed the question on democracy now which he repeated when you see a child by the years old with no head what can you say when you see

a child with no brain just an open cavity what can you say. well that depends on who you are if you're the new york times you said nothing if you're paul bremer you probably said the joint result i think it's really important that people see that this is war and this is what it looks like and this is what has been shown in the past in the us media when it was allowed to do its job chemical weapons phosphorous weapons were used cluster bombs and of course we have the families left behind. them. just dead in the picture on. yes one of them where did they take him to the city to come to jam do you want to come back. but i met them yes and they are legally not coming i'm going to who will my dad tonight can tell you i'm not going that. he want you to challenge me he's your son yes he's my son

and they took him from the street from the street and it's been two months and i ha . i'm one key is that i won i won i was. and then of course pictures like this are what were shown in reported in the mainstream media and the media crackdown there is very very intense any journalist not reporting the government line on the siege of fallujah would be the tape and this is the climate this is the free speech and democratic free iraq at this point in our history given everything that's at stake given the billions we've invested the lives we've lost the wars we've fought the weapons we've sent given the fact that since vietnam in no place in the world have we spent more money sent more weapons for more wars lost more lives then the middle east. and if this is the best

we can do we're creating the clash of civilizations that we fear that will if we're not careful engulfs all. the media is supposed to be a check and balance on government we're not supposed to be cozying up to those in power and yet the media beats the drums for war and they have to be challenged yeah they're private corporations that they are leasing our airwaves and they have a responsibility to serve a democratic society and that means providing a forum for the full spectrum of opinion that's why we need independent media we have to challenge them and we have to build our own media and for structure and that's what we're doing all over this country independent media or the force for democracy in the country. i mean you don't have a democratic society if public opinion is out of the political system not in

the political arena and not reflective in the media and democracy you can hear discussion of everything. and in fact the large majority of the population basically agrees with what they were hearing. no access to. their voices have no participation in the decisions of how do we compete effectively with mainstream perspectives we supplement them we challenge them we question them but we're not in everybody's home we're not on a variable in their living rooms that we're not as easily accessible and that's one of the problems that the fight for access to fight for distribution each of us compared to c.b.s. is small but you connect us all up and it we reach tens of millions of people so we don't have to cower or to feel that we're impotent in fact we have

a lot of power in order to create a different world that's not just a goal at the end it's doing it every hour of every day how we get there what the process is and making sure that. everyone is included that's very very important that's what democratic media is what i know to be real is that we are in for the fight of our lives mokhtar see journalism are deeply linked in whatever chance we human beings care of to redress our grievances redo our politics and reclaim our revolutionary ideals in the process of coming to terms with what is now. we need to challenge the usual renditions of history which is silence now from the grassroots we can respond presenting the voices of the majority of

people in this country and them that they're angry they're creative they're extremely articulate. and they deserve to be heard they demand to be heard they will be heard but the dangerous other don't turn to t.v. is that breed of people we knew was controlled and that the first global culture in the history of humanity would actually be a kind of a corporate culture and that at the really even a kind of a planet inc scenario so not planet earth but planet think and to me this is the nightmare scenario the only way you in the media are going to help us and we need your help because you have the access to power yeah this crowd yet doesn't get the owing to the white house press room. you're inside. because. it's a public forum. was. was

. not only are we allowed but we're well kicking manson and women out there and if more people know that then they gives new since an encouraging one that they're not alone into that they can actually take our country back well my hope particularly being an independent journalist is that it would force the mainstream media to be more accountable and force them to cover some of these stories that we're covering them that they're not and have an effect much like it did in vietnam to bring the really to bring the war home to show people this is really what's happening are you sure you want to keep doing this is it really worth it.

to design a. story for. all the bunk. to do for home to. their. children. their own mothers. sisters brothers crying. their only pongs a new privilege. and her. soon to stop them new new. destruction. proved to me. that you can. prove to

me. your ruined. who's done for her in the. group a comes for the good news you do the math. as a u.s. mass media removes human suffering from their presentation of this war over one hundred thousand people have died in iraq and the other half of these are women and children today the violence continues and the true cost of those war remains silent . who will decide will we now who will write the stories that we pass on as our history to the future will it be the corporations or will be the people.

i really do think that communication. as the hope. and dependent media is the forum. for that communication. live.