We
See Too Much, We Know Too Much.
That's Our Best Defense
By John Pilger
6 April, 2003
We now glimpse the forbidden
truths of the invasion of Iraq. A man cuddles the body of his in-fant
daughter; her blood drenches them. A woman in black pursues a tank,
her arms outstretched; all seven in her family are dead. An American
Marine murders a woman because she happens to be standing next to a
man in a uniform. "I'm sorry,' he says, "but the chick got
in the way.'
Covering this in a shroud
of respectability has not been easy for George Bush and Tony Blair.
Millions now know too much; the crime is all too evident. Tam Dalyell,
Father of the House of Commons, a Labour MP for 41 years, says the Prime
Minister is a war criminal and should be sent to The Hague. He is serious,
because the prima facie case against Blair and Bush is beyond doubt.
In 1946, the Nuremberg Tribunal
rejected German arguments of the "necessity' for pre-emptive attacks
against its neighbours. "To initiate a war of aggression,' said
the tribunal's judgment, "is not only an international crime; it
is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes
in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.'
To this, the Palestinian
writer Ghada Karmi adds, "a deep and unconscious racism that imbues
every aspect of Western policy towards Iraq." It is this racism,
she says, that has cynically elevated Saddam Hussein from "a petty
local chieftain, albeit a brutal and ruthless one in the mould of many
before him, [to a figure] demonised beyond reason".
To Colonial Secretary Winston
Churchill, the Iraqis, like all Arabs, were "niggers', against
whom poison gas could be used. They were un-people; and they still are.
The killing of some 80 villagers near Baghdad last Thursday, of children
in markets, of the "chicks who get in the way' would be in industrial
quantities now were it not for the voices of the millions who filled
London and other capitals, and the young people who walked out of their
schools; they have saved countless lives.
Just as the American invasion
of Vietnam was fuelled by racism, in which "gooks' could be murdered
with impunity, so the current atrocity in Iraq is from the same mould.
Should you doubt that, turn the news around and examine the double standard.
Imagine there are Iraqi tanks in Britain and Iraqi troops laying siege
to Birmingham. Absurd? Well, it would not happen here. But the British
military is doing that to Basra, a city bigger than Birmingham, firing
shoulder-held missiles and dropping cluster bombs on its population,
40 per cent of whom are children. Moreover, "our boys" are
denying water to the stricken people of Basra as well as to Umm Qasr,
which they have controlled for a week. It is no wonder Blair is furious
with the al-Jazeera channel, which has exposed this, and the lie that
the people of Basra were rising up on cue for their liberation.
Since 11 September 2001,
"our' propaganda and its unspoken racism has required an imperial
distortion of intellect and morality. The Iraqis are not fighting like
lions, in defence of their homeland. They are "cowardly' and subhuman
because they use hit-and-run tactics against a hugely powerful invader
as if they have any choice. This belittling of their bravery
and disregard of their humanity, like the disregard of thousands of
Afghans recently bombed to death in dusty villages, confronts us with
a moral issue as profound as the Western response to that greatest act
of terrorism, the wilful atomic bombing of Japan. Have we progressed?
In 2003, is it still true that only "our' lives are of value?
These Anglo-American invasions
of weak and largely defenceless nations are meant to demonstrate the
kind of world the US is planning to dominate by force, with its procession
of worthy and unworthy victims and the establishment of American bases
at the gateways of all the main sources of fossil fuels. There is a
list now. If Israel has its way, Iran will be next; and Cuba, Libya,
Syria and even China had better watch out. North Korea may not be an
immediate American target, because its threat of nuclear war has been
effective. Ironically, had Iraq kept its nuclear weapons, this invasion
probably would not have taken place. That is the lesson for all governments
at odds with Bush and Blair: nuclear-arm yourself quickly.
The most forbidden truth
is that this demonstrably militarist British government, and the rampant
superpower it serves, are the true enemies of our security. In the plethora
of opinion polls, the most illuminating was conducted by American Time
magazine among a quarter of a million people across Europe. The question
was: "Which country poses the greatest danger to world peace in
2003?' Readers were asked to tick off one of three possibilities: Iraq,
North Korea and the United States. Eight per cent viewed Iraq as the
most dangerous; North Korea was chosen by 9 per cent. No fewer than
83 per cent voted for the United States, of which, in the eyes of most
of humanity, Britain is now but a lethal appendage.
Only successful propaganda,
and corrupt journalism, will prevent us understanding this and other
truths. Rupert Murdoch has been admirably frank. In lauding Bush and
Blair as "heroes', he said, "there is going to be collateral
damage in Iraq. And if you really want to be brutal about it, better
we get it done now.' Every one of his 175 newspapers carries that sinister
message, more or less, as does his American television network. The
80 villagers rocketed to death on Thursday are proof of the urgency
he describes; other victims in other countries are waiting.
For those journalists who
see themselves as honourable truth-tellers, there are difficult choices
now: rather like the choice of the young woman at the GCHQ spy centre
in Cheltenham who allegedly leaked documents revealing that US officials
were trying to blackmail members of the Security Council; rather like
the two British soldiers who face court martial because they exercised
their right, enshrined by the Nuremberg judges, to refuse to fight in
a criminal war that kills civilians.
For journalists who are not
"embedded' and are deeply troubled by the kind of propaganda that
consumes even our language, and who, as James Cameron put it, "write
the first draft of history', similar courage is required. Brave Terry
Lloyd of ITN, killed by the 'coalition', demonstrated this. The threats
are now not even subtle, such as this from our Defence Secretary, Geoff
Hoon. "One of the reasons for having journalists [embedded],' he
said, "is to prevent precisely the kind of tragedy that occurred
to an ITN crew ... because [Terry Lloyd] was not part of a military
organisation. And in those circumstances, we can't look after all those
journalists ... So having journalists have the protection of our armed
forces is both good for journalism. It's also good for people watching.'
Like a mafia boss explaining
the benefits of a protection racket, Hoon is saying: do as you are told
or face the consequences. Indeed, Donald Rumsfeld, Hoon's superior in
Washington, often quotes Al Capone, the famous Chicago mobster. His
favourite: "You will get more with a kind word and a gun than with
a kind word alone.'
How do we face this threat
to all of us? The answer lies, I believe, in understanding the extent
of our own power. Patrick Tyler wrote wisely in the New York Times the
other day that America faced a "tenacious new adversary'
the public. He says we are entering a new bi-polar world with two new
superpowers: the Bush/Blair gang on one side, and world opinion on the
other, a truly popular force stirring at last and whose consciousness
soars by the day. Wasn't it the poet Shelley who, at a time like this,
exhorted us to: "Rise like lions after slumber'?
For More articles by John
Pilger on Iraq check out http://www.zmag.org/CrisesCurEvts/Iraq/john_pilger.htm