Media
When soldiers protest at propaganda
Published 07 June 2007
An experienced British officer serving in Iraq has written to the BBC describing the invasion as "illegal, immoral and unwinnable", which, he says, is "the overwhelming feeling of many of my peers". In a letter to Newsnight and Medialens.org he accuses the media's "embedded coverage with the US army" of failing to question "the intentions and con tinuing effects of the US-led invasion and subsequent occupation". He says most British soldiers regard their tours as "loathsome", during which they "reluctantly [provide] target practice for insurgents, senselessly haemorrhaging casualties and squandering soldiers' lives, as part of Bush's vain attempt to delay the inevitable Anglo-US rout until after the next US election". He appeals to journalists not to swallow "the official line/ White House propaganda".
In 1970, I made a film in Vietnam called The Quiet Mutiny, in which GIs spoke out about their hatred of that war and its "official line/White House propaganda". The experiences in Iraq and Vietnam are both very different and strikingly similar. There was much less "embedded coverage" in Vietnam, although there was censorship by omission, which is standard practice today.
What is different about Iraq is the willingness of usually obedient British soldiers to speak their minds, from General Richard Dannatt, the current military chief, who said the presence of his troops in Iraq "exacerbates the security problem", to General Michael Rose, who has called for Tony Blair to be impeached for taking Britain to war "on false grounds" - remarks that are mild compared with the blogs of squaddies.
What is also different is the growing awareness in the British forces and the public of how "the official line" is played through the media. This can be quite crude: for example, when a BBC defence correspondent in Iraq described the aim of the Anglo-American invasion as "bring[ing] democracy and human rights" to Iraq. The dir ector of BBC News, Helen Boaden, backed him up with a sheaf of quotations from Blair that this was indeed the aim, implying that Blair's notorious word was enough.
More often than not, censorship by omission is employed - for example, by omitting the fact that almost 80 per cent of attacks are directed against the occupation forces (source: the Pentagon), so as to give the impression that the occupiers are doing their best to separate "warring tribes" and are crisis managers rather than the cause of the crisis.
There is a last-ditch sense about this kind of propaganda. Seymour Hersh said recently: "[In April, the Bush administration] made a decision that, because of the totally dwindling support for the war in Iraq, they would go back to the al-Qaeda card, although there's no empirical basis . . . Most of the pros will tell you the foreign fighters are a couple of per cent and they're sort of leaderless . . . there's no attempt to suggest there's any significant co-ordination of these groups, but the press keeps going gaga about al-Qaeda . . . It's just amazing to me."
Gaga day at the Guardian was 22 May. "Iran's secret plan for summer offensive to force US out of Iraq", read the front-page banner headline. "Iran is secretly forging ties with al-Qaeda elements and Sunni Arab militias in Iraq," wrote Simon Tisdall from Washington, "in preparation for a summer showdown with coalition forces intended to tip a wavering US Congress into voting for full military withdrawal, US officials say."
The entire tale was based on anonymous US official sources. No attempt was made to substantiate their "firm evidence" or explain the illogic of their claims. No journalistic scepticism was even hinted, which is amazing, considering the web of proven lies spun from Washington over Iraq. Moreover, it had a curious tone of something-must-be-done insistence, reminiscent of Judith Miller's scandalous reports in the New York Times claiming that Saddam Hussein was about to launch his weapons of mass destruction and beckoning Bush to invade. Tisdall in effect offered the same invitation; I can remember few more irresponsible pieces of journalism. The British public, and the people of Iran, deserve better.
John Pilger's new film, "The War on Democracy", opens at cinemas on 15 June. His latest book, "Freedom Next Time", is published in paperback by Black Swan (£8.99)
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