Aside from these notable exceptions, the mass propaganda media practise several techniques, which assuage the “conscience” of US soldiers and civilians. One technique is “role reversal” to attribute the crimes of the invading force to the victims: It is not the soldiers who cause destruction of cities and murder, but the Iraqi families who 'protect the terrorists' and “bring upon themselves the savage bombardment”.
The second technique is to only report US casualties from “terrorist bombs” — to omit any mention of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed by US bombs and artillery. Both Nazi and US propaganda glorify the “heroism”, “success” of their elite forces (the SS and the Marines) — in killing “terrorists” or “insurgents” — every dead civilian is counted as a “suspected terrorist sympathiser”.
The US and German military have declared every civilian building a “storehouse” or “hiding place” for “terrorists'—hence the absolutely total disregard of all the Geneva laws of warfare. The US and Nazi practice of 'total war' in which whole communities, neighbourhoods and entire cities are collectively guilty of shielding 'wanted terrorists'—is of course the standard operating military procedure of the Israeli government.
The US publicises the cruel and unusual punishment of Iraqi “suspects” (any male between 14 and 60 years old) taken prisoner: photos appear in Time and Newsweek of barefoot, blindfolded and bound young men led from their homes and pushed into trucks to be taken to “exploitation centres” for interrogation. For many in the US public these pictures are part of the success story — they are told these are the “terrorists” who would blow up US homes.
For the majority who voted for US President George Bush, the mass propaganda media has taught them to believe that the extermination of scores of thousands of Iraqi citizens is in their best interests: they can sleep sound, as long as “our boys” kill them “over there”.
Above all the mass propaganda media has done everything possible to deny Iraqi national consciousness. Every day in every way the reference is to religious loyalties, ethnic identities, past political labels, “tribal” and family clans. The purpose is to divide and conquer, and to present the world with a “chaotic” Iraq in which the only coherent, stable force is the US colonial regime. The purpose of the savage colonial assaults and the political labelling is to destroy the idea of the Iraqi nation — and in its place to substitute a series of mini-entities run by imperial satraps obedient to Washington.
Sunday morning: November 14. Today Fallujah is being raped and razed, captured. Wounded prisoners are shot in the mosques. In New York, the mega-malls are crowded with shoppers.
