[Imc-radio] Investigative Journalist on Iraq available for interviews Aug 24-26

[Dave Berliner]

Thanks,

I would like to talk with him for IMC Radio News.
Could I talk with him for about an hour while he is in town?
Maybe he could host a forum at the IMC.

Dave Berliner

On Thursday, August 11, 2005, at 11:11  AM, Danielle Chynoweth wrote:

> Pacfica reporter Aaron Glantz, an investigative journalist who as been 
> an
> unebbedded reporter in Iraq will be in town August 24-26ish. He just
> published a book - How American Lost Iraq - which recently made the 
> best
> seller list for the San Fran Chronicle.  It is full of stories I have 
> read
> no where else.
>
> He is available for a prerecorded interview or to be interviewed on the
> air while he is in town.
>
> Here is his itinerary so far:
> 10am, Thursday, August 25 appearance on "Focus 580" on WILL-AM 580
> 7pm, Thursday, August 25, book reading and signing at Pages For All 
> Ages
>
> Contact me if you are interested in interviewing him. I am scheduling 
> his
> time here.
>
> - Danielle
>
>
> MORE INFO
> --
> Join Pacifica's Aaron Glantz on the West Coast tour of his new book, 
> How
> America Lost Iraq.
>
> This is not the happy story of liberating Iraq and replacing 
> dictatorship
> with democracy President Bush and the mainstream American media would 
> have
> us believe.
>
> How American Lost Iraq (Tarcher/Penguin; isbn 1-58542-426-9; May 19, 
> 2005,
> $23.95) tells the story of how the U.S. government squandered, through 
> a
> series of blunders and brutalities, the goodwill with which most 
> Iraqi’s
> greeted the American invasion and the elation they felt at the fall of
> Saddam Hussein.
>
> As President Bush pushed the country toward war with Iraq in the early
> months of 2003, Pacifica Radio reporter Aaron Glantz warned of the 
> tragic
> consequences that would follow. But once he arrived in Iraq, the 
> reality
> he found stunned him. In dozens of interviews, Iraqi citizens spoke of
> their deep gratitude to the Americans for ousting the dictator who had
> oppressed them for thirty years. Even Iraqis whose homes had been
> destroyed and who suffered from the lack of clean water, electricity, 
> and
> other basic services, felt these sacrifices were worth the freedom 
> America
> had promised them. Glantz interviewed one man who vowed to name his 
> first
> son George Bush.
>
> But as the occupation dragged on—as more and more Iraqis were thrown in
> Abu Ghraib without being charged; as the necessities of daily life, 
> such
> as drinking water and electricity, went lacking; and as the American 
> army
> failed to control lootings and rampant street violence—tensions began 
> to
> rise.
>
> Then, with the spectacular killings and grisly display of four American
> contractors, those tensions exploded. Instead of negotiating, the 
> United
> States made the fateful decision to attack Fallujah, a colossal mistake
> that would enrage even moderate Muslims and turn simmering resentment 
> into
> armed resistance.
>
> With gripping eyewitness accounts, Glantz takes readers inside Fallujah
> and shows what embedded reporters failed to reveal—the deliberate 
> killing
> of Iraqi civilians by American Marines and the devastating effects of
> American bombing in a densely populated city. Glantz shows that 
> ordinary
> Iraqi civilians—men, women, and children—were shot and killed simply 
> for
> leaving their houses, or for trying to rescue those who lay wounded in 
> the
> streets. Even humanitarian aid workers who tried to take the wounded to
> the hospital in clearly marked ambulances were shot at by American
> snipers. We learn of one brave couple that held their marriage ceremony
> with bombs falling around them.
>
> When the fighting in Fallujah was over, after the relentless aerial
> assault and sniper fire had ceased, 600 Iraqi citizens were dead and
> America’s status as liberators had been completely destroyed.
>
> It wasn’t just Sunni’s in Fallujah that America attacked. As the same
> time, U.S. forces shut down Shi’te cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s newspaper,
> Al-Hawza al-Natiqa (The Spoken Islamic Universe) and accused Sadr 
> himself
> of murder, which triggered an armed uprising across the Shi’ite South.
>
> Throughout the book, Glantz goes beyond the safety of the heavily
> protected Green Zone where most reporters remain to get at the truth of
> life in Iraq under the American occupation: the mass incarcerations, 
> the
> brutally high levels of civilian casualties, the bombings of mosques, 
> the
> repression of free speech, and the ongoing failure of contractors like
> Halliburton and Bechtel to provide Iraqis with water, telephone 
> service,
> electricity and other basic needs. It is these acts, Glantz shows, that
> are fueling the insurgency and generating lasting enmity to the 
> American
> presence in Iraq.
>
> In How American Lost Iraq, we are given—for the first time—the voices 
> of
> Iraqis themselves, unmediated by Pentagon spokespersons or mainstream 
> news
> anchors. What they have to tell us, in Aaron Glantz’s moving and
> courageous book, is a truth that all Americans need to hear.
>
> Aaron Glantz is a reporter for Pacifica Radio and lives in Los Angeles.
> More info at www.aaaronglantz.com
>
> "He does what the embedded media can't and takes a look at the US 
> military
> through the perspective of Iraqi people. …. A fascinating piece of
> intrepid reporting."
>
> --Laura Flanders, host The Laura Flanders Show on Air America Radio and
> author of Bushwomen
>
> "Aaron Glantz learned first-hand the painful lessons that every 
> American
> had better understand to prevent future military escapades that 
> undermine
> real security and freedom. Shut off your TV, put down the paper, and 
> read
> the gripping truth of How America Lost Iraq."  -- John Stauber, 
> co-author,
> Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush’s War on Iraq
>
> "How America Lost Iraq, reflects courage and strong willingness to 
> promote truth. "
> ---Jamal Tahat, collumnist, al-Rai'i newspaper, Amman, Jordan
>
> "How America Lost Iraq, Aaron Glantz's unembedded book about Iraq under
> U.S. occupation is now a bestseller. It made #9 on the San Francisco
> Chronicle's list.
>
> Here^Rs what the Seattle Times had to say:
>
> "A no holds barred look at our Iraq quagmire ^E an important 
> first-person
> document historians will look to in the future as they draw a more
> complete picture of America's catastrophic victory in Iraq. ---Seattle
> Times
>
> Publisher^Rs Weekly gave How America Lost Iraq a starred review
>
> "Glantz's account is full of interviews with ordinary Iraqis, and from
> their evolving thoughts and experiences he builds a critique of the 
> many
> American misconceptions about Iraq, one that castigates equally the 
> left's
> knee-jerk preconceptions, the occupation authorities' cluelessness and
> heavy-handed misrule and the media's lack of interest in the suffering 
> of
> Iraqis. The result is a nuanced and hard-hitting indictment.^T
>
> ---Publisher^Rs Weekly
>
> "explains the reality of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq -
> essential reading"
>
> -Amy Goodman, Host Democracy Now!
>
>
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