UNPUBLISHED LETTER TO IRISH TIMES RE. LACK OF MEDIA COVERAGE OF CARNAGE IN MOSUL, IRAQ

Sir,
why is there no media and public outcry over the appalling indiscriminate killing and destruction in Mosul, which according to the mainstream media has recently been ‘liberated’? Surely the impact on the civilian population is comparable to what occurred in Aleppo last year, which received widespread media coverage?
In his report from the war front (Body bags in the boot: the battle for Mosul, News Review 15 July 2017) which was high in emotion but short on facts and analysis, RTE reporter Fergal Keane tells us that the Iraqi authorities do not want us to know either the number of civilian casualties killed by coalition airstrikes nor the number of military casualties.
The Iraqi authorities have probably inherited this practice from their paymasters in the US military who have always refused to count the victims of their war games. It is however the duty of investigative journalists to try to ascertain these figures.
Keane could have quoted the recent detailed report by Amnesty International, that refers to the figures produced by the monitoring group Airways, which estimates that during the four-month period of February to June this year over 5,800 civilians have been killed due to attacks by Iraqi and coalition forces alone. For comparison that is three times the number of civilians that were killed in Northern Ireland during the 30-year conflict.
It is likely that some of these were killed in the massive attack that caused the four-storey deep crater that Keane describes. It is clear that western coalition and Iraqi forces have shown a flagrant disregard for the lives of civilians not unlike their counterparts in Da’esh. This terrible violence only worsens the suffering of ordinary Iraqis and deepens the sectarian strife set in train by the disastrous Bush / Blair invasion of 2003 and weakens the possibilities for peace and justice in Iraq anytime soon.

Sir,
why is there no media and public outcry over the appalling indiscriminate killing and destruction in Mosul, which according to the mainstream media has recently been ‘liberated’? Surely the impact on the civilian population is comparable to what occurred in Aleppo last year, which received widespread media coverage?
In his report from the war front (Body bags in the boot: the battle for Mosul, News Review 15 July 2017) which was high in emotion but short on facts and analysis, RTE reporter Fergal Keane tells us that the Iraqi authorities do not want us to know either the number of civilian casualties killed by coalition airstrikes nor the number of military casualties.
The Iraqi authorities have probably inherited this practice from their paymasters in the US military who have always refused to count the victims of their war games. It is however the duty of investigative journalists to try to ascertain these figures.
Keane could have quoted the recent detailed report by Amnesty International, that refers to the figures produced by the monitoring group Airways, which estimates that during the four-month period of February to June this year over 5,800 civilians have been killed due to attacks by Iraqi and coalition forces alone. For comparison that is three times the number of civilians that were killed in Northern Ireland during the 30-year conflict.
It is likely that some of these were killed in the massive attack that caused the four-storey deep crater that Keane describes. It is clear that western coalition and Iraqi forces have shown a flagrant disregard for the lives of civilians not unlike their counterparts in Da’esh. This terrible violence only worsens the suffering of ordinary Iraqis and deepens the sectarian strife set in train by the disastrous Bush / Blair invasion of 2003 and weakens the possibilities for peace and justice in Iraq anytime soon.
Perhaps there is no public outcry because we are not hearing the facts and analysis from the media?
Yours etc.
JIM ROCHE,
PRO Irish Anti-War Movement,
PO Box 9260,
Dublin 1.
Contact:
Jim Roche, PRO, Steering Committee IAWM, Tel. 087 647 2737
Edward Horgan, Steering Committee IAWM, Tel. 085 851 9623
Glenda Cimino, Steering Committee IAWM, Tel. 086 124 9456
John Molyneux, Secretary, Steering Committee IAWM, Tel. 085 735 6424
Michael Youlton, Chair, Steering Committee IAWM, Tel. 086 815 9487
Memet Uludag, Steering Committee IAWM, Tel. 087 7919307
For more information on the IAWM see:
Website – www.irishantiwar.org
@IrishAntiWarMvt https://twitter.com/#!/IrishAntiWarMvt
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