Civilized Americans are outraged at the torture of Iraqi prisoners
by US occupying forces, but not by what started it all — the
illegal war of aggression by the US invasion of Iraq last year,
“the supreme crime” under international law. Yet there
is something reassuring about the corporate media finally broadcasting
crimes against humanity instead of ignoring them.
A question now arises. Will the public relations onslaught by the
Bush-led White House spark American war fever again? Will the group-mind
slogans of “the Free World” versus “the Terrorists”
fool the public once more? “America at War” has always
worked before. At the height of the latest “damage to America’s
image” - note the focus of concern — the patriot card
is played round the clock.
That the Red Cross has reported that 70-90% of the torture victims
were picked up at random, and tortured for nothing they did, does
not diminish cries for “the terrorists’” blood. That
the official Taguba Report was not permitted to question anyone
above a part-time reserve-army woman officer, who was kept out of
the interrogation room by US Defense Intelligence, does not register
as evidence of top-down control. That far worse crimes of continuously
maiming and killing defenseless Iraqi women and children by US and
allied bombing are not connected or followed up indicates that the
murderous blind eye is still closed.
Denial and finger pointing at others is invariably this administration’s
strategy to divert attention. In fact, documented reports of criminal
abuse of prisoners by US forces have been coming in to high command
since the invasion of Afghanistan with no decision to stop it. The
public record shows that the Bush Jr. Cabinet long ago made the
illegal decision to place itself above the Geneva Convention at
will, and attacked anyone who objected. The deep pattern is that
this regime obeys no international law it if it protects the life
of others. Yet as they now deny all involvement in what they presided
over from the beginning, no-one calls them liars in the mass media.
The tortures in Iraq had been documented by the Pentagon since last
December, but were ignored by the men in charge until the pictures
— the one thing the media public can understand — made
plausible denial no longer possible. Yet the latest big lie continues
to be lost in disconnected pieces.
Denial and projection
The campaign of war criminal behavior, denials of all wrongdoing,
and hymns to America’s love of freedom haven’t lost a
beat since the war crimes began to be put into motion after 9-11
popularized him. 9-11 has since justified every violation of international
and constitutional law as necessary to “the war on terrorism”
- the same justification used by the Nazi state to invade other
countries at will. Yet it would be foolish to forget the 9-11 facts
— for example, that no standard routine of plane interception,
normally under 10 minutes, occurred for over 70 minutes on that
fateful day. Reaction to the known rogue planes somehow only occurred
after all the target buildings were hit. The war state which then
went into motion showed signs of long planning.
Yet everyone in charge at the top of inexplicable lapses of command
is always warmly congratulated by the commander-in-chief for doing
a superb job. No-one connects across the phenomena to see what superb
job is being done. Even as Americans are killed in rising numbers
and innocent non-Americans are terrorized across entire countries,
“the terrorists” are always perceived to be someone else
— usually former allies of the Bush Jr. Gang.
Behind the scenes
Few notice that a master strategy continues to be pursued with
impunity — to seize control of the routes and sources of the
vast and publicly owned oil resources of Central Asia (“the
Afghanistan War”) and Iraq (“the Iraq War”) by illegal
armed invasions. And not just oil is involved. Everything else is
expropriated at the same time — publicly controlled banks,
industrial infrastructures, electricity and water supplies, food
production and delivery systems. It is all done in Iraq by the US
Comprehensive Privatization Plan, another history-turning document
not reported in the media.
So far, there is no limit to the double take in motion — first
from American taxpayers to pay for the over $1-billion-a-day armed
forces which are used to privatize other societies’ wealth
by force. And secondly, at a much higher rate, from the poor Iraqi
and Central Asian peoples whose natural and built resources are
privatized for US and friendly foreign corporations. Behind the
scenes in Iraq, all that can be profited from is seized as an endless
pork barrel for the war crimes. It is sold as “freedom for
the Iraqi people”, and many still believe it.
When the pictures of hands-on torture emerge at the endpoint of
the criminal occupation, the denial continues. “We didn’t
know what was going on” now issues from the top of the war
hierarchy itself. The Bush Jr. War gang remains confident that the
presidential bully pulpit, endless hundreds of millions of financial
funding for attack ads, and a choral corporate press will let them
go on looting US tax wealth and other peoples’ resources as
long as “the President” is believed.
Complicity in Canada?
The group-mind rules in unexpected places. Not even Canada’s
public broadcasting bucks the line of “freedom for Iraq”
and “the war against terror”. Political commentary features
it day in and out, and a silent clamp-down awaits anyone who allows
it to be called into question. I know first-hand. I was on CBC
Sunday News debating a well-known geostrategic planner and propagandist
for the Bush Doctrine just days before the US invasion of Iraq.
I charged him with advocating a war crime against the Iraqi people,
and continuing the genocidal destruction of their socialized infrastructures
of water supplies, electricity, food distribution, and public healthcare
and education (long predating Saddam’s coup d’etat which was supported
by the US). I said he ought to be arrested for counseling war crimes
and crimes against humanity with no justification of self-defence,
and in armed sabotage of ongoing and accurate UN weapons inspections.
CBC management did not approve. The “arrest” phrase was
deleted from the 30-minute delayed broadcast. The research reporter
who had arranged the debate would not return my inquiries on the
debate’s feedback, and was soon no longer on CBC Television’s
major public affairs program. Was he silenced by another level of
the terror — the one that makes us “not know what is going
on” even when the evidence shows mass murder and is known?
The real reign of terror we face is much closer to home than we
dare to think.
John McMurtry, PhD, is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and
author of Value Wars: The Global Market versus the Life Economy.
Subject Headings
