One Objective Union?
ON THE WEEKEND of April 14-15, 2007, delegates from the National Union of Journalists of Great Britain voted to boycott Israeli goods in a viciously-worded motion at their annual delegates' conference in Birmingham. The eminent journalist and MP Michael Gove has resigned from the union as a result. Adding insult to injury, the British media reported in recent days that the union had passed the motion in order to "show solidarity with Palestinian journalists in relation to the kidnap of BBC correspondent Alan Johnston." Did we hear that right?
The NUJ motion against Israel was excerpted in this clip from the Jerusalem Post:
. . . By a vote of 66 to 54, the annual delegates' meeting . . . called for "a boycott of Israeli goods similar to those boycotts in the struggles against apartheid South Africa led by trade unions, and [for] the [Trades Union Congress] to demand sanctions be imposed on Israel by the British government." The boycott motion was the third clause of a larger anti-Israel resolution proposed by the union's South Yorkshire branch that condemned Israel's "savage, pre-planned attack on Lebanon" last summer and the "slaughter of civilians in Gaza" in recent years.
The motion condemning Israel's "savage" treatment of Palestinian civilians after "the defeat of its army" by Hezbollah passed by an even larger margin than the boycott.
According to the Israeli media, the Daily Telegraph's Washington correspondent, Toby Harnden, characterized the vote as "inane, ineffectual, counterproductive and insulting to the intelligence."
The Jerusalem Post also reported that Yahoo Europe news director Lloyd Shepherd had joked that he now looked "forward to similar boycotts of Saudi oil (for abuse of women and human rights), Turkish desserts (limits to freedom of speech) and, of course, the immediate replacement of all stationery in the NUJ's offices which has been made or assembled in China."
I am a member of the NUJ and have avoided their meetings like the plague for the past four years for two reasons: 1) the tone of the meetings is always aggressively anti-Zionist and anti-American, and when I have been unwell I've found this exacerbated my illness; 2) journalists' work issues are often barely discussed because of the inordinate amount of time devoted to denouncing Israel's apartheid and condemning America's imperialist genocides.
Last week I decided to attend my branch meeting despite feeling under the weather. I was stunned by the motion about Israel and voiced my displeasure. I also raised with the chairman the issue of the anti-American rhetoric that permeates NUJ proceedings and publications but received only a furious rebuke from him about "America bombing the shit out of Afghanistan and Iraq."
At least one member at my NUJ branch observed that the vote had coincided with Israel's Holocaust Memorial Day. And I was touched that the members insisted on taking me out after the meeting and apologizing for the chairman's behavior, but this did not lessen the blow from my union--which is supposed to represent impartiality in the media--passing this reprehensible and ill-informed motion against Israel. The credibility of the NUJ has been irreparably damaged, and the ignorance of the facts on the ground by the union's Chair, Jeremy Dear, is inexcusable. It is a dark day for British journalism.
At this point, it is vital to note coverage by the NUJ magazine, and by the British media in general, of the issue of American friendly fire incidents in Iraq and Afghanistan, the nature of which led True Crime Blog UK to accuse the lot of jumping on the "'let's hate America' bandwagon."
In the True Crime essay, decorated with a Union Jack, the writer provides a comprehensive report on the recent decision by the Oxfordshire coroner ruling the death of Lance Corporal of Horse Matty Hull an unlawful killing, the culprits being the 190th Squadron of the United States Air Force Air National Guard. The event was a tragedy, and, in a video of the strike that was widely shown on American television, one could hear the anguish, tears, and remorse of the pilots, whose commander in the air was Gus Kohntopp, an A-10 Thunderbolt fighter pilot with the Idaho Air National Guard.
What bothers me, and what irks True Crime UK, is the excessive zeal with which the British media have been reporting this story and that of ITN reporter Terry Lloyd, also killed by American forces in the middle of a fierce firefight during the opening days of the invasion.
Take, for example, the March 29 edition of the BBC's Thursday night news review hosted by Andrew Neil. He allowed Charles Glass, a former hostage of Hezbollah, to get in a dig at the Americans who, he claimed, had never been brought to justice by their own authorities for friendly fire killings of British servicemen. In fact, there had, as the British papers acknowledged, been a Pentagon inquiry long ago into the Hull killing.
What has struck observers of the coverage of the friendly fire death of both reporter Lloyd and soldier Hull has been the aggressive way the story has been reported to the British public, as if both men had been killed by the Taliban or some other terrorist group. In both the Lloyd and Hull cases, the families and solicitors have sought the nearest microphones and cameras to condemn the 'trigger-happy' and 'cowboy' American troops and airmen. The Oxfordshire coroner had complained about the lack of transparency from both the British Ministry of Defense and the Pentagon--but what was that video I kept seeing on television over and over again? Where would it have come from?
Friendly fire has been a sad by-product of war since the ancient days of the Battle of Barnet. In the heat of conflict, mistakes are made. But the amount of coverage of these two incidents, and the hatred that the various players have shown towards the Americans at fault, have been disturbing. Whenever the lawyers have emerged from the courthouse, they talk about the American service personnel as if they had summarily executed these two men.
Kohntopp flew 27 combat missions in support of Coalition forces involved in Operation Iraqi Freedom. He called the deployment, "the epitome of my career," was awarded the Bronze Star for his performance during the operation, and was later promoted to colonel.
On March 28, 2003, two 190th Squadron A10 Thunderbolt aircraft flew a mission to destroy artillery and rocket launchers from Iraq's 6th Armored Division 25 miles north of Basra. During the mission, the two A-10 aircraft mistakenly attacked a patrol of four FV 107 Scimitar armored vehicles from D Squadron of the Blues and Royals of the Household Cavalry that were supporting the 16th Air Assault Brigade in Operation Telic. The air attack killed Matty Hull and five of his squadron were injured.
The True Crime site says "there is an America-bashing slant to some of the press attention . . . " and adds, "I once worked with someone who was passionate about fighting racism . . . but she thought nothing of claiming that all Americans were complete and utter idiots . . . she totally failed to see how prejudiced, how racist, her own anti-American views were."
Carrying on, the True Crime blog discusses the most grotesque exploitation yet of the Matty Hull case by the British media: a visit by ITN to the hometown of pilot Gus Kohntopp. The British film team camped out in the village and accosted a few locals who seemed completely bewildered by the intrusion. One woman just burst into tears when the British reporter began pressing her about the alleged wrongdoing of Col. Kohntopp.
Meanwhile, Kohntopp is reported to have gone into hiding. The widow of Matty Hull has offered, in a huge tabloid headline, "My Mercy for Matty's Killers." Mrs. Hull says she does not want to punish the "U.S. Criminals" (another blazing headline), but that this should be a lesson for other pilots about the enormity of what they are doing in the sky.
What is so disturbing about the coverage of this case is the fact that, had it been in reverse, it is likely the American press would have shown every possible caution and restraint in dealing with its close ally. It is simply impossible to imagine any major television network, or for that matter the family of a loved one, hammering away about 'cowboy' and 'trigger happy' Britons.
As this article goes to print, the British National Union of Journalists' magazine has circulated to its membership a proposal that the killing of journalists be made a crime under international law. Throughout the coverage of the Terry Lloyd incident, the British media have been brutal. The latest news story is the 'outing' of the soldiers who killed Lloyd. The Shadow Foreign Secretary, William Hague, wants to see the soldiers brought to justice. (The Tories used to be pro-American, but those days now seem a pleasant memory.) Yes, he was in a makeshift ambulance, but, in the heat of what was a fierce confrontation, did Lloyd and his camera team, who had decided not to be embedded with the military, seriously think the platoons were going to stop and say, 'Oh, do pass so we might resume the battle?'
Members of the National Union of Journalists UK have this week received a magazine in which an article entitled "New Moves to Nail Killers of Terry Lloyd" tells us that the British television broadcaster ITN revealed the names of sixteen soldiers in the Red Platoon of Delta Company of the U.S. Marine Corps, but the American authorities refuse to confirm the names. The feature further details the efforts being made by the Metropolitan Police's war crimes unit to visit the United States to interview the soldiers.
The NUJ's broadcasting organizer, Paul McLaughlin, was quoted as saying "we seek to bring Terry Lloyd's killers to justice. The U.S. has shown contempt for the British justice system." The article goes on to say that various international media freedom groups and unions, along with the International Federation of Journalists, support the NUJ, whose ultimate goal is to have all sixteen soldiers extradited to Britain for trial.
I simply cannot imagine the National Press Club lobbying to have British soldiers extradited to the United States due to a tragic error in the heat of battle in which, say, an American broadcaster had been killed.
There has been considerable derision in the press about the lack of experience of those reservist pilots deployed to Iraq from places like Idaho and Wyoming. In the past fortnight, unfortunate images of Prince Harry exiting night clubs in the wee hours have made their way into the newspapers. He is about to deploy to Iraq. Should he be with his regiment preparing for his mission? Will he be any more battle-ready than Gus Kohntopp?
Now, in the United States, the controversy about the friendly fire death of former football star Pat Tillman is in the news once more. There is talk of senior military officials being implicated in a cover-up of the incident. He was awarded the Silver Star, but this is now being interpreted as a ploy by the Pentagon to cover up the true nature of his death.
One difference, though, between this and the British cases: the American media are covering the story with dignity and with respect for all concerned--no one is talking of putting Tillman's comrades on trial for his death.
If America had gone in to liberate the 15 Royal Marines and sailors held in Iran, and in the unlikely event tragedy had resulted, given the present anti-American climate in the British media the next chapter would have been charges of war crimes against brave American men in uniform performing the most dreaded job on earth.
Anti-American and anti-Israeli feeling runs high in Britain every day. The disproportionate hostility to the Americans responsible for the deaths of Matty Hull and Terry Lloyd bring a new dimension to America-hatred in the British Isles. That the journalists' union wants to boycott Israel and see prosecutions for American soldiers in the thick of battle puts journalistic objectivity at a new low. 
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