In this excerpt of Presstitutes, the author continues about how the public was deceived regarding uranium contamination poisoning. A story in a major German paper, Die Zeit, told people that the contamination was no problem. Then the person responsible at Die Zeit, Theo Sommer, won an award from the German military, the 2002 Gold Cross of Honor, following this whitewashing procedure.
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The bombshell: Even though depleted uranium munitions were officially considered as allegedly safe after the "Dr. Sommer Working Committee" sounded the all-clear signal, the Bundeswehr issued another directive in 2003, after the Committee's report was published, in which they warned of the munition's danger and pointed out protective measures. In a classified document issued by the Bundeswehr, "Danger from DU Munitions" mention is made of radiological damage that could be caused by the armor-piercing, incendiary munitions with a DU core employed (by US combat aircraft) during the Operation "Enduring Freedom."
It advised that soldiers wear ABC protective clothing, do not touch the munitions, are issued film dosimeters, report any contact immediately and immediately call in the troop's doctor. In plain language, all this means is: Since "Dr. Sommer's Working Committee," soldiers who were harmed by the aforementioned munitions cannot hope to receive any financial compensation for its adverse health effects. At the same time, however, the armed forces were issuing internal warnings on the danger of the munitions. An absurd situation.
Theo Sommer
In Great Britain, the situation is completely different: In 2004, a court official. confirmed for the first time that a British war veteran’s illnesses and deformities were due to depleted uranium munitions. Today, Theo Sommer, whose background includes whitewashing depleted uranium munitions in the media for the Ministry of Defenses described above, now selects suitable journalists to receive awards from the tobacco industry. But we don't want to get bogged down here talking about controversial journalism prizes, where a certain elite are in a class among themselves.
Just one more note: The appropriation of the term “freedom" in tobacco lobbying is not a new invention by the Reemtsma corporation. LobbyControl, an initiative for transparency and democracy, explains: “In Anglo-Saxon countries, the tobacco industry has even supported or helped establish organizations who are active in the name of freedom and are against smoking bans and all prohibitions in general. E.g., the Center for Consumer Freedom (USA, see: SourceWatch) or the Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco (FOREST) in England. According to Action on Smoking and Health, they receive over 90 percent of their financial means from the tobacco industry."
Don't forget: In Germany, tobacco advertising was banned in print media at the beginning of 2007. The advertising ban passed in EU directive 2003/33/EC also covers image advertising by the tobacco industry, and this was confirmed in August of 2009 through two rulings by the Higher Regional Court in Hamburg.
According to the European Commission, any form of image advertising by tobacco companies falls under the tobacco advertising ban. In its May 2008 report, the Commission indicated any public relations work that portrays tobacco manufacturers as "responsible," as “a means of marketing the company's image and products."
However, reporting on the tobacco industry's awards ceremonies does not fall under the EU's 2007 advertising ban. Now, this begs the question: How long have they been handing out the "Reemtsma Liberty Award" to “brave journalists?"
That's right: Since 2007. Enough said. So, you now know how tobacco companies use journalism awards to advance their PR interests. And, since I'm already in the process of shattering the illusions you have about the lily-white tobacco industry, I would also like to mention how they bribe the political parties in Germany.
Of course, there are ways to make political donations that German citizens won't recognize as donations. This is done by bribing the media arms of various political parties. All of the political parties in Germany publish magazines for their members. The CDU's youth organization, Young Union, has the magazine Entscheidung (Decision), the CDU itself has the Union Magazin – and the SPD has enough newspapers to fill a whole bookstore.
Tobacco companies pay fantastic prices for advertisements in these party magazines and thereby sponsor the parties. They rent booths at every state and national party conference. Through the booth rentals alone, covert donations flow into the parties' coffers at a tune of one million euros a year. The average German citizen has no idea that the parties are being bribed in this way. Apparently, there isn't a big difference between bribing politicians and buying favorable reporting.
Courtesy Interviews, PR Trips and Tax Fraud
Looking back, I find it particularly macabre that my trips to war zones were financed by various war parties or their supporters. Many of these trips would never have been possible without this "support," because I wouldn't have been issued a visa or gotten any protection.
Plain and simple, these were nothing but PR trips for war parties. The invitations for such trips were normally sent to my superiors, who then distributed the invitations to the editors and approved the travel applications. On trips like these, the intimacy with power, that is, to those who decide over life and death, was somehow fascinating.
At this point, I can't remember how many courtesy interviews I did with Near Eastern or African heads of state or their ministers during my travels. All I know is that two-thirds of the statements from these allegedly very important people were a pack of lies.
However, these lies were just what the local German embassy or the representatives of corporate enterprises doing business in these countries wanted to hear - and the FAZ was eager to print all of it.
In Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, it was bad. North of the capital, where the Blue and White Nile converge at Omdurman, the Israeli Mossad had rented a property disguised as an "agricultural business."
Living on a neighboring property was Bin Laden's group, which would later become world famous. At the request of the German embassy, I was to write a descriptive article for the FAZ about Ronny S. (an Israeli).
He was in Sudan selling milk from German cows, milked in air-conditioned stables, to a small ruling elite. What I wasn't to write about: Thanks to the milk, the Mossad man Ronny S. got closer to this closed circle of elites in Sudan than he ever would have been able to otherwise. Moreover, sitting right next to Bin Laden, he could watch everything happening on his neighbor's property from up in a small lookout tower on the "dairy farm."
So, in the FAZ, at the German embassy's request, I wrote about the milk produced by the happy German cows on the Nile and ignored a good part of what was really going on there – as I often did.
My superiors at the FAZ always liked it when I worked closely with the local German embassy during trips like these.
It was even worse in Iran. The German embassy in Tehran constantly trying to promote German-Iranian trade. Since the largest companies in Iran belong to the Mullahs, every time I was there, the embassy was pressuring me into doing courtesy interviews with the foreign minister, any available Ayatollah or other Iranian dignitary I could find, or at least mentioning one or more of them in an article.
When the Iranians were more interested in one of these interviews, then they would also pay for the trips (as I depicted them in Oman). Simply put: The FAZ accepted invitations and published courtesy interviews. The FAZ archives are full of these courtesy interviews that they lined up for me. That's how it went from Afghanistan to Algeria and from South Africa to the Horn of Africa.
Needless to say, as a reporter for a famous German daily newspaper, the German embassy was always at the forefront of everything else going on behind the scenes.