- U.S. President George W. Bush often complains about the
"media filter" that distorts the true picture of his administration's
accomplishments in Iraq. And he's right. For regardless of where you stand
on Bush's policies in the region, it's undeniable that the political and
commercial biases of the American press have consistently misrepresented
the reality of the situation.
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- Here's an excellent example. Earlier this month, the
American media completely ignored an important announcement from an official
of the Iraqi government concerning the oft-maligned U.S. operation to clear
insurgents from the city of Fallujah last November. Although the press
conference of Health Ministry investigator Dr. Khalid ash-Shaykhli was
attended by representatives from The Washington Post, Knight-Ridder and
more than 20 other international news outlets, nary a word of his team's
thorough investigation into the truth about the battle made it through
the filter's dense mesh. Once again, the American public was denied the
full story of one of President Bush's remarkable triumphs.
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- Dr. ash-Shaykhli's findings provided confirmation of
earlier reports by many other Iraqis -- reports that were also ignored
by the arrogant filterers, who seem more interested in hearing from terrorists
or anti-occupation extremists than ordinary Iraqis and those like Dr. ash-Shaykhli,
who serve in the U.S.-backed interim government vetted and approved by
President Bush. But while the media elite turn up their noses at such riffraff,
the testimony of these common folk and diligent public servants gives ample
evidence of Bush's innovative method of liberating innocent Iraqis from
tyranny:
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- He burns them to death with chemical weapons.
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- Dr. ash-Shaykhli was sent by the pro-American Baghdad
government to assess health conditions in Fallujah, a city of 300,000 that
was razed to the ground by a U.S. assault on a few hundred insurgents,
most of whom slipped away long before the attack. The ruin of the city
was complete: Every single house was either destroyed (from 75 to 80 percent
of the total) or heavily damaged. The city's entire infrastructure -- water,
electricity, food, transport, medicine -- was obliterated. Indeed, the
city's hospitals were among the first targets, in order to prevent medical
workers from spreading "propaganda" about civilian casualties,
U.S. officials said at the time.
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- Eyewitness accounts from the few survivors of the onslaught,
which killed an estimated 1,200 noncombatants, have consistently reported
the use of "burning chemicals" by American forces: horrible concoctions
that roasted people alive with an unquenchable
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- jellied fire, InterPress reported. They also tell of
whole quadrants of the city in which nothing was left alive, not even dogs
or goats -- quadrants that were sealed off by the victorious Americans
for mysterious scouring operations after the battle. Others told of widespread
use of cluster bombs in civilian areas -- a flagrant violation of the Geneva
Conventions, but a standard practice throughout the war.
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- The few fragments of this information that made it through
the ever-
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- vigilant filter were instantly dismissed as anti-American
propaganda, although they often came from civilians who had opposed the
heavy-handed insurgent presence in the town. Rejected as well were the
innumerable horror stories of those who had seen their whole
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- families -- including women, children, the sick and the
elderly -- slaughtered in the "liberal rules of engagement" established
by Bush's top brass. Most of the city was declared "weapons-free":
military jargon meaning that soldiers could shoot "whatever they see
-- it's all considered hostile," The New York Times reported, in a
story buried deep inside the paper.
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- Yet the ash-Shaykhli team -- again, appointed by the
Bush-backed government -- confirmed the use of "mustard gas, nerve
gas and other burning chemicals" by U.S. forces during the battle.
Dr. ash-Shaykhli said that survivors -- still living in refugee camps,
along with some 200,000 former Fallujah residents who fled before the assault
-- are now showing the medical effects of attack by chemical agents and
the use of depleted uranium shells. (American officials have admitted raining
more than 250,000 pounds of toxin-tipped DU ammunition on Iraqis since
the war began.)
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- The Pentagon has acknowledged using white phosphorus
in Fallujah, but only for "illumination purposes." It denied
using napalm in the attack -- but, in the course of that denial, it admitted
that its earlier denials of using napalm elsewhere in Iraq were in fact
false. And individual Marines filing "After Action Reports" on
the Internet for military enthusiasts back home have detailed the routine
use of white phosphorus shells, propane bombs and "jellied gasoline"
(also known as napalm) during direct tactical assaults in Fallujah.
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- To Our Readers
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- Has something you've read here startled you? Are you
angry, excited, puzzled or pleased? Do you have ideas to improve our coverage?
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- Then please write to us.
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- All we ask is that you include your full name, the name
of the city from which you are writing and a contact telephone number in
case we need to get in touch.
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- We look forward to hearing from you.
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- Email the Opinion Page EditorDr. ash-Shaykhli's findings
-- coming from a pro-American government, buttressed by reams of eyewitness
testimony from ordinary Iraqi civilians -- appear to be substantial, credible
and worthy of further investigation by the U.S. press. Certainly, the findings
are more credible than the pre-war lies and fantasies about Saddam's phantom
WMD, which the "media filter" lapped up from the Bush regime
and amplified across the nation, rousing support for an unnecessary, illegal
and immoral war. Yet these serious new atrocity charges have not even been
mentioned, much less examined.
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- Behind the filter -- with its basic story template of
"always moral U.S. policies occasionally marred by a few bad apples"
-- a relentless degeneration of American society is taking place. Brutality
and atrocity are becoming normalized, systemized and rewarded. The noble
American ideal of transcendence -- overcoming the beast within, seeking
to embrace an ever-broader, ever-deeper, ever-richer vision of universal
communion and individual worth -- is dying at the hands of the resurgent
barbarity championed and cultivated by the Bush regime. Old-fashioned citizens
are being replaced by "Bush Americans": wilfully ignorant, bellicose
zealots, cringingly servile toward the powerful, violently hostile to all
"outsiders." Despite Bush's artful complaints, the media filter
has served his degenerate purposes very well.
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- http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/03/18/120.html
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