Dear friends

Day 18 has begun in Iraq...Day 18 of an invasion that should never have happened. To call it a war is a misnomer. When one country--especially a massively armed country like the US with its one ally, Tony Blair--invades a small country that was basically destroyed by that same force twelve years earlier and then further decimated by twelve years of the most stringent economic sanctions in history, how can it be called a war? Doesn't a war imply some sort of equal standing as combatants?

And "liberation?" Where does the word liberation come in? To liberate means to "free." Will the Iraqi people be free or will they simply trade one dictatorship for another? Of course the occupying dictator will call itself "a democracy." By the way, I have not seen the Iraqi people cheering their liberators. How could they? They're too busy trying not to get maimed and killed by said "liberators." But as of tonight, according to http://www.iraqbodycount.net/  a minimum of 876 or a maximum of 1049 innocent women, children and men have not managed to live through their promised liberation. And those numbers do not reflect the present invasion of Baghdad and what that will mean to the unfortunate residents of that already devastated city.

I guess the PR folks have stopped talking about Saddam Hussein's WMD (weapons of mass destruction)--probably because no one can find any--and have replaced their rhetoric with the "humanitarian" reasons for this "war." Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see how ANY war be called "humanitarian." Doesn't humanitarian mean "of benefit to humans?" It is ludicrous that anyone could describe war in those terms, especially when the invading forces have dropped more tonnage of bombs and missiles--among them internationally outlawed depleted uranium and cluster bombs--in 17 days than were dropped on the same pathetic country during the 45 days of the first "Gulf War" put on by today's commander-in-chief's father. Ask the people of Iraq how they feel about this "humanitarian" effort.

Whoever controls language controls the imagination of the people. I say we must not allow the White House/Pentagon PR teams to take over our language. We must not use the words they bandy about so freely. We must say it like we see it. There is a war of words going on in the US, and probably in other countries as well. We must use all our powers to counter this war. Be conscious of everything you say and write. Use precisely the word you mean; not the word that might first pop into your mind. When we reclaim our language, we will be able to insert truth into our communal consciousness. Let us begin today, on Day 18 of a massacre, an invasion, an attack...NOT a war.

in peace
Patricia

"That is what revolutions are about . They are about creating a new society in the places and spaces left vacant by the disintegration of the old,  about evolving to a higher humanity, not higher buildings, about Love of one another and of the Earth, not Hate; about  Hope, not despair; about saying YES to Life and NO to War, about becoming the change we want to see in the world."     Grace Lee Boggs
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Robert Fisk in Baghdad: The twisted language of war that is used to justify the unjustifiable

07 April 2003
 

Why do we aid and abet the lies and propaganda of this filthy war? How come, for example, it's now BBC "style" to describe the Anglo-American invaders as the "coalition". This is a lie. The "coalition" that we're obviously supposed to remember is the one forged to drive Iraqi occupation troops from Kuwait in 1991, an alliance involving dozens of countries ? almost all of whom now condemn President Bush Junior's adventure in Iraq. There are a few Australian special forces swanning about in the desert, courtesy of the country's eccentric Prime Minister, John Howard, but that's it.

So, who at the BBC decreed this dishonest word "coalition"? True, there's a "coalition of the willing", to use Mr Bush's weird phrase, but this is a reference to those nations that have given overflying rights to the United States or have given political but not military support. So the phrase "coalition forces" remains a lie.

Then there's the historical slippage to justify the unjustifiable. When Jonathan Charles, an "embedded" journalist, reported in the early days of the invasion that the British army outside Basra was keeping a watchful eye on the Iranian border because the Iranians had "stirred up" an insurrection in the city in 1991, his dispatch was based on a falsehood. The Iranians never stirred up an insurrection in Basra. President Bush Senior did that by calling for just such a rebellion ? and then betraying the Shia Muslims who followed his appeal. The Iranians did everything they could to avoid involvement in the uprising.

Then there's the disinformation about the "securing" of Basra. This was followed by an admission that though the British had "secured" Basra they hadn't actually captured it ? and, indeed, have still not captured it. The same goes for the US Marines who were said to have "secured" Nasiriyah, but didn't capture it until last week when, given the anarchy that broke out in the city, they appear to have captured it without making it secure. The US forces bravely rescued a captured American female soldier; what didn't make it into the same story was that they also "rescued" 12 Americans, all of whom were already dead.

The Iraqis try to imitate the US Central Command (CentCom) propaganda operations, though with less subtlety. An attempt to present an American cruise missile attack on a secret police office in the Mansour district last week as the attempted destruction of a maternity hospital ? it was just across the street but only sustained broken windows ? was straight out of the "Huns crucify nuns" routine. Iraqi military communiqués inevitably claim a number of American and British tanks and personnel carriers destroyed that is way beyond credibility. At Najaf, the Iraqi Armed Forces General Command (communiqué number 16) stated on Friday that Iraqi forces had destroyed 17 tanks, 13 armoured personnel carriers and a Black Hawk helicopter. Whoops.

Yesterday, according to the Information Minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, Iraqi troops destroyed four US personnel carriers and an American warplane.

Sometimes the communiqués are verifiable. An Apache actually was shot down by a farmer and CentCom admitted an F-18 bomber was shot down over Iraq last week. However, the sheer military detail put out by the Iraqi authorities, grotesquely exaggerated though it often is, far outstrips the old bones chucked by the Americans at the correspondents in their air-conditioned high-security headquarters in Qatar.

Another enjoyable lie was the American assertion that the anti-chemical weapons suits issued to Iraqi soldiers "proved" that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. The Iraqis neatly replied that the equipment was standard issue but that since US and British forces carried the same equipment, they too must be in possession of forbidden weapons. The Iraqi lie ? that the country remains united under a beloved leader ? is hardly questioned in press conferences held by Taha Yassin Ramadan, the Iraqi Vice-President. Unity may be the one element Iraq will never possess under US occupiers. But its existence under Saddam Hussein has been imposed through terror.

Then there's the famous "war in Iraq" slogan which the British and American media like to promote. But this is an invasion, not a mere war.

And isn't it turning into an occupation rather than a "liberation"? Shouldn't we be remembering in our reports that this whole invasion lacks legitimacy? Sure, the Americans claim they needed no more than the original UN resolution 1441 to go to war. But if that's the case, why did Britain and the US vainly seek a second resolution? I can't help thinking readers and viewers realise the mendacity of all this sleight of hand, and that we journalists go on insulting these same readers and viewers by thinking we can con them.

Thus, we go on talking about an "air campaign" as if the Luftwaffe was taking off from Cap Gris Nez to bomb London, when not a single Iraqi aircraft has left the ground. So, it's "coalition forces", a war not an invasion, liberation rather than occupation, and the taking of cities that are "secured" rather than "captured", and when captured, are insecure.

And all this for the dead of 11 September.