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Re: [casi] List of mass grave sites in Iraq with sources



Dan,

Actually, I placed this link here because I thought it was a useful research tool for members of 
the list, certainly one that I was intending to use myself.

But I do have many serious doubts as to the quality of some of the reports coming out of Iraq, 
which is why I think that such an important subject ought to be undertaken by an official judicial 
organisation not the subject of press releases such as "200 Kurdish children found in mass grave, 
buried with their dolls" as was released by one tiny Kurdish group.  Who knows exactly what 
relation to reality that bears?

I take your point that Archeaologists for Human Rights are just monitoring news media reports, but 
in that case they should call themselves Media Monitors for Human Rights.  A group with such a name 
you would expect to be undertaking serious forensic investigations, this doesnt seem to be 
happening anywhere.

As regards to faking photos, you seem to have placed that in the wrong thread, as I have post at 
least two photos a month ago from the US state department website that no one disputed were 
obviously NOT from a mass grave site.  In the more post, I should have placed the article it was 
from....
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/iraqwar/story/0,4395,187250,00.html
I would also note that whoever took that picture gave the coat the bones are placed in a good wash 
as well, because after 12 years of decomposition that removed all traces of flesh and hair, the 
coat is remarkably unsoiled.  The photo at the top of a line of white sheets again seems to be 
lacking any signs of meaningful evacuation and far, far away from habitation or cultivation in the 
middle of the desert.  It is clearly many miles from any large city such as Najaf, population half 
a million.  Nor is this farmland is claimed in many of the media reports on this subject.

You are correct to say it is very difficult to tell if a photo is faked from looking at it, that is 
why I believe those that I discuss are only the tip of the iceberg.  Both HRW and Amnesty 
Internation rely heavily on media reports for information sources.

You say "Journalists don't record everything!"  That in my view is hardly the problem, the problem 
is that journalists record way too much!  When you get journalists like Robert Fisk describing 
burial scenes that include giant tombs of Saddam's mother and graves of children killed in a 
bombing raid nearby when photos taken of the site quite clearly show the three graves are alone, 
isolated in a large empty field suggest that our media have a problem, a giant credibility problem.

The question is not is the media lying, but how much and why.  That may not be a popular view in 
some quarters but one I have every intention of pushing here.

Tom





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