Letters on the war against Iraq

17 April 2003

Below we post a selection of recent letters on the war against Iraq.

On: The stage-managed events in Baghdad’s Firdos Square: image-making, lies and the ‘liberation’ of Iraq

Dear Editor,

After a year or two of reading your fine publications I found it ridiculously easy to determine that the crowd scene and the toppling of the statue had been staged. I counted about 65-100 male individuals who all appeared to have been personally invited to the ceremony and the obvious lack of any wide-angle shots tipped me off. I was sitting in a coffee shop downtown when this was on TV and told nearly everyone in the place that the whole thing was being staged. Nobody believed me, but you can bet a copy of your article will be posted there this afternoon. Thank you for making to tools available for me, and the rest of your readers, to know lies when we are exposed to them.

Nebraska

14 April 2003

* * *

Patrick Martin’s article on the stage-managed toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statute in Firdos Square was right on the mark. It was plain that only a few dozen Iraqis were present. It is not surprising to find out that the incident involved Chalabi associates.

That a few thousand people have been celebrating in Baghdad, a city of 5-6 million, does not represent overwhelming support for the US invasion. Many of those “greeting” U.S. troops are doing so for personal safety. The US media, as a naked propaganda arm of the US state, is devoid of any capacity for complex or critical analysis of these events.

Millions undoubtedly hated the regime, and millions more Iraqis suffered under the economic aggression of the US and western imperialism. The legacy of this history and this illegal and murderous invasion is still far from written.

12 April 2003

* * *

Thank you for this great article regarding the stage-managed events in Baghdad. I have printed it and posted it on the bulletin board near my office (I teach political science at a university in Bangkok, Thailand.) I would also like to point out that I have heard that a TV movie will be made about the American, Lynch, captured in Iraq. You can be certain that there will be no movie made about the Iraqi women slaughtered at the checkpoint by the American military.

Bangkok, Thailand

15 April 2003

* * *

Just as the news of the shot up van of women and children came through the air into the TV studio, the host promptly asked the station’s resident expert, the ex-USA Special Forces officer, (general or colonel I forget), for a comment.

His comment at once was: “The van was told to go through the checkpoint by a band of Fedayeen who had captured the rest of the families of the van occupants, and death-threatened them!”

Too fast a response for my credibility folks, but I did wonder also, why ONLY women and children? The Special Forces vet expert looked like he had no eyes; he sort of looked like a 1930s Charlie Chan, but then his eyes came out and flashed several times. Was he programmed for just such an occasion, a robot psych war spin controller psy-ops? He sure looked like one. But I do not recall the network or the show, MSNBC I think, whoever it is that has a “Special Ops” resident authority

Now the question is did anyone anywhere ever see hide nor hair of the group that allegedly sent the women through or is this the purest of programmed automatic lies?

Is the Washington Post, called the Penta Post by the Indy Dems site, investigating the case even now?

Thanks for all your good stuff!

Maine

15 April 2003

* * *

On How and why the US encouraged looting in Iraq and “The sacking of Iraq’s museums: US wages war against culture and history

I believe there’s even more to the allowance of looting in Iraq. The soldiers had orders not to stop the looting. These orders came from the officers, who get their orders from CentCom, which gets its orders from the White House cabal, who wanted the Iraqis to destroy the past, not only in government buildings, but also, and particularly, the great museum, the library, and the musical culture building. The idea was to strip the Iraqi society of its identity and heritage. When you take this away from people, you leave them with next to nothing. In effect, they cease to exist as a cohesive group, leaving a vacuum. (When you do this to a person in a brainwashing process, he/she then becomes dependent on the victimizer.) Now, stripped of everything, the stunned society can be easily manipulated by the aggressors.

Basically, what Bush and his criminal cabal want to see in the entire Middle East are puppet regimes populated with compliant consumers of American products and culture, with ignorant teenagers obsessed with Gap jeans and Nike sneakers, hip-hop “music,” fast food, gas-guzzling vehicles, violent movies, and mindless sitcoms. In other words, the Middle East is to be democratized and modernized the American way, each country, one by one.

California

13 April 2003

* * *

You’ve got it exactly right about the Bushies being a crime cartel. I’ve been emailing the mainstream news for two days with this message. TELL THE BUSH THIEVES TO GIVE BACK THE ARTIFACTS. This is the biggest war crime ever committed. I’m accusing Barbara Bush of having them in her living room (to enrich her beautiful mind).

Ohio

15 April 2003

* * *

On The battlefield deaths of American journalists Michael Kelly and David Bloom: some hard truths

David Walsh has drawn attention to a most serious circumstance, that is the loss of objectivity by newspaper reporters, notably as war correspondents.

It has been said that a free press is more valuable than an elected legislature. Today when the press has so much greater potential to inform the public, so many systems of communication to utilize, it is failing badly on all fronts.

In the field of war correspondents they were often the savior of a situation, bringing the public awareness of some blunder or misconception on the part of military commanders. At the time of the Crimean War they made the British public aware of deficiencies in equipment or supply of food, lack of adequate medical facilities or a disastrous error in direction such as the fatal “Charge of the Light Brigade.”

Winston Churchill, as a young junior officer in the British army acted as war correspondent for various newspapers in Britain and the USA. In addition to his function in charge of soldiers, he sent out dispatches on deadly fighting in Northern India, the Sudan and in the Boer War in South Africa, filing reports that were often highly critical of the competence of senior officers. He was able to do this because of his numerous connections in high places. This would be quite impossible today, but who knows how many serious errors take place without public knowledge.

In the 1939-45 war in which I served the services of journalists were co-opted for the purpose of propaganda. The US generals made extensive use of news briefings and gave extensive facilities to reporters, far in excess of what the British provided. It was our candid impression that the real objective was to advance the careers of the generals themselves.

In the Vietnam War television was used for the first time and the press soon got an edge over the military that brought public criticism and finally rejection of the whole affair. In the end the press destroyed the administration, and properly so. Nothing like that will ever be allowed again.

In the present war in Iraq the term “embedded journalist” has been used to describe certain individuals that are carried in safety to the scene of battle or betide them if they criticize their hosts. These persons are a virtually useless source of information.

The constructive criticism can only come from foreign journalists and it appears that they are in greater danger than the combat soldiers with the highest casualty level. The journalists of the country under attack are prime targets for the attackers. Let no one forget that attack on the Serbian broadcasting building in Belgrade.

There are two possible objects of criticism for the sorry decline in standards of journalism, apart from interference by government. One is the monopoly of the news services, but the other is the quality of the individuals concerned. I believe that David Walsh is correct. Far too many journalists are simply opportunists, seeking to maximize their incomes. They have learned that it is best to cleave to a popular line. They do not give a fig for the Truth or for principles.

Nothing could be more dangerous for the future of our society. If truth is given a low priority how can proper procedures be determined? The USSR collapsed due to a plethora of false statistics produced by officials that had been given impossible tasks to perform and so had to lie to save their necks. In the end no one knew what was the truth.

Ottawa Canada

13 April 2003

* * *

On A spectacle of filth and reaction: New York union gangsters celebrate slaughter in Iraq

It is indeed a filthy spectacle to see lies and crude jingoism stirred up and offered as a pro-Bush love potion on the site of over 3,000 deaths that had nothing whatever to do with Iraq or Iraqi citizens, while in the meantime those same Iraqis are being barbecued in huge numbers by the equally ignorant young people effectively conscripted to do the job. The corruption of the union bureaucracy is well known, but this is contemptible. And Governor Pataki is lying bloodsucker who, with his billionaire pal, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, should be cast into a black hole for using their bought-and-paid-for union members, whose livelihoods they intend to degrade, to rally in favor of the slaughter of working people and against antiwar feeling in the country.

It just goes to show that the old adage is correct when it says that if you tell a lie often enough to people, they will come to believe it is the truth. The blatant censorship of the US media is bearing its rotten fruit and the smell is enough to make anyone downwind gag and retch. But it is the truly appalling (and engineered) ignorance of the union members drafted into this crowd of thugs that turns the stomach. They seem as cattle running blindly ahead of the prod. They must be made to understand where their interests really lie before their loss of brain cells becomes irreversible.

San Francisco