The Handwara, Kashmir teenage girl has been released from police custody after 27 days & an aggressive defense campaign by human rights activists. She spoke at a press conference today with her parents at her side & testified to the coercion & intimidation she endured. Her father & aunt had been detained with her with no charges filed against any of them.

The injustice against her is compounded by the shooting down of unarmed protesters who rallied to her defense. Khurram Parvez, a human rights activist involved in her defense campaign, wrote today: “While very eloquently explaining the events from molestation by Indian soldier to the abuse & threats by the police during 27 days illegal detention, the Handwara minor girl also said, that if her brothers gave their lives for her dignity & integrity, how can she give up on her struggle for justice. She said, she will fight for herself & also for those who were brutally killed in Handwara after sexual assault on her.”

A Facebook friend posted this statement by the boxer Muhammad Ali, who in 1967 risked his career & championship title to resist the draft for the Vietnam War. Now that he has Parkinson’s, they are trying to morph him into a whipped puppy & an icon of patriotism. But he was a fearless & outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War & they can never take that away from him.

“My conscience won’t let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud for big powerful America. And shoot them for what? They never called me nigger, they never lynched me, they didn’t put no dogs on me, they didn’t rob me of my nationality, rape and kill my mother and father. … Shoot them for what? How can I shoot them poor people? Just take me to jail.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd9aIamXjQI

This should be the purpose of photojournalism in war & occupation: to show the experience of civilians. To show what war is really all about. If they do their job right, they will make us hate war.

This photo from January 1966 is Vietnamese civilians being “escorted” by US paratroopers & reportedly taking cover from Viet Cong fire in an area outside Saigon,

How many photojournalist accounts of civilians do you recall from Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Pakistan, Kashmir? There is very little from over a year of bombing in Yemen, more from Assad’s bombing in Syria, & nothing from Israel’s recent incursion into Gaza.

It’s been 41 years since the Vietnamese defeated & sent the US military packing in April 1975, But for millions of antiwar activists around the world who went through that war it will always remain one of the most wrenching political experiences of our lives. It signaled the end of illusions about our government, dealt a mighty blow to the racism that justifies war, ended (until after 9/11) years of films & propaganda glorifying war under the banner of democracy, & overcame the political repression of the McCarthy era of the 1950s.

The CBS show “60 Minutes” had an interesting retrospective on the journalistic career of Morley Safer who is retiring. A segment on his coverage of the Vietnam War showed his report & video of US soldiers torching a village to punish them for collaboration with the Viet Cong. Safer said it was part of the “pacification” program employed to win the hearts & minds of the Vietnamese & made a mocking comment about that in the segment.

Does anyone remember where such reporting appeared in US media? The US government allowed more media coverage of the Vietnam War than of previous wars. But the Pentagon considered the restrained coverage of Vietnam so damaging that reporters were put on lockdown thereafter & embedded up the ass of the military.

Reposting from three years ago today; it’s one of the rare instances when media reported the monstrous details of US occupation. This incident was reported one & a-half years after Obama announced an end to the Iraq War. Obama will go down in history for his toothy-assed grin & his diplomatic stunt of declaring ongoing wars ended.
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“The US war against Iraq again provides a compelling answer to the question, “Why do they hate us?” Wasn’t it the Nazis who introduced tattooing numbers on Russian POWS & at Auschwitz & other extermination camps? The barbaric practice has always been seen as dehumanizing & ignominious.