Blair’s bombs

While our mainstream media continues its delusions about the “War on Terror” – including feting Prime Minister John Howard for doing and saying absolutely of note in Washington and London this week – John Pilger writes in this week’s New Statesman of Western culpability, “liberal” media blindness and the twisting of the terrorism debate:

“How many Palestinian babies have died at Israeli checkpoints after their mothers, bleeding and screaming in premature labour, have been forced to give birth beside the road at a military checkpoint with the lights of a hospital in the distance? How many old men have been forced to show obeisance to young Israeli conscripts? How many families have been blown to bits by America-supplied F-16s with British-supplied parts? The gravity of the bombing of London, said a BBC commentator, “can be measured by the fact that it marks Britain’s first suicide bombing”. What about Iraq? There were no suicide bombers in Iraq until Blair and Bush invaded.

“What about Palestine? There were no suicide bombers in Palestine until Ariel Sharon, an accredited war criminal sponsored by Bush and Blair, came to power. In the 1991 Gulf “war”, American and British forces left more than 200,000 Iraqis dead and injured and the infrastructure of their country in “an apocalyptic state”, according to the United Nations. The subsequent embargo, designed and promoted by zealots in Washington and Whitehall, was not unlike a medieval siege. Denis Halliday, the United Nations official assigned to administer the near-starvation food allowance, called it “genocidal”.”

While the Australia media still ignores Seymour Hersh’s report on Iraq’s rigged January election – let’s guess how long it may take them to pick up his lead – the Sydney Morning Herald today reveals its colours in an editorial discussing the “War on Terror.” After suggesting that “opinions about the wisdom and propriety of going to war to topple Saddam Hussein remain polarised”, the paper praised the Howard government’s ongoing commitment to Iraq and Afghanistan, without once asking about the true agendas of the deployments, other than accepting Western government spin. No discussion about US-funded militias, those pesky, missing WMDs, torture in American custody and a planned Constitution that sidelines women and Israel.

Victory is at hand, indeed.

Text and images ©2024 Antony Loewenstein. All rights reserved.

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