The War on Truth

national | miscellaneous | news report Tuesday April 08, 2003 20:07 by Lenny Antonelli l-a at oceanfree dot net

The text begins describing my own experience of the start of the Iraqi war as an intro, then moves on to describing US and UK lies about WMD's, before finishing by asking what people can do to stop this war.

A city wakes in fear.

“Disarmament of Iraq has begun. The President will speak at ten – fifteen”. Ari Fleischer’s words still echo in my mind. I had not heard them clearly at first, too hazed by the horrifying sounds of air – raid sirens and dusty explosions that filled Baghdad’s dawn sky. The events of that night took place far from where I was, and yet the terror they ignited was escapable nowhere.

The alarms sounded at 2:36 am GMT. Day was just breaking in Iraq. For twenty minutes, I watched a city of five million people wait in fear for the coming of British and American warplanes. It seemed like years. Anti – aircraft gunfire thundered into the clouds from the ground below. On the horizon trenches filled with oil were set ablaze to create a smokescreen -a distraction for oncoming forces. Faint explosions could be heard to the north of the city. The war had begun.

The First Casualty of War

The truth surrounding the political agendas of America and Britain in launching this attack was lost long before the battle began. The arguments were varied: Saddam Hussein has chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and war will liberate the Iraqi people. Saddam Hussein aids and abets terrorist organisations.

All were touted at appropriate times by the Bush – Blair coalition. All are equally misinformative.

There are probably no weapons of mass destruction.
And if there are, there are very few. America and Britain have known this for years. Talk of their existence is merely a cynical ploy to conceal the hidden motives behind the invasion of Iraq, and it is has been by far their most potent guise. Increased control in the middle – east, the furthering of the Trans – Caspian pipeline project, and screening the American public from their nations immense social and economic ills are the true goals of this campaign.

Scott Ritter, the former chief UN Weapons inspector in Iraq, has said consistently that Iraq is “90 – 95%” disarmed. Hussein Kamel, an Iraqi defector who aided the western cause after fleeing Baghdad backs up those claims. Washington had hoped he would provide the key “inside information” that would justify an attack. But it never came. “All weapons - biological, chemical, missile, nuclear - were destroyed,” he said in nineteen ninety-five, souring the allied lie that Saddam had kept thousand of tones of such material.

Upon leaving Iraq recently, German inspector Bernd Bikricht said, “one more month would have been enough” to disarm the country. But the lives of Iraqi civilians are not worth an extra month. Indeed, Bush and Blair never intended for the weapons inspectors to finish their work. For if they did, and found nothing, what of the case for war then? There would be none. The weapons inspectors were finding, as one put it, “zilch”. Iraqi officials were proving to be increasingly compliant. The justifications for war were dying. It was time to begin.

When it comes to the weaponry being used against the people of Iraq, there is no compassion. The dissident journalist Robert Fisk has compared it to “a man killing a fly with a machine gun”. Cluster Bombs and depleted uranium have been at the forefront of the artillery. The former is a variation on a landmine; a bundle of explosives, half of which explode on impact and half of which implant into the soil, waiting for wandering farmers or passing children before detonating. Thousands will remain scattered for years to come. The latter, depleted uranium, is a nuclear weapon. After it was used in the first gulf war in southern Iraq, cancer rates increased dramatically. In parts more than half of the population will now die. Rare tumours never seen before have suddenly emerged. The use of depleted uranium in the present conflict will ensure cancer fatalities face ordinary Iraqi’s every day for years to come. This, they say, is “liberation”.

Remember this when the news stations show us pictures of Iraqi children hugging allied soldiers, and when they show people dancing in the streets of Baghdad. Remember the soldiers buried alive by allied tanks and remember the people in Southern Iraq who walk a daily tightrope between life and death. Remember the children who accidentally come across cluster bombs in quiet fields and remember the one million men, women and children killed in the last ten years by American sanctions on food and medicine.

When I think of the American and British policy towards Iraq, now and in the last decade, and the rhetoric that has accompanied it, I am reminded of the famous words of an American general. Upon flattening a helpless Vietnamese village and killing the three hundred peasants who lived there, he cried: "We had to destroy it - in order to save it".

Stop the War.

The killing need not continue. When faced with powerful leaders who hijack democracy and freedom for their own gain, the question of what we can do often arises. The answer is that we can act.

In Scotland train drivers are refusing to conduct carriages carrying U.S ammunitions. In Italy dockworkers have slowed allied supplies being transported to the Middle East. In Shannon, Ireland the journeys of numerous warplanes have been hindered by thousands of gathering protesters. In Washington D.C, a young lady working for the neo – conservative “Heritage Foundation”, which acts as a “think – tank” for the Bush government, decided to put as much of the foundations money as she could through a shredder before she lost her job.

And in Venezuela recently, one million people came out onto to the to take back their government. They had seen it plundered from the hands of the elected president by wealthy oil barons’ eager to end his administration. So angered were the people by the coup, they came out onto the streets, stormed government buildings and reclaimed the country for its leader, President Chavez.

It will not be the politicians or diplomats who ultimatley reclaim our democracy. It will be taken back by ordinary men and women with the persistence to do. It will be taken back by those who hear the truth and are willing to act on it.

It will be taken back by people like these, people with the fortitude to stand up and be counted, their determination inexhaustible, and their courage ineffaceable.