The
British Army Rebels
Against Propaganda
By John Pilger
08 June, 2007
JohnPilger.com
An
experienced British officer serving in Iraq has written to the BBC describing
the invasion as "illegal, immoral and unwinnable" which, he
says, is "the overwhelming feeling of many of my peers". In
a letter to the BBC's Newsnight and Medialens.org he accuses the media's
"embedded coverage with the US Army" of failing to question
"the intentions and continuing effects of the US-led invasion and
occupation".
He says most British soldiers
regard their tours as "loathsome", during which they "reluctantly
[provide] target practice for insurgents, senselessly haemorrhaging
casualties and squandering soldiers' lives, as part of Bush's vain attempt
to delay the inevitable Anglo-US rout until after the next US election."
He appeals to journalists not to swallow "the official line/ White
House propaganda".
In 1970, I made a film in
Vietnam called The Quiet Mutiny in which GIs spoke out about their hatred
of that war and its "official line/White House propaganda".
The experiences in Iraq and Vietnam are both very different and strikingly
similar. There was much less "embedded coverage" in Vietnam,
although there was censorship by omission, which is standard practice
today.
What is different about Iraq
is the willingness of usually obedient British soldiers to speak their
minds, from General Richard Dannatt, Britain's current military chief,
who said that the presence of his troops in Iraq "exacerbates the
security problem", to General Michael Rose who has called for Tony
Blair to be impeached for taking Britain to war "on false grounds"
– remarks that are mild compared with the blogs of squaddies.
What is also different is
the growing awareness in the British forces and the public of how "the
official line" is played through the media. This can be quite crude:
for example when a BBC defence correspondent in Iraq described the aim
of the Anglo-American invasion as "bring[ing] democracy and human
rights" to Iraq. The Director of BBC Television, Helen Boaden,
backed him up with a sheaf of quotations from Blair that this was indeed
the aim, implying that Blair's notorious word was enough.
More often than not, censorship
by omission is employed: for example, by omitting the fact that almost
80 per cent of attacks are directed against the occupation forces (source:
the Pentagon) so as to give the impression that the occupiers are doing
their best to separate "warring tribes" and are crisis managers
rather than the cause of the crisis.
There is a last-ditch sense
about this kind of propaganda. Seymour Hersh said recently, "[In
April, the Bush administration] made a decision that because of the
totally dwindling support for the war in Iraq, they would go back to
the al-Qaeda card, although there's no empirical basis. Most of the
pros will tell you the foreign fighters are a couple of per cent and
they're sort of leaderless... there's no attempt to suggest there's
any significant co-ordination of these groups, but the press keeps going
ga-ga about al-Qaeda... it's just amazing to me."
Ga-ga day at the London Guardian
was 22 May. "Iran's secret plan for summer offensive to force US
out of Iraq", said the front-page banner headline. "Iran is
secretly forging ties with al Qaeda elements and Sunni Arab militias
in Iraq," wrote Simon Tisdall from Washington, "in preparation
for a summer showdown with coalition int- ended to tip a wavering US
Congress into voting for full military withdrawal, US officials say."
The entire tale was based on anonymous US official sources. No attempt
was made to substantiate their "firm evidence" or explain
the illogic of their claims. No journalistic scepticism was even hinted,
which is amazing considering the web of proven lies spun from Washington
over Iraq.
Moreover, it had a curious
tone of something-must-be-done insistence, reminiscent of Judith Miller's
scandalous reports in the New York Times claiming that Saddam was about
to launch his weapons of mass destruction and beckoning Bush to invade.
Tisdall in effect offered the same invitation; I can remember few more
irresponsible pieces of journalism. The British public and the people
of Iran, deserve better.
.
This article was first published by the new Statesman
http://www.johnpilger.com/
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