Even as the World Watched II: Tasting the Kool-Aid
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Published: 05 July 2010
Chiang Mai, Thailand
This journalist was all over the place. She stood out from the crowd for obvious reasons. One evening, as the sun was setting, she was walking down a mostly desolate street not far from Dusit Thani hotel, and she was alone with that little camera. Soldiers were here and there, and I thought, “That’s a brave woman.” She walked by and I never said hello. On another day, she walked by and I was talking with some journalist whose name I never got, and said that if she took off that helmet and body armor you might think she is just another pretty face, but she’s not just another pretty face, is she? The journalist said that he had once seen her at another time, and she was curled up on the ground, sleeping by a trash can, and he said she is a brave one indeed.
On another day there had been much fighting and some journalists were out in the middle of it but I did not go to the middle. I watched from the edges as a writer instead of a photographer, but this one apparently had dived in because he was sweating and more covered in soot than this photo seems to reveal.
Despite the danger, witnesses were out there, seemingly by the hundreds.
Often the journalists waited, as do soldiers.
(Note: Photos in this dispatch are not in chronological or “geographic” order, but are ordered thematically. This is not a comprehensive accounting of the Bangkok fighting. There are probably thousands of accounts online.)
This was a strange battle area. Surrounded by modern buildings, nice hotels and the trappings of a modern city, you could dive into a 7-Eleven for a cold drink. I tried to buy tampons in case of bullet wounds but tampons are hard to come by in Thailand, so, having left my gear in Afghanistan, I bought pads instead.
Any helmet was better than none. Protestors often used slingshots with iron ingots, lugnuts, marbles and rocks.
Cameras everywhere.
The world was watching.
Comments
Would love to see your reference that the U.S. Government is censoring news coming out of the Gulf regarding the oil spill.
Just ran across this today and thought you might be interested in it.
Background:
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/A_Coup_for_the_Rich:_Thailand's_Political_Cri sis,_2007
http://file.wikileaks.org/file/a-coup-for-the-rich.pdf
http://www.ethicsoup.com/2010/07/more-evidence-that-va-hospitals-can-kill-you-now-1800-more-vets-may-be-infected-with-hiv.html
I'm sorry, but I don't like the idea of journalists as combatants. Sometimes it is necessary -- I've read that Ernie Pyle picked up a rifle to defend his camp on more than one occasion.
But right or wrong, a fighting journalist is a biased journalist, and with loss of objectivity can come loss of impartial truths.
I know that Taliban are evil -- my government and news media tells me so. But "Taliban" is a class of people -- men, women and children, indoctrinated, often conscripted, and to use an old term, brainwashed. Just like the "Evil Empire" was a large class of individuals of different ethnic groups, women and children, and in that long cold war, conquered people, abandoned to the CCCP at the end of a true world war. How many of the Evil Empire were really allies who would have been cannon fodder should push come to shove.
Consider Cuba, where a diverse group of races and city folk, mountain folk, farmers, fisherman, and others were liberated by the humanitarian Fidel Castro, and the masochistic Dr., Che Guevara. While the Castro brothers truly fought for their peoples liberation from generations of demigod dictators, the "good" Dr. Guevara was executing thousands, many personally with a bullet in the back of the head, in the Havana stadium. Very efficient. Jack Kevorkian was by no means the first "Dr. Death" of the 20th century. There were many, including the Nazi Mengele, and the Argentine Guevara, who would have done the same in Africa and South America had he been allowed by our intelligence services.
It sounds as if I've lost the thread of my argument, but I'm making a point about boundaries. Soldiers are soldiers, journalists are journalists. Medics are medics, and the Japanese army was famous for shooting or committing suicide while being treated by US medics in the Pacific. These are the kinds of things that happen when boundaries are crossed arbitrarily.
What happens if a paranoiac force like the Taliban decides that journalists are actually enemy spies -- do all journalists then become fair game?
Please, avoid the slippery slope and encourage your colleagues to do the same. The right of journalists to be recognized as non-combatants has been fought for in previous conflicts, just like the fair treatment of POWs, and medics.
Granted, we may be dealing with an enemy, some of whom do not recognize the rules of so-called civilized society. Even so, this is a job for the military, not for journalists, or medics.
Those journalists who wish to fight, now have options in private industry to get into the fray, thanks to the younger Bush administration. Let them join Blackwater or its new incarnation, or any of the other 100 or so mercenary corporations that have sprung up since Iraq 2003.
But when a journalist picks a target, throws a grenade, or launches an attack, they are no longer a journalist -- they are now combatants and threaten the neutral status of fellow journalists.
In my opinion these acts muddy the water, confuse the mission, and endangers the hard one concessions of the Geneva Conventions and other agreements of past wars, in the spirit of the concentration camps at Guantanamo and other sites hidden around the world by our government.
It's an evil idea.
Mostly correct. The soldiers (British and U.S.) never opposed my picking up a weapon. Only the Pentagon, and then only knuckleheads at the Pentagon who were not there. Soldiers give you a high-five. Both U.S. and British often have pushed weapons my way but it's a rare occasion that I will pick one up while embedded. I will never fire a weapon while embedded under circumstances that a reasonable U.S. judge and an Infantry commander would not say, "I would have done it, too." That's always my test. I ask myself, in about 1/10th of a second, "What will the Commander say, and what will the judge say?" If the answer is YES and YES the answer is clear.
Another important note: I have never been a journalist and do not claim to be a journalist. This is not a slag on journalists. Among my close friends are journalists. Some of my friends are scientists and doctors, too, and I am not a scientist or doctor. I am merely a writer and during unembedded situations am sometimes armed. Some journalists go armed, others roll their eyes as if it's a lowbrow thing to do. That is their choice. And besides, they are journalists and have their own rules/ethics. If they are unfamiliar with weapons, it might well be better to be unarmed. If they are extremely familiar with weapons and are willing to use them to save their life, in some situations it's far smarter to be armed. Firearms are as familiar to me as is a stapler to a secretary. Being a writer does not make anyone immune to being shot or kidnapped. Air Force medics in Afghanistan have miniguns on their helicopters, and they carry assault rifles. Journalists who insists on ALWAYS being unarmed are silly. They will get raped, tortured and murdered just like the rest.
You've been a soldier and know what to expect. I understand it won't make it any easier when shit happens. But I feel bad for the people who approach chaos, witness first-hand the horror, and are maybe never the same. I guess they're the amateurs?
And the "shooters", well they see the worst don't they? If you've got a camera and get the shot, you've preserved that terrible moment in time. Of course sometimes you get a shot that is truly great in the process - that pic of the US soldier holding the little injured Iraqi child comes to mind. The writer - well, maybe they can avoid that moment since they didn't need to get so close. Maybe they didn't need to bear personal witness. And if you shoot and write - well, I guess you get the whole deal.
I very much respect your willingness to be injured while providing insight that would be otherwise impossible to get.
Please do be careful . . . .
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