NP US Media Pundits Advocate Civilian Targets

[Doug Millison]

Date:         Mon, 24 Sep 2001 10:10:20 -0400
From: FAIR-L <FAIR-L at FAIR.ORG>
Subject:      [FAIR-L] Media Pundits Advocate Civilian


                                 FAIR-L
                    Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting
               Media analysis, critiques and news
reports





ACTION ALERT:
Media Pundits Advocate Civilian Targets

September 24, 2001

As the news media prepare for war, some prominent
journalists have been
advocating military strategies that violate the laws
of war and mirror the
strategies of terrorists.

Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, the channel's most
popular host, declared
on his September 17 broadcast that if the Afghan
government did not
extradite Osama bin Laden to the U.S., "the U.S.
should bomb the Afghan
infrastructure to rubble-- the airport, the power
plants, their water
facilities, and the roads." O'Reilly went on to say:

"This is a very primitive country. And taking out
their ability to exist day
to day will not be hard. Remember, the people of any
country are ultimately
responsible for the government they have. The Germans
were responsible for
Hitler. The Afghans are responsible for the Taliban.
We should not target
civilians. But if they don't rise up against this
criminal government, they
starve, period."

O'Reilly added that in Iraq, "their infrastructure
must be destroyed and the
population made to endure yet another round of intense
pain.... Maybe then
the people there will finally overthrow Saddam." If
Libya's Moammar Khadafy
does not relinquish power and go into exile, "we bomb
his oil facilities,
all of them. And we mine the harbor in Tripoli.
Nothing goes in, nothing
goes out. We also destroy all the airports in Libya.
Let them eat sand."

It's unclear how O'Reilly is able to reconcile his
claim that "we should not
target civilians" with his calls for decimating the
infrastructures of at
least three countries and starving their populations.

His tone remained the same a few nights later
(9/19/01), as he recommended
bombing Afghanistan "in strategic ways and hope that
the people themselves
would rise up and throw the Taliban out."
Acknowledging that Afghanis "are
starving as it is," O'Reilly recommended that the U.S.
intensify civilian
suffering by knocking out "what little infrastructure
they have" and blowing
up "every truck you see" to make sure that "there's
not going to be anything
to eat."

The Geneva Conventions (Protocol 1, Part IV, Chapter
III, Article 54) are
very clear that "starvation of civilians as a method
of warfare is
prohibited." They specify that "objects indispensable
to the survival of the
civilian population," including water and food
supplies, are not legal
military targets. Violating these strictures, which
are legally binding on
the U.S., would constitute a war crime, and might be
considered a crime
against humanity.

New York Daily News columnist A.M. Rosenthal, formerly
the executive editor
of the New York Times, had similarly disturbing advice
in his September 14
column. Rosenthal suggested an ultimatum be delivered
to at least six
countries-- Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria and
Sudan-- giving them
three days to hand over documents and information
related to weapons of mass
destruction and terrorist organizations.

Rosenthal warned that "in the three days the
terrorists were considering the
American ultimatum, the residents of the countries
would be urged 24 hours a
day by the U.S. to flee the capital and major cities,
because they would be
bombed to the ground beginning the fourth day."

The Geneva Conventions state that combatants "shall at
all times distinguish
between the civilian population and combatants and
between civilian objects
and military objectives and accordingly shall direct
their operations only
against military objectives" (Part IV, Chapter I,
Article 48).

If actually carried out, the proposals made by these
pundits would almost
certainly result in civilian deaths totaling in the
millions. Suggesting
that killing large numbers of civilians is an
acceptable political strategy
only legitimizes the logic of terrorism.


ACTION: Please contact these journalists and point out
that it is
irresponsible to encourage the government to commit
illegal acts and kill
innocent people.

CONTACT:
Fox News Channel
Bill O'Reilly, The O'Reilly Factor
mailto:oreilly at foxnews.com

New York Daily News
A.M. Rosenthal
mailto:rosecolumn at aol.com


As always, please remember that your comments are
taken more seriously if
you maintain a polite tone. Please cc fair at fair.org
with your
correspondence.



     FAIR
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