The international NGO Reporters Without Borders, which advocates freedom of the press, releases an annual worldwide press freedom index. Countries are ranked on the basis of surveys designed to record any kind of harassment of journalists and state violence against them that forces them to flee or abandon their work. In 2002, under Saddam Hussein and his draconian control of the media, Iraq ranked a dismal 130. In 2006, after three years of U.S. occupation, Iraq fell to 154. The NGO has also declared Iraq to be among the world’s worst hostage market, with 38 journalist kidnappings in three years.

–Dahr Jamail, from “Another Casualty: Coverage of the Iraq War” (emphasis mine)

You got that right…according to Reporters Without Borders, press freedom is WORSE today in Iraq that it was under Hussein. Partly this is just because the situation is so violent there that no one is safe, especially not people who have to gather information in different parts of town. Anything you can say will offend somebody, and somebody probably has a gun. But it’s also the consequence of direct suppression, such as the 2004 shutdown of al-Jazeera. It’s remarkable how many self-described freedom-loving Americans see nothing wrong with that. I mean, supposing Clinton had shut down Fox News for their negative coverage and endless, anti-government hit-pieces? It strikes me there would have been some ruckus about that. But it’s really only Americans whose freedom of speech counts; for everyone else, freedom means being Americanized. That’s the premise of American imperialism, and it always has been, ever since the days of disease-carrying blankets and prairie missionaries. If you self-consciously, articulately disagree with that, you’re considered disloyal…which, considering what you’re supposed to be loyal to, YOU ARE.

The U.S. directly manipulates and controls media in Iraq, planting stories partly to affect public opinion there, partly to affect it back here. The American government does not hesitate to censor. For example, according to Jamail’s article, Iraq’s Media High Commission sent a letter on the prime minister’s letterhead warning reporters to, “Stick to the government line on the U.S. led offensive in Fallujah or face legal action,” and “set aside space in your news coverage to make the position of the Iraqi government, which expresses the aspirations of most Iraqis, clear.”

Before anyone gets mad over the title of my post, let me state explicitly that it’s meant in a sarcastic spirit, and of course Hussein’s suffocating dictatorship was anything but “anything goes” for journalists. That makes this report, if it’s even remotely justified, all the sadder.

The only thing I would take issue with in the paragraph I quoted above is the last sentence, in which Reporters Without Borders calls Iraq “among the world’s worst hostage markets, with 38 journalist kidnappings in three years.” It seems to me that would make it among the world’s best hostage markets. Let’s face it: if you going to plunk down some good money to get a hostage, the thing you want is SELECTION.