this is fascism old biddy

Iraq: Covering up US war crimes

James Petras

I am reading William Shirer's Berlin Diary, a journalist's account of Nazi political propaganda during the 1930s, as I watch the US “news” reports of the violent assault on Fallujah.

The US mass media “reports”, the style, content and especially the language, echo their Nazi predecessors of 70 years ago to an uncanny degree. Coincidence? Of course! In both instances we have imperialist armies conquering countries, levelling cities and slaughtering civilians — and the mass media, private in form, state appendages in practice, disseminate the most outrageous lies, in defense and praise of the conquering “storm troopers” — call them SS or marines.

Both in Nazi Germany and contemporary US, we are told by the mass media that the invading armies are “freeing the country” of “foreign fighters” and “armed terrorists”, who are preventing “the people” from going about their everyday lives. Yet we know that of the 1000 prisoners there are only four foreigners (three Iranians and one Arab); Iraqi hospitals report less than 10% of casualties are foreign fighters. In other words, over 90% of the fighters are Iraqis — most of whom were born, educated and raised families in the cities in which they are fighting.

Like the Nazi media, the major US radio and TV networks only report what they call “military casualties” — failing to report the civilians killed since the war started and the thousands of women and children killed and wounded since the assault on Fallujah began.

Like in Nazi Germany, the US mass media feature unconfirmed reports by the US military of the bloody murders, beheadings and kidnappings “by the foreign terrorists”. The unconditional support of Nazi/US mass media for the killing fields is best captured in their reports of the massive bombing of densely populated city districts. For the US network NBC, the dropping of 500-pound bombs in the city of Fallujah is described as targeting an “insurgent tunnel network in the city”. And the houses, markets, stores — the mothers and children above those tunnels — vaporised into “pink mist”, their existence never acknowledged by the leading reporters and broadcasters.

Almost the entire population of non-Kurdish Iraq is opposed to the US military and its puppet regime — yet the media refer to the patriots defending their country from the imperial invaders as “insurgents”, minimising the significance of a nationwide patriotic liberation movement. One of the most surreal euphemisms is the constant reference to the “coalition forces” — meaning the US colonial conquerors and the mercenaries and satraps that they direct and control.

The terror bombing of homes, hospitals and religious buildings by hundreds of airplanes and helicopter gunships is described by the media as “securing the city for free elections”.

“Freeing the city of insurgents” includes the systematic murder of friends, neighbours and relatives of every Iraqi living in the city of Fallujah. “Surrounding the insurgents” means cutting off water, electricity and medical aid for 200,000 civilians in the city and putting tens of thousands who fled under threat of a typhoid epidemic. “Pacifying the city” involves turning it to absolute desolate poisoned rubble.

Why do Washington and the mass media resort to gross, systematic lying and euphemisms? Basically to reinforce mass support at home for mass murder in Iraq. The mass media fabricates a web of lies to secure a gloss of legitimacy for totalitarian methods in order that the US armed forces can continue to destroy cities with impunity.

The technique perfected by Goebbels in Germany and practiced in the US is to repeat lies and euphemisms until they become accepted “truths”, and embedded in everyday language. The mass media by effectively routinising a common language implicates the listeners. The tactical concerns of the generals, the commanders directing the slaughter (pacification), and the soldiers murdering civilians are explained (and consumed by the millions listening and watching) by the unchallenged authorities to the compliant journalists and famous news anchors.