Media Release: "Fallujah and The Australian - another shameful day for a once great Australian newspaper."

– Tony Kevin, Canberra 25 November 2004

Extract: What is far more important than my public reputation is that in its excisions, ‘The Australian’ took out of my letter the very sentences that gave it credibility and strength: the judgements of senior US media columnists Jonathan Schell, Jim Hoagland and Mark Bowden that the real purpose of the US destruction of Fallujah was exemplary collective punishment of a city that had sheltered insurgents; the concerns of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour and the International Red Cross that the US attack on Fallujah had involved war crimes; the admission of Defence Minister Robert Hill that Australian defence force personnel seconded to US forces had probably been involved in the planning and execution of the US attack on Fallujah; and the references to un-embedded news reporting sources Xinhua and Al Jazeera.

And this sentence:

"The indiscriminate and disproportionate use of weapons of mass destruction (cluster bombs, flesh-melting phosphorus weapons, 2000 kg blockbuster bombs) in a civilian-inhabited city, of itself defines Fallujah as a war crime under the Geneva Conventions."

Without all this, my letter was left simply as the unsupported expression of one person’s opinion.

Clearly, those facts were too disturbing to be allowed to reach readers of ‘The Australian’ ..

 

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The following facts are put on public record.

A letter from me was published in The Australian today, 25 November 2004:

"Fallujah was punished

THE US destruction of Fallujah was Nazi-style collective punishment. US troops calmly destroyed this city of 300,000 people, that posed no military threat to the US-supported Allawi regime, as a warning to other Iraqis of the heavy price they will pay for politically defying the US-protected regime and for sheltering insurgent fighters.

There are horrifying incidents as reported by independent non-US embedded journalists of hospitals forced to close and patients pushed from their beds into the streets; of unarmed men shot in cold blood while seeking safe passage out of the city with their wives and children under white flag; of injured people pulled out of buildings into the street and then run over by tanks; of photographers shot down as they filmed battle; of people shot as they tried to swim rivers to safety. Albrechtsen should read Google and begin to absorb the facts on Fallujah.

Tony Kevin, Forrest, ACT"

 

Below for comparison is my 350-word letter as submitted, after I had complained in writing to the Opinion Page Editor of the Australian that Janet Albrechtsen’s opinion page piece on 24 November, 2004, "Knee-jerk judgements", had misrepresented my views, defamed my judgement, and publicly attacked my professional reputation as a Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University, Canberra.

I requested a right of reply in the form of an opinion piece. Instead, the Opinion Page Editor offered me a letter which, he wrote, "We'll be sure to run it asap. You can send me the letter and I'll organise everything from then on".

There was no length limit stipulated in the Opinion Page Editor’s letter to me. I wrote concisely, but expecting that in the circumstances of my protest at Albrechtsen’s article, room would be found for a 350 word letter, as my response to an article I believed seriously defamatory of my public reputation.

The letter as published above was cut to 150 words – The Australian’s normal requested length limit. My letter was published last in a selection of seven – the first two were "pro" - Albrechtsen, the next five "anti". There is no indication to readers that I was replying as a person named prominently and negatively by Albrechtsen, and who believed he had been defamed by her article and was seeking a public right of reply. Following my letter appears a 300-word letter from an academic on labor market flexibility - length constraints do not appear to have been a problem in the case of that letter.

So it appears that I have again been treated with manifest contempt by The Australian’s editorial management. And I have, once again, been misled by management reassurance from this powerful organisation that it would respond fairly to my protest.

The lesson is that high-profile staff commentators like Albrechtsen can use defamatory public language about people who express dissident views on major public issues like Australia’s involvement in criminal military actions in Iraq, and those people have no proper right of reply in the pages of The Australian.

If any lawyers practicing in the defamation field and reading this and the Albrechtsen article

http://theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,
11478627%255E32522,00.html

thinks I may have a sound case for defamation against Janet Albrechtsen and The Australian, I would be glad to hear from them. I could not begin to fund such a case myself – it would have to be on the basis of "if we win, I pay my lawyers". Any surplus after costs and fees would go to a non-US embedded relief fund for Iraqi victims of Fallujah.

What is far more important than my public reputation is that in its excisions, The Australian took out of my letter the very sentences that gave it credibility and strength: the judgements of senior US media columnists Jonathan Schell, Jim Hoagland and Mark Bowden that the real purpose of the US destruction of Fallujah was exemplary collective punishment of a city that had sheltered insurgents; the concerns of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour and the International Red Cross that the US attack on Fallujah had involved war crimes; the admission of Defence Minister Robert Hill that Australian defence force personnel seconded to US forces had probably been involved in the planning and execution of the US attack on Fallujah; and the references to un-embedded news reporting sources Xinhua and Al Jazeera.

And this sentence:

"The indiscriminate and disproportionate use of weapons of mass destruction (cluster bombs, flesh-melting phosphorus weapons, 2000 kg blockbuster bombs) in a civilian-inhabited city, of itself defines Fallujah as a war crime under the Geneva Conventions."

Without all this, my letter was left simply as the unsupported expression of one person’s opinion.

Clearly, those facts were too disturbing to be allowed to reach readers of The Australian, even in a compressed 350 word letter, from a person whose considered judgement that Fallujah was a US war crime had been personally attacked by one of The Australian’s stable of right-wing correspondents as "grotesque", "morally offensive and intellectually bankrupt", "unconcerned with facts and blinded by political motivations" and "hysterical".

In this way, The Australian has proved my point – that our mainstream media, by not passing on to the Australian public more than a small sanitised fraction of what is coming in on international news wires, are shielding us from knowing the full horror of the US destruction of Fallujah and Australia’s participation in this war crime. And The Australian has shown the lengths to which it will go to try to discredit and silence the public voice of anyone who dares to say that two and two make four.

Tony Kevin, Canberra 25 November 2004

For further information on this media release:

Tony Kevin 02 6295 6588 or 0414 822 171

ATTACHMENT: Letter from Tony Kevin as submitted to the Australian, 24 November 2004

Dear Sir,

The US destruction of Fallujah was Nazi-style collective punishment. US troops calmly destroyed this city of 300,000 people, that posed no military threat to the US-supported Allawi regime, as a warning to other Iraqis of the heavy price they will pay for politically defying the US-protected regime and for sheltering insurgent fighters.

Reputable American columnists Jonathan Schell, Jim Hoagland and Mark Bowden all agreed this week that the main purpose of the US action in Fallujah was to send a clear deterrent signal to all Iraqis – resist us and we will destroy you, as we destroyed this city.

The indiscriminate and disproportionate use of weapons of mass destruction (cluster bombs, flesh-melting phosphorus weapons, 2000 kg blockbuster bombs) in a civilian-inhabited city, of itself defines Fallujah as a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.

There are also horrifying incidents as reported by independent non–US embedded journalists, e.g., representing Xinhua News, Al Jazeera News: of hospitals forced to close and patients pushed from their beds into the streets; of unarmed men shot in cold blood while seeking safe-passage out of the city with their wives and children under white flag; of injured people pulled out of buildings into the street and then run over by tanks; of photographers shot down as they filmed battle; of people shot as they tried to swim rivers to safety … no wonder the UN Commissioner for Human Rights (Louise Arbour) and the International Red Cross are protesting vigorously.

Yes, Fallujah is entirely comparable to the Nazi destruction of Warsaw in 1944 and the Russian Army’s destruction of Grozny in 1999. And Defence Minister Hill admits that Australian military planners and soldiers took part in this savage attack.

But our mainstream media, by not passing on to the Australian public more than a small sanitised fraction of what is coming in on international news wires, are shielding us from this awful knowledge. Janet Albrechtsen, read Google and begin to absorb the facts on Fallujah. If you have any humanity, you will be as horrified and ashamed as I am.

Tony Kevin, Canberra