BEIJING, 30 March 2003 — The reports are gripping, visceral, passionate — products of a fast-moving war and the fast-moving media racing to process it. Around the world, news columns and airwaves crackle with conflict, amassing a first rough draft of dismay, condemnation and occasional support.
An Indian journalist warns that the United States “seems headed for a quagmire.” An Indonesian newspaper upbraids the “barbaric invasion” of American forces. “The USA underestimated Iraq,” a Swedish paper says. And from a Sri Lanka daily: “Stop this war forthwith.”
“How can Washington achieve its democratic ends if much of the world believes its means are undemocratic?” a reporter for Singapore’s Straits Times, Janadas Devan, wrote in a commentary Friday.
After a week of fighting, the world’s media are steeped in coverage of the US invasion of Iraq. Much of it is emotional, some of it is highly critical of the United States and a bit of it is supportive.
From Russia to Latin America, Africa to Southeast Asia, newspapers and TV stations are pulling out all the stops to deliver information — and strong opinions — to their readers and viewers. Often that involves distinct criticism of the United States.
“So far, we have seen no weapons of mass destruction in the coalition forces’ march from southern Iraq to Baghdad,” Ana Marie Pamintuan wrote Friday in the Philippine Star. “So far, we have not seen the whoops of joy that you expect from liberated people.”
In Britain, the top US ally though its citizenry is divided, the tabloids are robustly patriotic: “Desert heroes close in on tyrant’s henchmen,” Thursday’s edition of The Sun said. War coverage there is so intense that some newspapers have columnists to cover the coverage. Most aren’t impressed.
“History does suggest that the midst of battle is the most confusing place from which to make sense of it,” Catherine Bennett wrote in The Guardian.
In China, state TV has been offering unprecedented blanket coverage and its version of analysis and, like state-controlled newspapers, reflects the government’s opposition to the war. The Communist Party newspaper People’s Daily invoked former US President Jimmy Carter’s anti-war comments in its coverage.
“When will the humanitarian disasters end?” the People’s Daily wondered Friday. In another article, it said: “Unilateralism has been running wild since the Bush administration took office.”
Across Arab nations, sentiment appears to be running squarely against US action. In Cairo, a front-page column Friday by Al-Ahram’s editor in chief, Ibrahim Nafie, featured this headline: “Stop aggression against Iraq before it’s too late.” The popular satellite network Al-Jazeera, condemned in the United States for its coverage of Iraq and using footage of coalition forces’ corpses, said it had a duty to show the world casualties no matter where they’re from.
“War has victims from both sides,” Al-Jazeera’s editor in chief, Ibrahim Hilal, said Thursday. “If you don’t show both sides, you are not covering.” In Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim nation, opposition is running high and photos of dead US or British soldiers, Iraqi civilian victims and news of coalition setbacks are played prominently.
“The cradle of civilization is being destroyed by those who call themselves civilized,” Jakarta’s Republika newspaper said in an editorial Thursday.
The newspaper Eleftherotypia in Greece, where anti-war sentiment runs high, had this to say Thursday: “This is a political defeat and marks the collapse of the myth of liberation.” And in Kenya, a “before and after” cartoon in Friday’s East African standard showed Saddam Hussein with Horns and George W. Bush with a halo. The next panel showed it the other way around.
One English-language newspaper in Bangkok is offering a unique take. The Nation has published daily reports about life under bombardment from a Thai law student holed up in a Baghdad apartment near one of Saddam’s presidential palaces.
“The whole city was being lit up. Huge clouds of smoke hung in the air. Then a missile whizzed past just over our heads. My heart was in my mouth,” 30-year-old Wanich Amnuayphorn wrote.
In Italy, the airwaves are brimming with military experts, political analysts and politicians to augment correspondents’ coverage. It’s “all-news television without the news,” Italy’s foremost TV critic says.
“During these shows, we are treated to a mix of low-level opinions and unconfirmed bits of news,” Aldo Grasso said Friday. Such an approach, he said, “leaves the viewer with a sense of confusion and anxiety and with a fragmented, puzzle-like view of the war.”
Many media outlets are covering anti-war protests heavily as well. In Denmark, The Politiken, one of the country’s three largest dailies, said the media covering the conflict are being manipulated. “One barely wants to repeat it: When at war, the truth is first victim,” the newspaper said. “And the present war is no exception to the rule.”
