By Dave LIndorff
You want to know why we need independent journalism, and why those of you who are reading this article need to support the publication in which it is appearing and well as the one for which I originally wrote it? Because if you rely for your news on the US corporate media, whether ad-supported or underwriter-supported, you won't learn that Furkan Dogan, the 19-year-old American citizen slain by Israeli commandos in the raid on the Gaza-bound flotilla May 31, was shot in the back and in thebackof the head, as well as multiple times in the face.
This is the conclusion of the autopsy conducted by the Turkish Council of Forensic Medicine, which also did autopsies on the eight other Turkish citizens killed in the Israeli raid on the Mavi Marmara ferry and five other smaller boats in the so-called Freedom Flotilla. Of the other eight dead, the medical examiners found that five had been shot in the back, or in the back of the head.
This critically important information has simply not appeared in US news reports. It has been blacked out. Some American news organizations have left out the autopsy information entirely from their reports as of Saturday. CNN, in its report on Friday did note that five of the nine were shot in the head, and at close range, but the all-important fact that most of the victims were shot from behind was left out. ABC had the same information on Thursday, again without mentioning the shots from behind. In its article on Friday, the NY Times had yet to even name Dogan, the American victim, much less mention the bullets that hit him or how he was shot. As of Sunday, the Times had still not reported the nature of the deadly shots fired.
And yet, if you're trying to establish what happened on that ship, the direction of the firing, not just the number of bullets, or the distance from which they were fired, is crucial....
For the rest of this article by DAVE LINDORFF please go to the new collectively-owned, journalist-run online newspaper ThisCantBeHappening at www.thiscantbehappening.net