Life during Wartime

Little Cambodia

The Israeli stampede through the West Bank has transformed the area into a little Cambodia. So says John Caruso, a San Francisco peace activist who recently returned from the occupied territories. "There's all kinds of unexploded ordnance," Caruso relates. "Some of it is Israeli; some of it is Palestinian."

And some of the leftover bombs are turning unwitting people into hamburger, prompting United Nations relief workers to offer "mine awareness" training for Palestinians.

"We believe both sides have been using improvised booby trap devices, which are covered under the international land mine treaty," says Mary Wareham, a Middle East analyst at Human Rights Watch. "But so far we haven't come across any factory-manufactured land mines." According to Wareham, 45 Palestinian civilians have been killed or maimed by unexploded ordnance since the beginning of 2002.

As for Caruso, his voyage to the war zone was cut short by Israeli authorities. He was one of 13 antiwar types who staged a diversionary protest May 2 at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where Palestinian civilians were trapped by a running battle between Palestinian gunmen and Israeli troops. While Caruso's group waved placards, 10 other activists slipped into the church, bringing food to people inside. Caruso and several other males were promptly jailed and deported.

The female protesters, however, were treated differently. "The women in our group were put in jeeps and dropped off by themselves at random locations at two in the morning," he reports.

What about the activists who got inside? As we go to press, four of Caruso's comrades, including former Bay Area resident Trevor Baumgartner, are being held in an Israeli jail cell, charged with "collaborating with the enemy" and "entering a closed military zone." (A.C. Thompson)

Justice for all

"Lock Him Up and Throw Away Every Single Key." That February Rob Morse column headline in the San Francisco Chronicle sums up public opinion when it comes to John Walker Lindh.

But as Harper's contributing editor Edwin Dobb points out in his May "Should John Walker Lindh Go Free?" cover story, there are serious deficiencies in the government's case against the so-called Marin Taliban. For one, Dobb says, the prosecution's case rests almost entirely on the self-incriminating verbal and written statements Walker Lindh gave to the Federal Bureau of Investigation while in custody. The defense contends those statements should be suppressed because of Walker's physical and mental condition at the time. "When Walker Lindh was finally brought before FBI agents – having gone days without sleep or much food, his injuries largely untreated, fearing for his life – did he appreciate the implications of waiving his right to remain silent and to have counsel present?" Dobb writes.

Dobb, a visiting lecturer at the UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, doesn't take a position on the question posed by his article's headline. In an interview with us he said he thinks a strong case can be made on either side. But he believes the case underscores the problems with how suspected criminals are treated in a democratic society. "The case is not merely a sideline to the war or the effort to curb terrorism; it really does raise some serious questions, especially as concerns interrogation methods," he says.

Dobb writes that U.S. police interrogators routinely use deceptive pressure tactics to extract confessions and to persuade suspects to waive Miranda rights. Those methods frequently involve coercion, which is banned under constitutional amendments regarding due process and self-incrimination.

Still, don't wartime conditions call for extreme tactics?

"If we can't have a free and open discussion about the process, we are undermining the very principles we say we are fighting for in the war on terrorism," Dobb says. (Daniel Zoll)

Anchor's away

According to CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather, the Bush administration's control over media access to war information is as tight as a too-small bathing suit on a too-hot car ride back from the beach. OK, Rather didn't actually say that (though he did say something similar about the last presidential election). But according to Associated Press, Rather told the BBC May 16 that the administration is failing to provide adequate access to the fighting and the information it has about the war.

"There has never been an American war, small or large, in which access has been so limited as this one," Rather said on British television, adding that he was sorry to say that the American people have accepted these limitations.

Rather added that strong patriotism has led some journalists to engage in self-censorship. (Zoll)

Death and destruction in stunning 3-D!!!

Revenues in the news business have been in the crapper for the last year, but now – hallelujah! – a little-known outfit called American Paper Optics is poised to turn that around, good taste be damned.

The company, which bills itself as "the world's leading manufacturer of Paper 3-D Glasses," is offering magazines and newspapers the chance to publish a special spread of 3-D photographs of Sept. 11 – complete with red-white-and-blue glasses.

We gave a call to Bartlett, Tenn., to talk with the masterminds behind the project. "National Geographic looked at the pictures for a while," American Paper Optics president John Jarit said. Sadly, though, the venerable mag decided "the pictures didn't have the right journalistic appeal."

They're not the only ones who've turned Jerit down. For some unfathomable reason, the idea of rendering carnage in three stunning dimensions (or at least a hokey, headache-inducing semblance of real life) is proving a tough sell: Jerit is sad to report that so far only eight publications have shown any interest in the pics. (Olivia deBree)

Al-Qaeda's next target: Pebble Beach?

All the talk these days about terrorist threats has many people feeling edgy. Still, you wouldn't expect golfers to be more paranoid than the president.

That's why we were surprised to learn that the U.S. Golf Association fears it faces an attack next month at the U.S. Open at Bethpage State Park in Long Island, N.Y.

The golf pros recently unveiled a new policy of performing background checks on journalists who want to cover the event, according to the Society of Professional Journalists. Tennis players are also running scared: the U.S. Tennis Association is implementing the same policy for its U.S. Open at Flushing Meadows, N.Y., in August.

That means the sporting groups want broad permission to review "any and all records" relating to reporters covering their events.

It goes without saying that – even in a post-Sept. 11 world – the move is a tad extreme.

"These demands may be the most intrusive made of journalists at any sporting event in this country," the SPJ wrote in a letter to the golfers. "They could lead to the disclosure of private information, such as medical and financial data, and could be interpreted as harassment."

Even last November when President George W. Bush visited Fort Campbell, a military base in Kentucky, reporters were only required to produce a photo ID and a letter confirming employment, the SPJ says.