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U.S. Attacks and the Bombing of Afghanistan
The Digital Double Standard
By Wagdy A. Sawahel 02/11/2001
Internet libraries store digital material from the Internet to preserve a record of historical documents and give free, permanent access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public. Although Internet and TV archives have been developed for the plane attacks on America, the media has not been given access to images of Afghanistan after the start of U.S.-led air strikes, i.e. the public do not get the complete picture, but a sanitized version of the events.
How wars are remembered owes much to how they were reported in the first place. In the First World War, it was photography and mass-circulation newspapers; in the Second World War, it was newsreel and radio; and in the Vietnam and Gulf War, it was television that brought home the news.
In the current America-Afghanistan conflict, it is the Internet that has caught the zeitgeist of the war. At each stage of the events - from the attacks on New York and Washington to the start of attacks on Afghanistan - the Internet has played a part in the story by spreading information outside the "formal" media of print and broadcasting.
The September 11 attacks on America and the October 7 attacks on Afghanistan have had a profound impact on the Internet. Millions turned to the web for information as the September attacks unfolded, while others used E-mail or instant messaging to check on relatives and friends. Sites sprung up almost overnight - paying tribute to the victims or recording personal stories - while newsgroups swelled with debates and theories about the attacks.
In addition, within hours of the October 7 airstrikes on Afghanistan, thousands of people rushed into action to capture how the web was reflecting the bombing of Afghanistan. Once again, E-mail, instant messaging, Internet relay chat, personal web pages and the Internet phones were all used to pass messages.
Digital library of Attacks on America
A. The Attack Archive
The tragic events of September 11, 2001 prompted web producers around the world to respond. Memorial sites, tribute pages and survivor registries were produced. Corporations and non-profit organizations solicited donations for charity. News sites from countless countries dedicated their resources to reporting the disaster and its aftermath, and government sites sought to inform and reassure the people.
A special collection of archived documents was commissioned by the U.S. Library of Congress to preserve a digital record of the surge of activity on the web as a result of the events. It was published in a special online archive on October 11, 2001. Additional assistance for the archive was provided by Alexa Internet, wearchivist.org, and Pew Internet & American Life.
This collection consists of about 2,160 sites- among them IslamOnline's site - which contain more than five terabytes of data (five thousands copies of the
Encyclopedia Britannica at 2,619 pages per copy) gathered from September 11 onward.
Methods of Building the Attack Archive
To build the "attack archive", the web was scoured by different kinds of search engines and search strategies to find everything posted on the web related to the attacks. People using the Internet were also encouraged to contribute websites through special software tools. Special attention was given to including sites in languages other than English and those that reflect different points of view - including sites from other countries, particularly Arab language sites or sites produced by press organizations in other countries. A specially developed cataloging system was included to help visitors find their way through the wealth of material with ease.
B. The Television Archive
The television archive just launched its first collection concerning the events of September 11. This archive contains television news from around the world. You can watch the critical commentary and see differing perspectives in coverage from television stations worldwide.
Operation Enduring Freedom … Without Information Freedom
Although images of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in - which were captured by Earth-observing satellites in orbit - were published and broadcasted everywhere, the U.S. government has bought exclusive rights to images from Ikonos - the world's most advanced commercial imaging satellite - which covers pictures of Afghanistan and parts of surrounding nations.
The agreement with Space Imaging began on Sunday October 7- the day of the first bombing raids on Afghanistan. Under the terms of the contract, Space Imaging will support "Operation Enduring Freedom" (the military campaign against Afghanistan) by not selling, distributing, sharing or providing the imagery to any other entity. The contract is renewable on a month-by-month basis. Although neither the Pentagon nor Space Imaging would reveal the cost of the exclusive rights, it is likely to run into millions of dollars.
Although the U.S. government does have legal powers in times of war to restrict access to commercial satellites images through courts (known as "shutter control"), in this case they used a financial agreement instead of a legal barrier. This could be challenged by news organizations, under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.
The two-year-old Ikonos satellite
which is operated by the U.S.-based Space Imaging corporation, provides black-and-white images capable of seeing objects one meter (2.3 feet) across. It also takes color pictures with 4-m (13.1-ft) resolution. The detail in the Ikonos images already taken show a line of trainees from al-Qa'eda network marching between camps in Jalalabad.
The Pentagon indicated that the Ikonos's images might be of little practical use to the U.S. military, which already has seven orbiting, imaging satellites with a resolution down to ten centimeters. However, the deal with the company will stop images from falling into hands of the Taliban or the Al-Qa'eda organization - revealing the deployment of U.S. ground troops and put the military operation at high risk.
However, some commentators believe that the main motivation behind the buy-up is to prevent images of civilian targets hit during bombing raids from reaching the media.
Barry White, national organizer of the UK Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, says: "Both the U.S. and British governments need to control the media to win the propaganda war…. the deal will mean that the public do not get the complete picture, but a sanitized version of the events."
Sources
Brahms, Ewald. "Digital Library Initiatives of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft"
D-Lib Magazine. May 2001.
BBC. "U.S. Attacks - A Space
Gallery".
Randerson, James "US Government Buys Up Rights to Satellites Pictures of Afghanistan".
New Scientist Magazine. October 17, 2001.
Roes, Hans. "Digital Libraries and Education: Trends and Opportunities" D-Lib Magazine. October 2001.
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