Mainstream Media, MoveOn, Ignored Iraq Veterans' 'Winter Soldier' Investigation

by John Stauber — March 13, 2008 - 5:30pm
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Kelly Dougherty, the former sergeant who is the executive director of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), announced on March 13th the start of the group's three-day Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan investigation into the United States' conduct of its wars, featuring testimony of scores of anti-war veterans. Dougherty promised that "No longer will public debate on the Global War on Terror be framed solely by politicians and pundits. IVAW will use the ongoing Winter Soldier project to ... broaden and strengthen our strategy to end the Iraq occupation." The Winter Soldiers at IVAW held a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington to kickoff their hearings, and luckily were not relying on the mainstream media who attended the news conference but then almost entirely ignored the three days of testimony. "Every minute of testimony will be broadcast live and will be available to watch in an online on-demand library." The pro-war lobby, including Eagles Up, the Gathering of Eagles, Move America Forward, Free Republic and commentator Michelle Malkin condemned and protested the event. With the exception of Dennis Kucinich, politicians did not attend, and the major Democratic Party-aligned peace groups with multi-million dollar budgets, such as MoveOn and Americans Against Escalation in Iraq also completely ignored the riveting Winter Soldier testimony and failed to publicize it to the millions of people on their email lists.

Main Source: 
Irag Veterans Against the War, March 13, 2008

Comments

Here is an excellent, brief NPR story.

Submitted by John Stauber on March 18, 2008 - 1:49pm.

Winter Soldiers Tell Stories of War : NPR

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88346816&sc=emaf

Mainstream Media Blacked Out Winter Soldier

Submitted by John Stauber on March 17, 2008 - 8:39am.

I'm disgusted but certainly not surprised that the mainstream media ignored Winter Soldier. This has been typical of coverage since 9/11 when corporate media became cheerleaders for war. Here is an article from the Boston Globe, one of the very few mainstream articles, and a brief one.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/03/16/veterans_recall_horrors_of_war_in_live_broadcast/

Coverage in military-oriented publications

Submitted by John Stauber on March 16, 2008 - 3:23pm.

Kelly Dougherty sent an email today noting that Winter Soldier has been featured in the Middle East Edition of [http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=53321 Stars and Stripes], and that an [http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/03/ap_wintersoldier_031508/ Associated Press story] appeared in the Army Times, Navy Times, Air Force Times and Marine Corps Times.

Rare example of corporate media coverage of WS

Submitted by John Stauber on March 15, 2008 - 7:53am.

Here is a Washington Post story on the MSNBC site. A rare example of some mainstream media coverage.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23645646/