Bush's war and the failure of the media.
The Minute It's Made Up You'll Hear About It.
by Mark Steel
The Independent (London)
April 03, 2003
You expect lies, but usually they're found out once a war is over. But
in this war the lying is so inept that it gets rumbled the next day. So
the news starts "Oh, apparently that uprising we yelled about all
through yesterday didn't happen" or "Ah, yes, that chemical
weapons factory turned out to be an all-night petrol garage".
The military briefings must be given by one of those pathological liars
you get in pubs. One day the press conference from Washington will begin:
"Guess what, I won an Olympic swimming medal once. I had to swim
underwater so no one could see me because I was in the secret service."
The presenters who front this bilge should say: "We're here to bring
you 24-hour rolling cack that's been made up. The minute it's made up,
you'll hear about it. And there's some breaking cack being made up right
now, apparently Saddam has filled some clouds with anthrax and he's forcing
giants in the Republican Guard to blow them towards Bournemouth. We'll
bring you more as soon as it's made up."
One of the sickest examples is the squirming over how 55 civilians came
to be killed in a market. Their investigations are going on, they tell
us. Because it's a great mystery how, in a city in which 300 cruise missiles
a night are exploding with "shock and awe", anyone might have
been blown up. Working that out must be like living through an episode
of Inspector Morse.
The most likely explanation, says Jack Straw, is that the Iraqis did it
themselves, and the exploded missile with an American serial number found
at the site was probably put there by wily Iraqis. Or maybe the Iraqis
have built a replica Baghdad somewhere in the desert, where Saddam is
forcing his people to blow themselves up so it can be filmed to make the
Americans look bad.
Another persistent myth is that, as one report told us, "the main
objective of the coalition forces is to get food and medicine into Basra".
If the reporter is asked why, despite this generosity, the Iraqi people
still don't seem to trust us, he'll probably say: "I expect it's
because most people in Basra are, at the moment, on a diet. And they may
resent the coalition for putting temptation in their way." I suppose
that the Americans are hoping that eventually the people of Basra will
come round and say: "They might have blown my mate's leg off, but
credit where it's due, once they got here they gave him some very soothing
cream for his stump."
On Tuesday night, a news report told us that anti-war protests had "melted
away". To prove this, the reporter announced: "One night before
the war Parliament Square was packed with protesters, but now there's
just one lone man with a wet banner." Did it really not occur to
this reporter that the reason there were no demonstrators was because
on Tuesday night there was no demonstration? Perhaps he does sports reports
where he says: "Support for Manchester United has melted away. On
Saturday afternoon there were 60,000 people at Old Trafford, but the following
morning there were just a couple of cleaners."
The terrifying thing is that the people who seem to fall for the propaganda
most of all are the governments who make it up in the first place. The
result is that the first two weeks of this war can appear like the first
four years of Vietnam with the film speeded up. They expected to be welcomed,
and when they weren't, they almost pleaded: "Can't you see? We're
here to liberate you." So when civilians oppose them the generals
declare they're "Republican Guard" in civilian clothing. So
the whole population becomes a potential enemy, the troops get edgy and
fire on women and children. And, as in Vietnam when Kissinger bombed Laos
and Cambodia, the Americans are already threatening Syria and Iran.
So I don't follow the line that "We must support the war to back
our troops". If teenagers run off to join the mafia, you don't say:
"I was against them going but now they're there we can't undermine
them by saying they should come home." The only consistent way to
support the troops' safety is to demand that they come home and go back
to starting fights in pubs in Colchester as normal.
Because when the Stars and Stripes flies in Baghdad, that isn't the end.
Millions of Arabs won't walk away like a football manager after losing
a match, muttering, "Well our defence let us down but good luck to
Donald Rumsfeld in the next round." Because the country will be under
the control of the President who, as he was about to announce the war
had begun, threw his arms into the air and yelped: "I feel good."
Who knows how nutty he'll be next time? The war on Iran will begin with
George Bush announcing: "Fellow Americans, get on up like a sex machine.
We will not rest until I've been taken to the bridge."
by Mark Steel, The London Independent
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