Watch a preview of John Pilger's powerful new film, The War You Don't See, including interviews with Rageh Omaar and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange Link to this video In the US Army manual on counterinsurgency, the American commander
General David Petraeus describes Afghanistan as a "war of perception . . . conducted continuously using the news media". What really matters is not so much the day-to-day battles against the Taliban as the way the adventure is sold in America where "the media directly influence the attitude of key audiences". Reading this, I was reminded of the Venezuelan general who led a coup against the democratic government in 2002. "We had a secret weapon," he boasted. "We had the media, especially TV. You got to have the media." Never has so much official energy been expended in ensuring journalists collude with the makers of rapacious wars which, say the media-friendly generals, are now "perpetual". In echoing the west's more verbose warlords, such as the waterboarding former US vice-president
Dick Cheney, who predicated "50 years of war", they plan a state of permanent conflict wholly dependent on keeping at bay an enemy whose name they dare not speak: the public. At Chicksands in Bedfordshire,
the Ministry of Defence's psychological warfare (Psyops) establishment, media trainers devote themselves to the task, immersed in a jargon world of "information dominance", "asymmetric threats" and "cyberthreats". They share premises with those who teach the interrogation methods that have led to a public inquiry into British military torture in
Iraq. Disinformation and the barbarity of colonial war have much in common. Of course, only the jargon is new. In the opening sequence of my film,
The War You Don't See, there is reference to a pre-WikiLeaks private conversation in December 1917 between David Lloyd George, Britain's prime minister during much of the first world war, and CP Scott, editor of the Manchester Guardian. "If people really knew the truth," the prime minister said, "the war would be stopped tomorrow. But of course they don't know, and can't know." In the wake of this "war to end all wars",
Edward Bernays, a confidante of
President Woodrow Wilson, coined the term "public relations" as a euphemism for propaganda "which was given a bad name in the war". In his book, Propaganda (1928), Bernays described PR as "an invisible government which is the true ruling power in our country" thanks to "the intelligent manipulation of the masses". This was achieved by "false realities" and their adoption by the media. (One of Bernays's early successes was persuading women to smoke in public. By associating smoking with women's liberation, he achieved headlines that lauded cigarettes as "torches of freedom".) I began to understand this as a young reporter during the American war in Vietnam. During my first assignment, I saw the results of the bombing of two villages and the use of
Napalm B, which continues to burn beneath the skin; many of the victims were children; trees were festooned with body parts. The lament that "these unavoidable tragedies happen in wars" did not explain why virtually the entire population of
South Vietnam was at grave risk from the forces of their declared "ally", the United States. PR terms like "pacification" and "collateral damage" became our currency. Almost no reporter used the word "invasion". "Involvement" and later "quagmire" became staples of a news vocabulary that recognised the killing of civilians merely as tragic mistakes and seldom questioned the good intentions of the invaders. On the walls of the Saigon bureaus of major American news organisations were often displayed horrific photographs that were never published and rarely sent because it was said they were would "sensationalise" the war by upsetting readers and viewers and therefore were not "objective". The
My Lai massacre in 1968 was not reported from Vietnam, even though a number of reporters knew about it (and other atrocities like it), but by a freelance in the US,
Seymour Hersh. The cover of Newsweek magazine called it an "American tragedy", implying that the invaders were the victims: a purging theme enthusiastically taken up by Hollywood in movies such as
The Deer Hunter and
Platoon. The war was flawed and tragic, but the cause was essentially noble. Moreover, it was "lost" thanks to the irresponsibility of a hostile, uncensored media. Although the opposite of the truth, such false realties became the "lessons" learned by the makers of present-day wars and by much of the media. Following Vietnam, "embedding" journalists became central to war policy on both sides of the Atlantic. With honourable exceptions, this succeeded, especially in the US. In March 2003, some 700 embedded reporters and camera crews accompanied the invading American forces in Iraq. Watch their excited reports, and it is the liberation of Europe all over again. The Iraqi people are distant, fleeting bit players; John Wayne had risen again.
A statue of Saddam Hussein is pulled down in Baghdad on 9 April 2003. Photograph: Jerome Delay/AP The apogee was the victorious entry into Baghdad, and the TV pictures of crowds cheering the felling of a statue of Saddam Hussein. Behind this façade, an American Psyops team successfully manipulated what an ignored US army report describes as a "media circus [with] almost as many reporters as Iraqis".
Rageh Omaar, who was there for the BBC, reported on the main evening news: "People have come out welcoming [the Americans], holding up V-signs. This is an image taking place across the whole of the Iraqi capital." In fact, across most of Iraq, largely unreported, the bloody conquest and destruction of a whole society was well under way. In The War You Don't See, Omaar speaks with admirable frankness. "I didn't really do my job properly," he says. "I'd hold my hand up and say that one didn't press the most uncomfortable buttons hard enough." He describes how British military propaganda successfully manipulated coverage of the fall of Basra, which BBC News 24 reported as having fallen "17 times". This coverage, he says, was "a giant echo chamber". The sheer magnitude of Iraqi suffering in the onslaught had little place in the news. Standing outside 10 Downing St, on the night of the invasion,
Andrew Marr, then the BBC's political editor, declared, "[Tony Blair] said that they would be able to take Baghdad without a bloodbath and that in the end the Iraqis would be celebrating, and on both of those points he has been proved conclusively right . . ." I asked Marr for an interview, but received no reply. In studies of the television coverage by the University of Wales, Cardiff, and
Media Tenor, the BBC's coverage was found to reflect overwhelmingly the government line and that reports of civilian suffering were relegated. Media Tenor places the BBC and America's CBS at the bottom of a league of western broadcasters in the time they allotted to opposition to the invasion. "I am perfectly open to the accusation that we were hoodwinked," said
Jeremy Paxman, talking about Iraq's non-existent weapons of mass destruction to a group of students last year. "Clearly we were." As a highly paid professional broadcaster, he omitted to say why he was hoodwinked. Dan Rather, who was the CBS news anchor for 24 years, was less reticent. "There was a fear in every newsroom in America," he told me, "a fear of losing your job . . . the fear of being stuck with some label, unpatriotic or otherwise." Rather says war has made "stenographers out of us" and that had journalists questioned the deceptions that led to the Iraq war, instead of amplifying them, the invasion would not have happened. This is a view now shared by a number of senior journalists I interviewed in the US. In Britain, David Rose, whose Observer articles played a major part in falsely linking Saddam Hussein to al-Qaida and 9/11, gave me a courageous interview in which he said, "I can make no excuses . . . What happened [in Iraq] was a crime, a crime on a very large scale . . ." "Does that make journalists accomplices?" I asked him. "Yes . . . unwitting perhaps, but yes." What is the value of journalists speaking like this? The answer is provided by the great reporter
James Cameron, whose brave and revealing filmed report, made with Malcolm Aird, of the bombing of civilians in North Vietnam was banned by the BBC. "If we who are meant to find out what the bastards are up to, if we don't report what we find, if we don't speak up," he told me, "who's going to stop the whole bloody business happening again?" Cameron could not have imagined a modern phenomenon such as
WikiLeaks but he would have surely approved. In the current avalanche of official documents, especially those that describe the secret machinations that lead to war – such as the American mania over Iran – the failure of journalism is rarely noted. And perhaps the reason Julian Assange seems to excite such hostility among journalists serving a variety of "lobbies", those whom George Bush's press spokesman once called "complicit enablers", is that WikiLeaks and its truth-telling shames them. Why has the public had to wait for WikiLeaks to find out how great power really operates? As a leaked 2,000-page Ministry of Defence document reveals, the most effective journalists are those who are regarded in places of power not as embedded or clubbable, but as a "threat". This is the threat of real democracy, whose "currency", said Thomas Jefferson, is "free flowing information". In my film, I asked Assange how WikiLeaks dealt with the draconian secrecy laws for which Britain is famous. "Well," he said, "when we look at the Official Secrets Act labelled documents, we see a statement that it is an offence to retain the information and it is an offence to destroy the information, so the only possible outcome is that we have to publish the information." These are extraordinary times.
www.johnpilger.com • The War You Don't See is in cinemas and on DVD from 13 December, and is broadcast on ITV on 14 December at 10.35pm
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Information Clearing House Newsletter News You Won't Find On CNN
December 10, 2010
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| "The doctrine of non-resistance against arbitrary power and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind." - -- New Hampshire Constitution -- Source: Article 10
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= Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In America's War On Iraq: 4,745icasualties.org/oif/ Number Of International Occupation Force Troops Slaughtered In Afghanistan : 2,254 = = =
Why Are Wars Not Being Reported Honestly?
By John Pilger
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Lebanon Holds its Breath Over Leaked Revelations
By Robert Fisk in Beirut The Hezbollah party is using the cables as proof of UN involvement with Washington - and thus, by extension, with Israel - and politicians are desperately denying that they gave intelligence information to the Americans about Hezbollah's secret communications system.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27037.htm
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WikiLeaks Cables Show Deeper U.S. Military Role in Muslim World
By SHASHANK BENGALI From the Saudi-Yemen border to lawless Somalia and the north-central African desert, the U.S. military is more engaged in armed conflicts in the Muslim world than the U.S. government openly acknowledges, according to cables released by the WikiLeaks website.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27032.htm
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What's Behind the War on WikiLeaks
By Ray McGovern
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Espionage Act:
How the Government Can Engage in Serious Aggression Against the People of the United States
By Naomi Wolf
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Halliburton May Pay $500 million to Keep Cheney out of Prison: Report
By Daniel Tencer
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Lying is Not Patriotic Video
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15 killed in blast in NW Pakistan:
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11 "Taliban militants" killed in Pakistan :
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US Kills 4 People In Pakistan:
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US, Pak officials deliberately overlook fatalities:
The United States and Pakistani officials are deliberately overlooking the deaths of civilians that outnumber the militants' killings in CIA's drone attacks and last November was the third deadliest month regarding drone hits, says a report. The Brooking Institute revealed last year that drones killed an average of ten civilians to one militant.
http://bit.ly/dHKD93
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US kills three Afghan women:
Three women have been killed when a US remote-controlled drone fired a rocket at a car in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province.
http://bit.ly/gv1LYT
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Obama withdraws offer to donate 20 F-35s to Israel :
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US cables suggest Burma is building secret nuclear sites:
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WikiLeaks cables: Pfizer 'used dirty tricks to avoid clinical trial payout':
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WikiLeaks cables: Shell's grip on Nigerian state revealed:
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WikiLeaks cables: Consult us before using intelligence to commit war crimes, US tells Uganda:
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Assange accuser may have ceased co-operating:
Anna Ardin, one of the two complainants in the rape and sexual assault case against WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange, has left Sweden, and may have ceased actively co-operating with the Swedish prosecution service and her own lawyer
http://bit.ly/gndKR5
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Assange Lawyers Prepare for U.S. Spying Indictment:
Attorney Says American Indictment Related to Espionage Act Imminent for Wikileaks Founder
http://abcn.ws/gFN5ti
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Putin leads backlash over WikiLeaks boss detention:
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin Thursday led growing support from some world leaders for the beleaguered WikiLeaks founder, describing his detention in Britain as "undemocratic".
http://bit.ly/fj9y7N
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Europeans Criticize Fierce U.S. Response to Leaks:
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UN rapporteur says Assange shouldn't be prosecuted:
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Chomsky signs Australian letter of support for Assange:
Renowned American scholar and activist Noam Chomsky signed an open letter to Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard on Tuesday urging her to make a "strong statement" in support of Julian Assange.
http://bit.ly/e9oH8B
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After 12 days of WikiLeaks cables, the world looks on US with new eyes:
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WikiLeaks supporters disrupt Visa and MasterCard sites in 'Operation Payback':
MasterCard and Visa attacked after restricting dealings with WikiLeaks - and hackers say Twitter is next
http://bit.ly/gvzahO
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Assange didn't order cyber war: lawyer: "It is absolutely false. He did not make any such instruction, and indeed he sees that as a deliberate attempt to conflate hacking organisations [with] WikiLeaks, which is not a hacking organisation. It is a news organisation and a publisher."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/12/10/3089811.htm?
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WikiLeaks: US 'lobbied Russia on behalf of two credit card companies':
New cables released by the WikiLeaks website disclose how Visa and Mastercard received lobbying support from the Obama administration.
http://bit.ly/hllttK
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Wikileaks donations going well despite Visa, Mastercard shutdown:
After both Visa and Mastercard stopped allowing donations to the whistle-blowing website, DataCell started helping people to donate directly by bank transfer.
http://bit.ly/huLCRp
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WikiLeaks outs Mark Arbib as US informant :
Labor powerbroker Mark Arbib has been outed as a key source of intelligence on government and internal party machinations to the US embassy
http://bit.ly/ewjMxV
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Assange Lawyer: Rape Allegations a "Stitch Up": WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's lawyer tells CBS News that rape and sexual molestation allegations against his client in Sweden are a "stitch up," and the Swedish prosecutor's failure to provide him with documentation on the claims, or any evidence, makes it impossible to begin crafting a legal response.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20025111-503543.html
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US cables: Oil giants squeeze Chávez as Venezuela struggles:
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Amazon Kindles cash from Wikileaks:
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WikiLeaks cables: Pfizer used dirty tricks to avoid clinical trial payout:
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Islamic 'Pipeline to Extremism' Turns Out to Be Mostly FBI Set-Ups: The railroading of suspects into the justice system is reminiscent of tactics used by the FBI and prosecutors during the era of McCarthyism and COINTELPRO.
http://bit.ly/hsz3M8
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"Let us be peace and joy" Tom Feeley |
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