Double Standards, Lies and Iraq
Gary Sudborough | 14.09.2002 23:23
Examples of double standards involving weapons of mass destruction and what John Pilger calls the lying game about Iraq.
Israel has weapons of mass destruction as Iraq is only accused of possessing. Israel invaded Lebanon and occupied it for a number of years. Iraq invaded Kuwait. Israel's leader Ariel Sharon is guilty of war crimes for massacres of Palestinian refugees at Sabra and Shatila and more recent atrocities in West Bank cities. Saddam Hussein is guilty of war crimes for using poison gas on the Kurds. However, in spite of these great similarities, Israel has not been demonized in the media, bombed and subjected to an embargo and no-fly zones as has Iraq. Why? I suggest it is because Israel is the local partner of the United States in the control of Mideast oil and repression of Arab nationalism.
Apartheid South Africa had weapons of mass destruction and invaded Angola and sent a terrorist army called Renamo into Mozambique to destroy the socialist government there. Renamo burned villages, destroyed anything considered socialistic like health clinics, farm cooperatives and schools and terrorized people by cutting off arms and legs with machetes. In addition, apartheid South Africa tortured and murdered thousands of its own black people in the townships. South Africa was not demonized, bombed or accused incessantly of possessing weapons of mass destruction. Why? South Africa was performing a useful function for the United States by helping to destroy the socialist governments in Angola and Mozambique.
One has a choice. Either these double standards arise accidentally because US policymakers are stupid or sleepwalkers and fail to apply equal standards everywhere or they are constantly lying to the American people. I refuse to believe that people who own and control so much of the world and have rolled back socialism everywhere are stupid. This leaves lying and they are extremely proficient at lying. They have Ph.D.s in lying.
I never remember hearing invented terms like ethnic cleansing and weapons of mass destruction until they were used as justifications for war. The United States claimed it was bombing Yugoslavia because of ethnic cleansing by the Serbs against Albanians in Kosovo. I knew this was a lie because at the very same time the US was militarily supporting Turkey in a far greater ethnic cleansing against the Kurds. Also, the US had used its air power to aid the Croats in an ethnic cleansing of the Serbs from the Krajina region of Yugoslavia. I believe weapons of mass destruction is another invented propaganda term because of the double standards I have mentioned concerning Israel and South Africa and also because of other inconsistencies. After enduring over ten years of bombing and sanctions, how can a completely devastated Iraq be a greater danger to the world than before the Persian Gulf War, when the United States was friendly to Iraq, provided it with intelligence and chemical and biological weapons in the Iran-Iraq war and never mentioned the phrase weapons of mass destruction?
When people are asked to sacrifice themselves or their loved ones in a war, they simply can't be told that war is a racket as Major-General Smedley Butler put it or that it is for the benefit of the exceedingly tiny fraction of the population with most of the wealth. Also, they can't be told that it is to enrich large corporations, especially with the bad publicity about Enron, Global Crossing, Tyco, Arthur Anderson, etc. Consequently, they must be made to believe it is for some noble purpose like bringing people freedom and democracy or ending ethnic cleansing, and they must be conditioned to fear and hate the designated enemy. Remember the false story about Iraqi soldiers throwing babies to the floor from their incubators during the invasion of Kuwait. Weapons of mass destruction falls into a similar category of making people fearful.
A very illustrative example of this war propaganda is the Creel Committee established by President Wilson to convince Americans to fight in the mass slaughter called World War 1. They hired two of the best corporate propagandists of the time, Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays. Ivy Lee had been employed by John D. Rockefeller to minimize the damage to his reputation caused by the massacre of striking coal miners at Ludlow, Colorado. Edward Bernays was a nephew of Sigmund Freud and famous for making smoking popular with women by clever propaganda. The Creel Committee very effectively demonized the Germans by spreading propaganda that they were Huns and bayoneted babies. This propaganda enabled the United States to enter what had previously been a very unpopular war.
My point is that propaganda terms like ethnic cleansing and weapons of mass destruction are simply extensions of the demonization that the Creel Committee was so good at. A war with Iraq will not be about weapons of mass destruction, but about control of oil and the further extension of the U.S. global empire.
Apartheid South Africa had weapons of mass destruction and invaded Angola and sent a terrorist army called Renamo into Mozambique to destroy the socialist government there. Renamo burned villages, destroyed anything considered socialistic like health clinics, farm cooperatives and schools and terrorized people by cutting off arms and legs with machetes. In addition, apartheid South Africa tortured and murdered thousands of its own black people in the townships. South Africa was not demonized, bombed or accused incessantly of possessing weapons of mass destruction. Why? South Africa was performing a useful function for the United States by helping to destroy the socialist governments in Angola and Mozambique.
One has a choice. Either these double standards arise accidentally because US policymakers are stupid or sleepwalkers and fail to apply equal standards everywhere or they are constantly lying to the American people. I refuse to believe that people who own and control so much of the world and have rolled back socialism everywhere are stupid. This leaves lying and they are extremely proficient at lying. They have Ph.D.s in lying.
I never remember hearing invented terms like ethnic cleansing and weapons of mass destruction until they were used as justifications for war. The United States claimed it was bombing Yugoslavia because of ethnic cleansing by the Serbs against Albanians in Kosovo. I knew this was a lie because at the very same time the US was militarily supporting Turkey in a far greater ethnic cleansing against the Kurds. Also, the US had used its air power to aid the Croats in an ethnic cleansing of the Serbs from the Krajina region of Yugoslavia. I believe weapons of mass destruction is another invented propaganda term because of the double standards I have mentioned concerning Israel and South Africa and also because of other inconsistencies. After enduring over ten years of bombing and sanctions, how can a completely devastated Iraq be a greater danger to the world than before the Persian Gulf War, when the United States was friendly to Iraq, provided it with intelligence and chemical and biological weapons in the Iran-Iraq war and never mentioned the phrase weapons of mass destruction?
When people are asked to sacrifice themselves or their loved ones in a war, they simply can't be told that war is a racket as Major-General Smedley Butler put it or that it is for the benefit of the exceedingly tiny fraction of the population with most of the wealth. Also, they can't be told that it is to enrich large corporations, especially with the bad publicity about Enron, Global Crossing, Tyco, Arthur Anderson, etc. Consequently, they must be made to believe it is for some noble purpose like bringing people freedom and democracy or ending ethnic cleansing, and they must be conditioned to fear and hate the designated enemy. Remember the false story about Iraqi soldiers throwing babies to the floor from their incubators during the invasion of Kuwait. Weapons of mass destruction falls into a similar category of making people fearful.
A very illustrative example of this war propaganda is the Creel Committee established by President Wilson to convince Americans to fight in the mass slaughter called World War 1. They hired two of the best corporate propagandists of the time, Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays. Ivy Lee had been employed by John D. Rockefeller to minimize the damage to his reputation caused by the massacre of striking coal miners at Ludlow, Colorado. Edward Bernays was a nephew of Sigmund Freud and famous for making smoking popular with women by clever propaganda. The Creel Committee very effectively demonized the Germans by spreading propaganda that they were Huns and bayoneted babies. This propaganda enabled the United States to enter what had previously been a very unpopular war.
My point is that propaganda terms like ethnic cleansing and weapons of mass destruction are simply extensions of the demonization that the Creel Committee was so good at. A war with Iraq will not be about weapons of mass destruction, but about control of oil and the further extension of the U.S. global empire.
Gary Sudborough
e-mail:
IconoclastGS@aol.com
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UN Resolutions Against Israel, 1955-1992
14.09.2002 23:31
Resolution 111: "...'condemns' Israel for raid on Syria that killed fifty-six people"
Resolution 127: "...'recommends' Israel suspend its 'no-man's zone' in Jerusalem"
Resolution 162: "...'urges' Israel to comply with UN decisions"
Resolution 171: "...determines flagrant violations' by Israel in its attack on Syria"
Resolution 228: "...'censures' Israel for its attack on Samu in the West Bank, then under Jordanian control"
Resolution 237: "...'urges' Israel to allow return of new 1967 Palestinian refugees"
Resolution 248: "... 'condemns' Israel for its massive attack on Karameh in Jordan"
Resolution 250: "... 'calls' on Israel to refrain from holding military parade in Jerusalem"
Resolution 251: "... 'deeply deplores' Israeli military parade in Jerusalem in defiance of Resolution 250"
Resolution 252: "...'declares invalid' Israel's acts to unify Jerusalem as Jewish capital"
Resolution 256: "... 'condemns' Israeli raids on Jordan as 'flagrant violation""
Resolution 259: "...'deplores' Israel's refusal to accept UN mission to probe occupation"
Resolution 262: "...'condemns' Israel for attack on Beirut airport"
Resolution 265: "... 'condemns' Israel for air attacks for Salt in Jordan"
Resolution 267: "...'censures' Israel for administrative acts to change the status of Jerusalem"
Resolution 270: "...'condemns' Israel for air attacks on villages in southern Lebanon"
Resolution 271: "...'condemns' Israel's failure to obey UN resolutions on Jerusalem"
Resolution 279: "...'demands' withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon"
Resolution 280: "....'condemns' Israeli's attacks against Lebanon"
Resolution 285: "...'demands' immediate Israeli withdrawal form Lebanon"
Resolution 298: "...'deplores' Israel's changing of the status of Jerusalem"
Resolution 313: "...'demands' that Israel stop attacks against Lebanon"
Resolution 316: "...'condemns' Israel for repeated attacks on Lebanon"
Resolution 317: "...'deplores' Israel's refusal to release Arabs abducted in Lebanon"
Resolution 332: "...'condemns' Israel's repeated attacks against Lebanon"
Resolution 337: "...'condemns' Israel for violating Lebanon's sovereignty"
Resolution 347: "...'condemns' Israeli attacks on Lebanon"
Resolution 425: "...'calls' on Israel to withdraw its forces from Lebanon"
Resolution 427: "...'calls' on Israel to complete its withdrawal from Lebanon'
Resolution 444: "...'deplores' Israel's lack of cooperation with UN peacekeeping forces"
Resolution 446: "...'determines' that Israeli settlements are a 'serious obstruction' to peace and calls on Israel to abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention"
Resolution 450: "...'calls' on Israel to stop attacking Lebanon"
Resolution 452: "...'calls' on Israel to cease building settlements in occupied territories"
Resolution 465: "...'deplores' Israel's settlements and asks all member states not to assist Israel's settlements program"
Resolution 467: "...'strongly deplores' Israel's military intervention in Lebanon"
Resolution 468: "...'calls' on Israel to rescind illegal expulsions of two Palestinian mayors and a judge and to facilitate their return"
Resolution 469: "...'strongly deplores' Israel's failure to observe the council's order not to deport Palestinians"
Resolution 471: "... 'expresses deep concern' at Israel's failure to abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention"
Resolution 476: "... 'reiterates' that Israel's claims to Jerusalem are 'null and void'"
Resolution 478: "...'censures (Israel) in the strongest terms' for its claim to Jerusalem in its 'Basic Law'"
Resolution 484: "...'declares it imperative' that Israel re-admit two deported Palestinian mayors"
Resolution 487: "...'strongly condemns' Israel for its attack on Iraq's nuclear facility"
Resolution 497: "...'decides' that Israel's annexation of Syria's Golan Heights is 'null and void' and demands that Israel rescind its decision forthwith"
Resolution 498: "...'calls' on Israel to withdraw from Lebanon"
Resolution 501: "...'calls' on Israel to stop attacks against Lebanon and withdraw its troops"
Resolution 509: "...'demands' that Israel withdraw its forces forthwith and unconditionally from Lebanon"
Resolution 515: "...'demands' that Israel lift its siege of Beirut and allow food supplies to be brought in"
Resolution 517: "...'censures' Israel for failing to obey UN resolutions and demands that Israel withdraw its forces from Lebanon"
Resolution 518: "...'demands' that Israel cooperate fully with UN forces in Lebanon"
Resolution 520: "...'condemns' Israel's attack into West Beirut"
Resolution 573: "...'condemns' Israel 'vigorously' for bombing Tunisia in attack on PLO headquarters
Resolution 587: "...'takes note' of previous calls on Israel to withdraw its forces from Lebanon and urges all parties to withdraw"
Resolution 592: "...'strongly deplores' the killing of Palestinian students at Bir Zeit University by Israeli troops"
Resolution 605: "...'strongly deplores' Israel's policies and practices denying the human rights of Palestinians
Resolution 607: "...'calls' on Israel not to deport Palestinians and strongly requests it to abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention
Resolution 608: "...'deeply regrets' that Israel has defied the United Nations and deported Palestinian civilians"
Resolution 636: "...'deeply regrets' Israeli deportation of Palestinian civilians
Resolution 641: "...'deplores' Israel's continuing deportation of Palestinians
Resolution 672: "...'condemns' Israel for violence against Palestinians at the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount
Resolution 673: "...'deplores' Israel's refusal to cooperate with the United Nations
Resolution 681: "...'deplores' Israel's resumption of the deportation of Palestinians
Resolution 694: "...'deplores' Israel's deportation of Palestinians and calls on it to ensure their safe and immediate return
Resolution 726: "...'strongly condemns' Israel's deportation of Palestinians
Resolution 799: "...'strongly condemns' Israel's deportation of 413 Palestinians and calls for their immediate return.
X Factor
A depressingly long list
15.09.2002 08:49
Auntie Beeb
gerald kaufmanns recent documnetary
16.09.2002 15:29
anne enquiry