[Marxism] US Journalists and War-Crime Guilt

[Dbachmozart@xxxxxxx]

October 15,2008 
By Peter Dyer 
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Editorâs Note: This year, the U.S. news media cheered the opening of the  
$450 million Newseum in Washington, a  self-congratulatory celebration of 
American journalism. 
However, rather than giving themselves that  expensive pat on the back, the 
major U.S.  media organizations might have done something to show remorse for 
their  complicity in the Bush administrationâs propaganda that justified the 
invasion  of Iraq. 
As freelance journalist Peter Dyer notes,  prosecutors at the Nuremberg 
Tribunals deemed such journalistic  support for war crimes to be a capital 
offense: 
October 16 is an anniversary that should  hold considerable interest for 
American journalists who have written in support  of âOperation Iraqi 
Freedomâ â 
the invasion and occupation of Iraq. 
 
Sixty-two years ago, on Oct. 16, 1946, Julius  Streicher was hanged. 
Streicher was one of a group of 10 Germans  executed that day following the 
judgment of the first Nuremberg Trial â a  40-week trial of 22 of the most 
prominent Nazis.  
Each was tried for two or more of the four  crimes defined in the Nuremberg 
Charter: crimes against peace (aggression), war  crimes, crimes against 
humanity, and conspiracy.

All who were  sentenced to death were major German government officials or 
military leaders.  Except for Streicher. 
Julius Streicher was a  journalist.

Editor of the vehemently anti-Semitic newspaper Der  StÃrmer, Streicher was 
convicted of, in the words of the judgment, âincitement  to murder and 
extermination at the time when Jews in the East were being killed  under the 
most 
horrible conditions clearly constitut(ing) â a crime against  humanity.â 
Presenting the case against Streicher,  British prosecutor Lieutenant Colonel 
M.C. Griffith-Jones said: âMy Lord, it may  be that this defendant is less 
directly involved in the physical commission of  the crimes against Jews. ... 
The submission of the Prosecution is that his crime  is no less the worse â 
that 
he made these things possible â made these crimes  possible which could never 
have happened had it not been for him and for those  like him. He led the 
propaganda and the education of the German people in those  ways.â 
The critical role of propaganda was affirmed  at Nuremberg not only by the 
prosecution and in the judgment but also in the  testimony of the most 
prominent 
Nazi defendant, Reichsmarshall Hermann  Goering:

âModern and total war develops, as I see it, along three  lines: the war of 
weapons on land, at sea and in the air; economic war, which  has become an 
integral part of every modern war; and, third, propaganda war,  which is also 
an 
essential part of this warfare.â 
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_http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/101408d.html_ 
(http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/101408d.html) 
 
 
 
âthe  great appear great to us only because we are on our knees. Let us  rise.
â

James Connolly
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