Iraq: Facts Forbidden in German Media

(By Ray D.)

Because Iraq has long been declared a total failure in most German media and any mention of positive progress is subject to massive self-censorship, facts such as those mentioned in yesterday's Washington Post will likely never see the light of day:

"The consequences of Operation Iraqi Freedom for U.S. forces are being documented by the Defense Department with an exceptional degree of openness and transparency. Its daily and cumulative counts of deaths receive a great deal of publicity. But deaths alone don't indicate the risk for an individual. For this purpose, the number of deaths must be compared with the number of individuals exposed to the risk of death. The Defense Department has supplied us with appropriate data on exposure, and we take advantage of it to provide the first profile of military mortality in Iraq.

Between March 21, 2003, when the first military death was recorded in Iraq, and March 31, 2006, there were 2,321 deaths among American troops in Iraq. Seventy-nine percent were a result of action by hostile forces. Troops spent a total of 592,002 "person-years" in Iraq during this period. The ratio of deaths to person-years, .00392, or 3.92 deaths per 1,000 person-years, is the death rate of military personnel in Iraq.

How does this rate compare with that in other groups? One meaningful comparison is to the civilian population of the United States. That rate was 8.42 per 1,000 in 2003, more than twice that for military personnel in Iraq.

The comparison is imperfect, of course, because a much higher fraction of the American population is elderly and subject to higher death rates from degenerative diseases. The death rate for U.S. men ages 18 to 39 in 2003 was 1.53 per 1,000 -- 39 percent of that of troops in Iraq. But one can also find something equivalent to combat conditions on home soil. The death rate for African American men ages 20 to 34 in Philadelphia was 4.37 per 1,000 in 2002, 11 percent higher than among troops in Iraq. Slightly more than half the Philadelphia deaths were homicides.

The death rate of American troops in Vietnam was 5.6 times that observed in Iraq. Part of the reduction in the death rate is attributable to improvements in military medicine and such things as the use of body armor. These have reduced the ratio of deaths to wounds from 24 percent in Vietnam to 13 percent in Iraq."

Bush lied and people died! It is time for America to recognize it's mistakes and pull out of Philadelphia, NOW! How many more young black men have to die before Americans finally open their eyes and withdraw?

Seriously though. Facts that put the casualty rates into perspective will never make it into a German media that clearly engaged in massive self-censorship shortly before the Iraq conflict began. Several German journalists working in the United States, including some highly prominent media figures, admitted to me in interviews (conducted with the understanding that specific content such as direct quotes and identities would only be used in a graduate level thesis paper on media) that, in the run-up to the Iraq war, they were ordered (or at least strongly pressured) by editors and owners not to run stories explaining the Bush administration's position for going to war. The owners and editors were so afraid of losing and upsetting readers that they essentially decided to eliminate an entire field of information critical to understanding why the United States acted as it did in Iraq. We aren't going to name any names because we promised to keep identities private, but we simply can't keep this massive media fraud quiet any longer.

Anyone who really wants to investigate this will find that what we are saying is true and anyone who believes Germany has a free press ought to take a closer look.

Comments

[Dave Barnes]

"believes Germany has a free press".

In the USA, the phrase "free press" means "not controlled by the GOVERNMENT".
If "editors and owners" pressure reporters because of the "editors and owners" personal beliefs, then the press is still "free".
Only when the government tells the press what to print or not print is the press "un-free".

So, I believe that Germany has a free press. Are they biased? Yes. Does that bias strongly influence what is printed? Yes. But, they are "free".

,dave
Denver, CO USA

[James W.]

"In the USA, the phrase "free press" means "not controlled by the GOVERNMENT"."

Are we splitting hairs here?

I could take it a step further and say that the editors and owners GOVERN what is being printed and, in this case, use the press as a propaganda tool. Therefore, I would not consider that a free press because they are not free to print the truth.

[Pamela]

James W.
Are we splitting hairs here?

No. Dave Barnes is absolutely right. The US

I think DMK's choice of term 'free press' is unfortunate, at least vis a vis the US press (I have NO idea of what German laws regulate the media) so I'm not sure if we're comparing apples and oranges in terms of German and US media.

But utltimately, this is not about either gov't. It's about the German consumer market.

I see this as a chicken/egg question. Did the media create the anti-Americanism or did anti-Americanism create the media bias?

The latter seems to be what DMK's sources are suggesting.

That leads me to another question. In the US, print media makes money from advertising. Subscribtions are a relatively small part of revenue. Advertising rates are set based on what the Audit Bureau of Circulation determines are the circulation figures in a given market. Circulation figures are based on subscriptions AND news stand sales. The higher the cirulation, the higher the advertising rates.

So, I don't know the economics of German media. Economically I know pissing off the customers is probably not a good idea.

Ethics? That's another post.

[Pamela]

Oh dear, what happened? That cut-off sentence should read "The US media is free to be biased for or against the gov't"

apologies.

[Assistant Village Idiot]

And then there's the danger of Glasgow, Nice, suburban Paris, or Moscow.

Or even Skopje, Tirana, and Belgrade.

[WhatDoIKnow]

I must say that I was shocked beyond words by what Ray said (in red letters). I never even remotely imagined that something like this would be possible within the German media. It was always clear that the German media is biased, but I never believed they would go that far. We can only imagine what lies beneath the appearance of respectability.

Without any exaggerations, those revelations are highly incendiary. In a normal world they would ignite open and fierce debates, not only on DMK, but within the entire German media establishment. Those debates are needed not to defend Bush or America, but to cleanse the entire system. However, nothing will happen. We don't live in a normal world. In the abnormal world we live in those revelations are considered harmless, if not outright right-wing lies. Over. Period. Let's move over to the next "American debacle".

[Pamela]

@WhatdoIKnow
must say that I was shocked beyond words by what Ray said (in red letters). I never even remotely imagined that something like this would be possible within the German media. It was always clear that the German media is biased, but I never believed they would go that far.

Jeez, I hope you just forgot the /sarc tag.

But, assuming you didn't -

I think every news outlet should have a bias (otherwise known as a 'point of view') and I think it should be clearly stated.

I have no problem with bias - I am very biased and every poster on this blog knows exactly where it is.

That some editors of some German media tilt their bias in the direction of what they perceive to be their customers' POV is beside the point (this is endemic in the US media, but apparently US consumers are savier - imagine that).

The question is whether they are journalists or marketers.

This DMK post suggests marketers.

[WhatDoIKnow]

Pamela

I was in fact honest; no sarcasm at all. I know, I know, how could I be so naive ? I don't know, I just thought that the German media, in spite of their open bias, still has a tiny ounce of integrity.

Ray's revelations make me sincerely wonder what is the difference between a media controlled by the Central Comitee of the Communist Party and a media controlled by the ideology of publishers (or financers) ? In my eyes they are both just as loathsome. Those people are truly still at (Cold) war with the US.

[LC Mamapajamas]

re: "Several German journalists working in the United States, including some highly prominent media figures, admitted to me in interviews... that, in the run-up to the Iraq war, they were ordered (or at least strongly pressured) by editors and owners not to run stories explaining the Bush administration's position for going to war."

So what's new? Most of the US media hasn't explained the Bush administration's positions for going to war. They're "stuck on stupid" on the WMD thing, conveniently forgetting that there were FIVE reasons for taking out Saddam.

However, it appears that the US media is doing this by choice, German by order. Weird.

[RayD]

@ critics:

How free is a media that exercises systematic bias and self-censorship and, in many cases, parrots the views of its friends in the German government? Let's not forget how deeply involved the German state is with the media industry in both the public and private sectors. Remember what happened the last time Rupert Murdoch suggested purchasing media in Germany? How free is a media in which top journalists have to fight to get stories of critical importance past their editors if they can get them through at all? Maybe I am being a little too strong with my wording, but I think we have to seriously ask ourselves these questions...

@ WhatDoIKnow

All I can say is that the self-censorship I mentioned in red was fairly widespread and reached to the highest levels of media. If I could name names and list quotes your jaw would drop to the floor. I will try to get something on this on the record at some point. This is a potentially huge story.

[Gabi]

I remember something in TV after Schröder had to go (Bravo!), that he met with journalists on a regular base, that they developed a kind of "friendship", that journalsts were eager being part of this "circle" with privileges. I was shocked about the journalists behaviour.

[WhatDoIKnow]

I feel so sad to read about those censorship practices. All journalists who know about this should come forward and put the subject up for intense discussions. This should be a *huge* thema in Germany and all honest journalists, regardless of their political sympathies, should have an interest in claiming back their profession from the influence of censorship.

This is not about bashing Bush. I don't want the media to bash Bush and the US unfairly, as I don't want the media to praise them when they don't deserve it. I don't expect perfection; all I want is some fairness.

For me, the result of this will me even more cynicism and disgust with the German media (in fact, I imagine very well something like this happening in other EU countries as well). I am disappointed beyond words... There is one thought though, which comforts me greatly - I don't live in Germany anymore, I live in America.

[LC Mamapajamas]

WDIK: You are so right. It isn't a matter of which side you're on, but rather that there is a FAIR record of events. The current MSM is derelect in its most important responsibility, which is keeping an accurate record of events. They are so busy trying to create history, they've forgotten the definition of history.

I know what that exact definition is. I majored in prehistoric civilizations for my degree work, and was obviously required to know the difference between an historic and a prehistoric society.

An historic society is one that kept (keeps) daily records of everyday things, so that we might know for certain how events affect them. They write letters, keep diaries, keep records of bills, building plans, current events, etc. The sinking of the Titanic was not in itself history, it was an event; the history is the records of the event... the bills of lading, passenger manifests, survivor statements, hearing testimonies, etc... and including the newspaper articles about the event.

Two contemporaneous societies, Ancient Athens and the New Kingdom of Egypt, serve as an example. Athens was an historic society. They kept records of everything... we know exactly how the Parthenon was built, stone by stone... and they told us more than anyone ever wanted to know about them. We can give a blow-by-blow description of the Pelopenessian War and how it affected the people involved because of the profuse records they left.

The Egyptian New Kingdom, in spite of the fact that they existed partly in the same time frame as Golden Age Athens, was a prehistoric society, because they did NOT tell us much about themselves. The only records that we're aware of were either written by the Greeks, who did not care at all about the Egyptians, or they were the paintings on the wall of the pharoahs' tombs, which were mostly PR-- the pharoah telling the gods what a great guy he was. Thus we know that in the early years of her regency, Queen Hatshepsut led her army to defend her borders from the Hittites. But we have absolutely NO clue why that mattered to anyone. Were the Hittites any worse than the Egyptians? We will probably never know, and right now can only guess from archeological evidence. And that is the difference between historic and prehistoric societies. It is not an accident that Egyptology comes under the Department of Anthropology instead of the Department of History in the world's universities. Egypt doesn't have "history" until recent modern times; it has "anthropology".

Or, perhaps today's reporters DO know the exact definition of "history". A lot of them go into journalism because they say they want to change history, but are they "changing" it by influencing the powerful, or are they "changing" it by misreporting events? While either is serious, the latter is a grave dereliction of responsibility.

Their job is to report, and they are failing to do it. This situation is not a minor thing that can be fluffed over after a while. What future historians are going to be faced with is records of fact that do not correspond with events as reported by the MSM.

Our only hope for the truth to reign is these blogs giving an alternate viewpoint, and the hope that future historians will KNOW that today's media record is poisoned by bias.

[Don Miguel]

"Their job is to report, and they are failing to do it."

You hit the nail on the head. At one time I thought the field of journalism was being overrun by intellectual lightweights and laziness (actually, I still do). But in recent years, after reading so many articles and seeing TV interviews by journalism professors, I can only come to the conclusion that whatever students were taught decades ago has been replaced by some kind of activism in which the journalist is required not only to record events, but to shape them. An objective description of what happened (facts) is being replaced by a view of what happened (opinion). So the typical journalist these days is just a self-appointed elitist trying to tell the ignorant unwashed masses what is “really” going on. And just to make matters worse, a lot of them can’t even write worth a damn and even fewer seem to have much of a grasp of whatever they happen to be covering.

[americanbychoice]

Goebbels Lehrlinge haben in Ihrer Lehrzeit viel gelernt. Viele sind jetzt Gesellen und manche haben sogar Ihren Meisterbrief.

[Jorg-AtlanticReview]

Maybe the German media did not copy from this Wash Post op-ed, because they read the criticism of this op-ed in http://instapundit.com/archives/032203.php and http://crookedtimber.org/2006/08/27/death-rates-again/

[RayD]

@ Jorg,

The Instapundit argument is pretty weak considering that the article was talking about all US military personnel in Iraq and considering the fact that not all of Iraq is a warzone as the author states it is. There are parts of Iraq, such as the north, that are both peaceful and highly prosperous.

Crooked Timber (who doggedly defended the Lancet Study propaganda lie) also makes a less than convincing argument. It is clear from the article that the statistics include support troops as well as combat troops. His statement that troops die in large numbers is absolutely absurd in the context of any major military conflict. The United States lost 19000 killed in the Battle of the Bulge alone. Does that make World War II a disaster times a million? This is about putting things into perspective and that is precisely what the WaPo authors do a very good job of. Additionally, he uses the very flawed methodology he wrongly accuses the WaPo authors of. He says you would feel safe travelling to Phili than to Baghdad. But the authors were comparing all of Iraq (for US troops) to Phili for black men.

[Jorg-AtlanticReview]

Iraq is neither WWII nor Philly. Any comparison is wrong on sooo many levels.