On the 15th anniversary of Iraq invasion, evidence remains overwhelming that war was illegal and a “crime of aggression”. Yet six Cabinet members were elevated to House of Lords, others to top international jobs. UK elite enjoys impunity for foreign wars. Far from paying any price, the British system has rewarded ministers for their fateful decision on Iraq
As we begin the 16th year of the Iraq war, the American public must come to terms with the scale of the violence and chaos we have unleashed in Iraq. Only then may we find the political will to bring this horrific cycle of violence to an end, to replace war with diplomacy and hostility with friendship, as we have begun to do with Iran and as the people of North and South Korea are trying to do to avoid meeting a similar fate to that of Iraq.
Truth is, the military is full of Harrises, eager patriots irrevocably transformed by meaningless combat. In an overnight conversation between two who met at a demonstration (at which Harris was speaking) Authority and Expectations walks the wiretapped road to Wray’s apostasy. Fourteen months he fought in Iraq, invading, interrogating, deteriorating. At twenty-four he doesn’t reflect, he flashes. From step-dad beating his mom to death-metal concerts to a drunken call to the army recruiter at 3 a.m. Now beer in hand, pipe in pocket, cigarette in mouth he staggers through remnants and craters with the clairvoyance that only comes to a man of war.
Western governments, their corporate news media, and even the United Nations’ chief Antonio Guterres are once again playing a disgusting, emotive propaganda game over the Syrian war.
On January 8, Fiona Bruce introduced an item about Syria on BBC News at Ten with the phrase: ‘Syrian government forces, backed by Russia’. Why does BBC News not regularly use the phrase, ‘Saudi government forces, backed by the United States and the UK’ when reporting on bombs dropped on Yemen? The answer should be obvious.
Journalists are supposed to critically question, investigate the facts, and expose contradictions and falsehoods. When the media fails to do that, they have some responsibility, especially when it leads to wars, death and destruction.
Open a corporate media website on any given day and you will find someone, somewhere blaming social media for something. No claim is too absurd.
Despite the Iraqi declaration of victory, statements from various UK ministers and officials indicate the intention to keep British drones deployed. In November, the UK’s Air Component Commander, Air Commodore Johnny Stringer, told a press conference that while manned aircraft are likely to be withdrawn soon, the UK’s drones and other surveillance aircraft would continue to fly in Iraq and Syria.
One of the wonders of contemporary propaganda is the extent to which corporate commentators are in denial about their use of the term ‘genocide denial’. Clearly, they believe they are using a neutral, objective term to describe indisputable facts of genocidal killing and ugly refusals to recognise those facts.
In what has become an ugly habit with Monbiot, and one I have noted before, he has enthusiastically adopted the role of Witchfinder General. Any questioning of evidence, scepticism or simply signs of open-mindedness are enough apparently to justify accusations that one is an Assadist or conspiracy theorist.
Whilst most debate has focused on questions relating to the overselling of intelligence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, the most important information to emerge from the Chilcot Report concerns the formation of the ‘war on terror’, according to an academic at the University of Sheffield. The Chilcot Report, published on June 6 2016, delivered damning criticisms of the […]
The truth of corporate journalism, and the great irony of its obsession with ‘fake news’, is that it is itself utterly fake. What could be more obviously fake than the idea that Truth can be sold by billionaire-owned media dependent on billionaire-owned advertisers for maximised profit?
