Article by John Pilger from the Daily Mirror - 5 April 2003

[Guest guest]

WE HAD a great day, " said Sgt Eric Schrumpf of the US Marines last Saturday.

" We killed a lot of people. " He added: " We dropped a few civilians, but what

do you do? " He said there were women standing near an Iraqi soldier, and one

of them fell when he and other Marines opened fire. " I'm sorry, " said Sgt

Schrumpf, " but the chick was in the way " .For me, what is remarkable about

this story is that I heard almost the same words 36 years ago when a US

Marine sergeant told me he had killed a pregnant woman and a child because

they had " got in the way " .That was in Vietnam, another country invaded by

the US military machine, which left up to two million people dead and many

more maimed and otherwise ruined. President Reagan called this " a noble

cause " . The other day, President Bush called the invasion of Iraq, another

unprovoked and piratical act, " a noble cause " .In the years since Vietnam,

the Americans have invaded and caused, directly and through stooges, great

suffering in many other countries, but none tells us more about the current

war than their enduring atrocity in Vietnam, known as the first " media

war " .Like their attack on Iraq, their invasion of Vietnam was accompanied by

a racist contempt for the people. The Vietnamese were " gooks " and " slits "

who would never fight, who would be crushed within weeks. As in Iraq today,

the uncensored evidence of America's killing was not shown on TV but covered

up. General Colin Powell, Bush's " liberal " Secretary of State, was promoted

swiftly because he was given the job of covering up the infamous My Lai

massacre. In the end, the Vietnamese defied the Hollywood script and

expelled their invader, but at great cost. The Iraqis, up against two

western air forces and a Disneyworld of weapons of mass destruction, are

unlikely to share the same honour. And yet they, too, are not keeping to the

script; and their extraordinary resistance against such overwhelming odds

has required intensified propaganda in Washington and London: aimed not at

them, but at us.Unlike in Vietnam, this propaganda, lying that is both crude

and subtle, is now dispensed globally and marketed and controlled like a new

niche product. Richard Gaisford, an " embedded " BBC reporter, said recently:

" We have to check each story we have with (the military). And the captain,

who's our media liaison officer, will check with the colonel, and they will

check with Brigade headquarters as well. " David Miller, a media analyst at

Stirling University, calls it " public relations genius " . It works like this.

Once the official " line " is agreed and manufactured at the Coalition Press

Information Centre in Kuwait and the $1million press centre in Qatar, it is

submitted to the White House, to what is known as the Office of Global

Communications. It is then polished for British consumption by Blair's staff

of propagandists in Downing Street.Truth, above all, is redundant. There is

only " good " news or no news. For example, the arrival in Iraq of the British

ship Sir Galahad with a miserable few hundred tons of humanitarian aid was a

" good " story given wide coverage. What was missing was the truth that the

Blair government continues to back Washington's deliberate denial of

$5.4billion worth of humanitarian aid, including baby milk and medical

supplies. This is " aid " which Iraq has paid for (from oil receipts) and the

UN Security Council has approved.What was also missing from such a moving

tale of Britain-to-the-rescue was that, under pressure from Bush and Blair,

the United Nations has been forced to close down its food distribution

system in Iraq, which barely prevented famine in the pre-war period.BLAIR'S

lies about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and its alleged links with

al-Qaeda have been exposed and rejected by the majority of the British

people. He has since played his " conviction " card. Perhaps his last

propaganda refuge is a call to support " our boys " .On September 3, 1967, the

Sunday Mirror published a dispatch of mine from Vietnam under the front page

headline: " How can Britain approve a war like this? " Today's Mirror asks the

same question of the invasion of Iraq. The difference is that, unlike

Blair, Prime Minister Harold Wilson denied an American president the use of

British troops for his " coalition " . A poll in yesterday's Mirror said that

" 78 per cent insist British forces must not be brought home until the war is

over. " Polls themselves can make propaganda, with the question

predetermining the answer. What if the question asked had been: " Do you

support British forces being in Iraq given the absence of any 'liberation'

and the rising number of civilian casualties? "

 

I doubt whether it would have been anywhere near 78 per cent. There is

undoubtedly a traditional reserve of support for " the troops " , no matter the

dirty work they are sent to carry out. Blair's manipulation of this should

not be allowed to succeed. British troops may be better trained than the

Americans; but this does not alter the fact that they are part of, indeed

essential to, a criminal invasion of a country offering us no threat.Trained

in media manipulation ( " public relations " ), British military spokesmen lie

as frequently as the Americans; if anything, their nonsense about

" uprisings " is too specious by half. The truth they don't tell is that the

British siege of Basra is strangling the civilian population, causing great

suffering to innocent, men, women and children in their homeland.Imagine if

Iraqi troops were doing the same to Coventry, a city of comparable size.

Imagine the outrage: the popular resistance, regardless of who was in power

in London. If we cannot imagine that, then we have fallen victim to a big

lie that reverses right and wrong. If we cannot put ourselves in Iraqis'

shoes, in the shoes of the grieving family of the woman who was gunned down

by Sgt Schrumpf, " the chick who got in the way " , then we have cause indeed

to worry.

 

 

---

Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.

Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).

Version: 6.0.467 / Virus Database: 266 - Release 01/04/03

[Guest guest]

on the subject of "embedded" journalists(how much closer can you get to in bed?)..its a stroke of pure genius

not only do you get the apperance of given free press a ride, but, you get to censor everything that comes out, and, best of all, the journalists along spend all their time with the soldiers, so, they feel like part of the family, part of the group..they are less likely to ask piognant er tasking questions..you wouldn't want to upset the family would you??

pure evil genius