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Who
Are the Extremists?
by
John Pilger
August
23, 2003
The
"liberation" of Iraq is a cruel joke on a stricken people. The
Americans and British, partners in a great recognised crime, have brought down
on the Middle East, and much of the rest of the world, the prospect of
terrorism and suffering on a scale that al-Qaeda could only imagine.
That
is what this week's bloody bombing of the United Nations headquarters in
Baghdad tells us.
It
is a "wake-up call", according to Mary Robinson, the former UN
Humanitarian Commissioner.
She
is right, of course, but it is a call that millions of people sounded on the
streets of London and all over the world more than seven months ago - before
the killing began.
And
yet the Anglo-American spin machine, whose minor cogs are currently being
exposed by the Hutton Inquiry, is still in production.
According
to the Bush and Blair governments, those responsible for the UN outrage are
"extremists from outside": Al-Qaeda terrorists or Iranian militants,
or both.
Whether
or not outsiders are involved, the aim of this propaganda is to distract from
the truth that America and Britain are now immersed in a classic guerrilla war,
a war of resistance and self-determination of the kind waged against foreign
aggressors and colonial masters since history began.
For
America, it is another Vietnam. For Britain it is another Kenya, or indeed
another Iraq.
In
1921, Lieutenant-General Sir Stanley Maude said in Baghdad: "Our armies do
not come as conquerors, but as liberators."
Within
three years 10,000 had died in an uprising against the British, who gassed and
bombed the "terrorists".
Nothing
has changed, only the names and the fine print of the lies.
As
for the "extremists from outside", simply turn the meaning around and
you have a succinct description of the current occupiers who, unprovoked,
attacked a defenceless sovereign country, defying the United Nations and the
opposition of most of humanity.
Using
weapons designed to cause the maximum human suffering - cluster bombs,
uranium-tipped shells and firebombs (napalm) - these extremists from outside
caused the deaths of at least 8,000 civilians and as many as 30,000 troops,
most conscripted teenagers. Consider the waves of grief in any society from
that carnage.
AT
their moment of "victory", these extremists from outside - having
already destroyed Iraq's infrastructure with a 12-year bombing campaign and
embargo - murdered journalists, toppled statues and encouraged wholesale
looting while refusing to make the most basic humanitarian repairs to the
damage they had caused to the supply of power and clean water.
This
means that today sick children are dying from thirst and gastro-enteritis, that
hospitals frequently run out of oxygen and that those who might be saved can
not be saved.
How
many have died like this?
"We
count every screwdriver," said an American colonel during the first Gulf
war, "but counting civilians who die along the way is just not our
policy."
The
biggest military machine on earth, said to be spending up to $5billion-a-month
on its occupation of Iraq, apparently can not find the resources and manpower
to bring generators to a people enduring temperatures of well over the century
- almost half of them children, of whom eight per cent, says UNICEF, are
suffering extreme malnutrition. When Iraqis have protested about this, the
extremists from outside have shot them dead.
They
have shot them in crowds, or individually, and they boast about it.
The
other day, Task Force 20, an "elite" American unit murdered at least
five people as they drove down a street.
The
next day they murdered a woman and her three children as they drove down a
street.
They
are no different from the death squads the Americans trained in Latin America.
These
extremists from outside have been allowed to get away with much of this -
partly because of the web of deceptions in London and Washington, and partly
because of those who voluntarily echo and amplify their lies.
In
the current brawl between the Blair government and the BBC a new myth has
emerged: It is that the BBC was and is "anti-war".
This
is what George Orwell called an "official truth". Again, just turn it
around and you have the real truth; that the BBC supported Blair's war, that
day after day it broadcast and "debated" and legitimised the charade
of weapons of mass destruction, as well as nonsense such as that which cast
Blair as a "moderating influence" on Bush - when, as we now know,
they are almost identical warmongers.
Who
can forget the BBC's exultant Chief Political Correspondent Andrew Marr, at the
moment of "coalition" triumph. Tony Blair, he declared, "said
that they would take Baghdad without a blood bath, and that in the end the
Iraqis would be celebrating. And on both those points he has been conclusively
proved right."
If
you replace "right" with "wrong", you have the truth. To
the BBC's man in Downing Street, up to 40,000 deaths apparently does not
constitute a "blood bath".
According
to the independent American survey organisation Media Tenor, the BBC allowed
less dissent against the war than all the leading international broadcasters
surveyed, including the American networks.
Andrew
Gilligan, the BBC reporter who revealed Dr David Kelly's concerns about the
government's "dodgy dossier" on Iraq, is one of the very few
mavericks, an inconvenient breed who challenge official truth.
One
of the most important lies was linking the regime of Saddam Hussein with
al-Qaeda.
As
we now know, both Bush and Blair ignored the advice of their intelligence
agencies and made the connection public.
It
worked. When the attack on Iraq began, polls showed that most Americans
believed Saddam Hussein was behind September 11.
The
opposite was true. Monstrous though it was, Saddam Hussein's regime was a
veritable bastion against al-Qaeda and its Islamic fanaticism. Saddam was the
West's man, who was armed to the teeth by America and Britain in the 1980s
because he had oil and a lot of money and because he was an enemy of
anti-Western mullahs in Iran and elsewhere in the region.
Saddam
and Osama bin Laden loathed each other.
His
grave mistake was invading Kuwait in 1990; Kuwait is an Anglo-American
protectorate, part of the Western oil empire in the Middle East.
The
killings in the UN compound in Baghdad this week, like the killing of thousands
of others in Iraq, form a trail of blood that leads to Bush and Blair and their
courtiers.
It
was obvious to millions of people all over the world that if the Americans and
British attacked Iraq, then the fictional link between Iraq and Islamic
terrorism could well become fact.
The
brutality of the occupation of Iraq - in which children are shot or arrested by
the Americans, and countless people have "disappeared" in
concentration camps - is an open invitation to those who now see Iraq as part
of a holy jihad.
When
I travelled the length of Iraq several years ago, I felt completely safe.
I
was received everywhere with generosity and grace, even though I was from a
country whose government was bombing and besieging my hosts.
Bush's
and Blair's court suppressed the truth that most Iraqis both opposed Saddam
Hussein and the invasion of their country.
The
thousands of exiles, from Jordan to Britain, said this repeatedly.
But
who listened to them? When did the BBC interrupt its anti-Christ drumbeat about
Saddam Hussein and report this vital news?
Nor
are the United Nations merely the "peacemakers" and
"nationbuilders" that this week's headlines say they are.
There
were dedicated humanitarians among the dead in Baghdad but for more than 12
years, the UN Security Council allowed itself to be manipulated so that
Washington and London could impose on the people of Iraq, under a UN flag, an
embargo that resembled a mediaeval siege.
WHO
ARE THE EXTREMISTS?
It
was this that crippled Iraq and, ironically, concentrated all domestic power in
the hands of the regime, thus ending all hope of a successful uprising.
The
other day I sat with Dennis Halliday, former Assistant Secretary General of the
United Nations, and the UN in New York. Halliday was the senior UN official in
Iraq in the mid-1990s, who resigned rather than administer the blockade.
"These
sanctions," he said, "represented ongoing warfare against the people
of Iraq. They became, in my view, genocidal in their impact over the years, and
the Security Council maintained them, despite its full knowledge of their
impact, particularly on the children of Iraq.
"We
disregarded our own charter, international law, and we probably killed over a
million people.
"It's
a tragedy that will not be forgotten... I'm confident that the Iraqis will
throw out the occupying forces. I don't know how long it will take, but they'll
throw them out based on a nationalistic drive.
"They
will not tolerate any foreign troops' presence in their country, dictating
their lifestyle, their culture, their future, their politics.
"This
is a very proud people, very conscious of a great history.
"It's
grossly unacceptable. Every country that is now threatened by Mr Bush, which is
his habit, presents an outrage to all of us.
"Should
we stand by and merely watch while a man so dangerous he is willing to
sacrifice Americans lives and, worse, the lives of others."
John Pilger is a renowned investigative
journalist and documentary filmmaker. This year, Pilger was named the winner of
the Sophie Prize, one of the world's most
distinguished environmental and development prizes. He was also named Media Personality of the Year, at this
year's EMMA awards. His latest book is The New Rulers of the World
(Verso, 2002). Visit John Pilger’s website at: http://www.johnpilger.com
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