Lies, mendacity, hypocrisy, disinformation, plain brainwashing, double standards and prostitution - the prostitution of journalists - have been the hallmarks of the Anglo-American aggression against Iraq, according to the Israeli journalist, peace activist and former Knesset Member Uri Avnery. Below we share with you some of his thoughts, in the form of excerpts from his articles published between 22 March and 2 April 2003.
Blood for oil. George Bush is a simple man, but the people behind him are far from being stupid. They are the oil barons and the arms industry giants. They want to do what great powers have always done: use their military might in order to acquire economic hegemony. In simple words: to rob the poor in order to enrich themselves even more.
The military occupation of Iraq will last many years and secure for America control over the vast oil reserves of Iraq, as well as the Caspian Sea reserves and all the Arab oil. That will give it control over the world's economy and prevent the emergence of a competing, independent European economic bloc. America is fighting against Europe as much as against Iraq. That is part of the reason for Europe's angry response.
Germany. Germany is against the war. Against any war. In no other country was the anti-war outburst so authentic, emanating from the innermost feelings of the masses.
And who is furious about this? Israel, the country of the Holocaust survivors. How do they dare, these damn Germans, to object to the war?
A sad irony of history: all German TV stations show citizens, intellectuals and ordinary folk, who pray for peace; all Israeli TV screens show retired generals, obviously enjoying themselves, discussing with great relish how to employ giant bombs and other instruments of death.
Intoxication of power. This is the first war of the 21st century, and it bodes ill.
This century has inherited from its antecedent a world with one sole superpower. America has no competitors, no possible combination of other forces can measure up to it. It can literally do what it wants, and now it is doing just that, openly and brutally.
When America won its cheap and easy victory in Afghanistan, using smart bombs and suitcases filled with cash, it was clear it could not stop itself anymore. A huge machine like that wants to go on fighting and is searching for an enemy. Now it's Iraq. Who next? Iran? North Korea?
That is what happened to the Roman Empire. That is what happened to Napoleon and Hitler. The intoxication of power knows no boundaries. And no one of these was in the situation of the United States now: alone in the world, without enemies that can stand up to it.
Mercenaries. This is a war fought by mercenaries. The fighters are professional soldiers, the sons of the poor, many of them black. Therefore, it is easy for middle class citizens, and especially the Republican voters, to approve of the war. It is not their sons who will be killed.
In the past, the European left demanded the abolition of the professional army and the introduction of general conscription. At the time, that was a "progressive" idea. When the left put on weight, it forgot all about it.
The Vietnam war was still fought by conscripted soldiers. Resistance to the war grew when the body bags started to arrive. George W. Bush, who supported the war with all his heart, took no part in the fighting. Father arranged a job for him back home. He was just another shirker.
The "Israeli syndrome". One may call this the "Israeli Syndrome": the abysmal contempt for the Arabs, the belief that they cannot fight. This has caused the failures of the Israeli army in the Yom Kippur [1973 Ramadan War] and Lebanon wars, and in the two intifadas. Every time the Arabs fight valiantly and sacrifice their lives, it causes painful surprise.
They are afraid. The Iraqi people react as any normal people would. In the face of a foreign invasion, they unite. Even the opponents of the regime support the leader in battle. When the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, even the prisoners in the Gulag camps cheered Stalin.
Many Iraqis want, quite likely, to get rid of Saddam. But they do not want this to be done by foreign invaders. Especially not by the Americans, whom they suspect of intending to rob them of their oil. (The participation of the British, their hated former colonial masters, makes things even worse.)
And when the population does not come out to welcome the liberators and the brigades of the regular army do not capitulate en masse, what is the explanation? The politicians and generals find solace in a blatantly ridiculous construction: the millions of inhabitants of Basra and the south are afraid of Saddam's agents who are still in the area. They long to greet the Americans, but do not dare, poor people.
Even the Israeli army spokesman could not have invented a more pitiful explanation.
The Palestinian example. No Arab - be he Sunni or Shi'i - can look upon the Americans as liberators, because, for two years now, they have seen every day on their television screens what the Israeli army, with Bush's wholehearted support, is doing to the Palestinian Arab people.
The righteous Americans, who tend to be insensitive to the feelings of other peoples, cannot even imagine the intensity of the fury and hatred of the Arab masses. Therefore, they could not draw the lessons from the 11 September atrocities - one of them being that they must change their policy in our country.
Even now, while the war is going on, Saddam's television broadcasts images of Israeli outrages in the Palestinian territories, in order to show to the Iraqi people how the heroic Palestinians, including the children, pit their lives against the huge might of the Israeli army.
The moment of shock. In the history of Israel there were several moment of national shock.
One of them happened during the Yom Kippur [Ramadan] war. The moment is printed in my memory. We were sitting in front of the television set in a friend's apartment, when there appeared on the screen a group of Israeli soldiers who had been taken prisoners.
They were sitting on the ground, their heads bent down, their hands tied on their backs, trembling and frightened, surrounded by jubilant Syrians.
Up to that moment, the absolute belief in the superiority of the Israeli fighter was a cornerstone of Israeli consciousness, nourished by innumerable true stories and myths. At that moment it came crushing down. Suddenly we saw our soldiers as normal human beings, frightened in a frightening situation.
Now it happens to the Americans. They see their sons in a similar situation. No wonder the White House tries to hide the pictures, citing the Geneva convention. Where was that convention when thousands of PoWs from Afghanistan, soldiers of the Taliban army, where shown like animals in Guatanamo?
Saladin. One thing is certain even now: Saddam Hussein has already achieved what he wanted.
Whatever happens during the next days and weeks, he will enter Arab history as one of the great heroes, who did not flinch or run away in the face of the superior enemy. Generations of children in all Arab countries will learn in school that he was the heir of the great Salah al-Din (Saladin).
The greatest military machine in history - as its commanders call it - has attacked a small country, most of whose arms were destroyed beforehand, and the people resisted valiantly under a shower of bombs and missiles, even without any air defence.
This is how it looks even now to all the Arabs in the world. They compare Saddam to their own rulers, Mubarak, Fahd, Abdallah and Assad.
From now on, the legend will only expand, growing into a national myth.
The coalition. No name could be more appropriate to the cooperation between the United States and the United Kingdom against Iraq.
In "The Devil's Dictionary" of the American humorist Ambrose Bierce, published some 100 years ago, "coalition" is defined as (I quote from memory) the cooperation between two thieves who have their hands so deep in each others pockets that they cannot rob a third person separately.
Reconstructionists. The problem of the British and the Americans is that they are possessed by an unquenchable thirst for reconstructing.
They dream about it day and night. They cannot think and speak about anything else.
The trouble is, in order to rebuild something, one has to demolish it first. No destruction, no reconstruction.
Therefore the British, together with the Americans, are occupied with destroying Iraq systematically. Missiles and bombs, tanks and artillery, ships and infantry - everything is employed in order to facilitate the reconstruction of the country.
The main objective of the urge for reconstruction is, of course, Baghdad. A city of five million people, miles upon miles of buildings and streets, which can be reconstructed after their demolition. If Baghdad becomes indeed the site of Stalingrad-style street fighting, house after house, street after street, there will be indeed a lot to reconstruct.
The New Mongols. The appetite for rebuilding separates the new conquerors from their predecessors, the Mongols, who conquered Baghdad in 1258, killed the Caliph (who had already surrendered) and destroyed the city completely, after butchering all the inhabitants, men, women and babies.
They did not bring with them reconstruction crews, but laid waste to Iraq. The irrigation canals that had been built throughout thousands of years of civilization were devastated. The event has gone down in history as one of the biggest disasters ever to befall the Arab world.
By the way, two years later the Muslims annihilated the Mongol army in the battle of Ein-Jalud (today's kibbutz Ein-Harod), a major chapter in Palestinian history. That was the end of the Mongols in the Middle East, but the region never recovered from the Mongol devastation to this very day.
Demolish and profit. Apart from the idealist aim of helping the Iraqi people, there is also a more material side to reconstruction. It will be huge business. The big American corporations - some of which are connected with the paladins of the Bush administration - are already quarrelling about the spoils. They will, of course, allow no foreigners to come into this. To quote an American saying: "To the victors belong the spoils."
A rather obnoxious sight: even before the Iraqi towns are destroyed, corporate giants are dividing among themselves the profits of their rebuilding.
Humanitarians. The unquenchable idealism of the Anglo-Americans finds its expression also in the drive for humanitarian aid. This is becoming quite an obsession. Humanitarian aid must be brought to the Iraqi people, whether they want it or not.
The inhabitants of Basra do not want the promised aid? Ha, we'll see about that. We shall bomb them, starve them - until they open their gates and allow the humanitarian aid in. After all, one cannot aid people as long as the city is controlled by the evil Saddam, cursed be his name, whose only aim is to prevent humanitarian aid from reaching his people.
The coalition could, of course, drop food and water - instead of bombs - from the air. One could also arrange for a short cease-fire, so as to bring the humanitarian aid into the besieged city. But that has been forbidden by Donald Rumsfeld, another great humanitarian. So there is really no alternative but to bomb them until they are ripe for aid.
Masters and natives. As a preview of the humanitarian aid to come after the occupation of Basra, the British have distributed a film about the arrival of aid to a village on the way. They were so satisfied with this piece of reporting that they ran it dozens of times on television.
It looks like this: a British truck brings food and water. The villagers, mainly desperate women and children, besiege the truck. They beg for water. The soldiers distribute mineral water to the maddened crowd - one bottle to every child and woman. After days of thirst, one (one!) litre per family.
The whole scene is nauseating. The hunger and thirst of the population, caught in the middle of the fighting, are exploited for crude propaganda. The British look again as they have always looked in Iraq: overbearing colonial masters, doing a favour to the natives. For every Arab beholder, this is the ultimate humiliation.
Robbing for the robbed. In order to finance everything - the destruction, the reconstruction, the humanitarian aid and what not - money is needed. Where will it come from? From the Iraqi oil, of course.
Therefore, it is the humanitarian duty of the Americans to take hold of the oil fields as quickly as possible. Not for their own good, perish the thought, but for the Iraqis. In order to help them and do good.
Every child knows by now that this war is about oil. The US intends to take possession of the Iraqi reserves, the second largest in the world (after the Saudi reserves), and control the neighbouring reserves of the Caspian Sea, Iran and the Gulf. Now it appears that it is all for the benefit of the Iraqi people themselves. So that they shall have something to eat and medicines for the children.
All this after the UN sanctions, imposed as demanded by the Americans, that have for many years caused general malnutrition, the death of hundred of thousands of children from hunger and disease and the destruction of the Iraqi infrastructure - all in the name of "oil for food".
Oh, Orwell, Orwell. What would he have said about this war?
In his book 1984, he had the Ministry of Truth coin phrases like "War is Peace", Freedom is Slavery" and "Ignorance is Power". He would be right at home in this war.
Occupation is Liberation, War is a Humane Duty, Toppling a foreign government is Regime Change, Starvation is Humanitarian Aid, Struggle against a foreign invader is Serving a Tyrant, Bombing a city is Service to the People.
Truth is always the first victim of any war. But it seems that in this particular war it suffers even more than usual. Mendacity, hypocrisy, disinformation and plain brainwashing are having a ball. Four-star generals parrot manifestly mendacious slogans, star-journalist from all over the world accept them eagerly, world television networks repeat them diligently and the Israeli media lap it all up.
Read the Bible. George Bush, we are told, is a deeply religious person, and so is his yeoman, Tony Blair. It is a pity that they do not read the Bible more.
One of the most beautiful Hebrew sentences can be found in I Kings XX. When he threatened Israel, the King of Syria boasted of his mighty army and demanded surrender. King Ahab replied with four immortal Hebrew words, rendered thus in English: "Let not him that girdeth on (his harness) boast himself as he that putteth it off."
Retroactive terrorists. Schoolbooks in dozens of languages must now be rewritten.
The old books said that the men and women of the French resistance in World War II were heroes. These civilians went out in the night to bomb German trains, kill German soldiers and execute collaborators. The instructions came from London. They knew that if they were caught, they would undergo gruesome tortures and be put to death. American and British movies sang their praise.
The Russian partisans, whose slogan was "Death to the Invader!" made the life of the German soldiers hell. The partisans were hanged in droves. The original guerrillas - for whom this Spanish word meaning "little war" was coined - attacked Napoleon's soldiers. Goya immortalized them in his magnificent painting... It appears now that they were all vile terrorists.
Presstitution. In the Middle Ages, armies were accompanied by large numbers of prostitutes. In the Iraq war, the American and British armies are accompanied by large numbers of journalists.
I coined the Hebrew equivalent of "presstitution" when I was the editor of an Israeli news magazine, to denote the journalists who turn the media into whores. Physicians are bound by the Hippocratic oath to save life as far as possible. Journalists are bound by professional honour to tell the truth, as they see it.
Never before have so many journalists betrayed their duty as in this war. Their original sin was their agreement to be "embedded" in army units. This American term sounds like being put to bed, and that is what it amounts to in practice.
A journalist who lies down in the bed of an army unit becomes a voluntary slave. He is attached to the commander's staff, led to the places the commander is interested in, sees what the commander wants him or her to see, is turned away from the places the commanders does not want him to see, hears what the my wants him to hear and does not hear what the army does not want him to hear. He is worse than an official army spokesman, because he pretends to be an independent reporter.
The problem is not that he only sees a small piece of the grand mosaic of the war, but that he transmits a mendacious view of that piece.
In the Falklands and the first Gulf wars, journalists were simply not allowed to reach the campaign area. It seems that a bright fellow at the Pentagon had an idea: "Why keep them out? Let's allow them in. They'll be told what to write and broadcast and eat out of our hands like puppies."
Shame. Since the age of 19, I have been a journalist. I was always proud of it. On innumerable forms I wrote "Profession: Journalist".
I am ashamed when I see a large group of journalists from all over the world sitting in front of a many-starred general, listening eagerly to what is called a "briefing" and not posing the simplest relevant question. And when a courageous reporter does stand up and ask a real question, no one protests when the general responds with banal propaganda slogans instead of giving a real answer.
Remember the virtual surrender of the Iraqi 51st Division? The "uprising" of the people of Basra that never was? The thousand and one other lies, that have gone with the wind? Where were the journalists when all this happened?
Almost all the journalistic reports of this war are a crooked mirror. We see in it a manipulated, distorted and mendacious picture. Therefore, praise be to the few who, like Peter Arnett, are ready to sacrifice their career on the altar of truth.
The bottom of the barrel. I am ashamed of being a journalist. I am doubly ashamed of being an Israeli journalist.
In this war, all sections of the Israeli media have sunk to a new low. No criticism at all gets published. The opponents of the war have effectively been silenced. Even in the American media, some voices of dissent are being heard. In Israel, this is not possible. It would be worse than treason.
The only exception I know of is the television reporter San Semama, who stole into Iraq, was caught by the Americans, imprisoned in a jeep and starved for 48 hours. He saw what was really happening. Parts of his reports were published here and there, and then the curtain of silence came down. All the rest - journalists, pundits, the bunch of ex-officers and so on - appear on our screens, hour after hour, and repeat like parrots the American propaganda line, even when it is manifestly ridiculous.
Toy soldiers. I am especially allergic to "military correspondents". They are indeed a unique human species, the ultimate he-men, the ultimate soldiers. They are also ridiculous frauds.
I saw them first in our 1948 war, when I was a combat soldier. When we were lying in the mud and crawling among the thorns, from time to time we saw such a "soldier", clean shaven, in a fresh uniform, wearing a helmet and radiating all the martial virtues. These were the military correspondents, attached to brigade headquarters, associating with senior officers, far from the front line.
(I really shouldn't complain. When I published my combat-diary after the war it became a runaway bestseller overnight - simply because not one of these toy soldiers was able to write an authentic book about the war.)
The theatre of operations. I read somewhere that the briefing room of General Tommy Franks was created by a professional designer for a quarter of a million dollars. The American army does invest a lot of money in designing this theatre.
I assume that much bigger sums are paid to the professional designers who shape the public appearances of President Bush. One should pay attention to the scenery - much more interesting than George W's words.
For some months now, Bush is almost always seen against a background of soldiers. The stage designer sees to it that the soldiers are all around the President, so that from any photo angle the admiring faces shine behind him.
A few days ago, the designers achieved a special effect: behind the president there stood a white Coast Guard ship, with red-uniformed sailor tastefully dispersed on it in photogenic groups. Other sailors were in front and on either side of the president. No scene from opera could have been better arranged. I would not have been surprised if the president had started to render an aria. But he only uttered his usual inanities.
The Great Patriotic War. When the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, Stalin understood that the Russian people would not lay down their lives for Marxism-Leninism. Overnight he changed his message. Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, Field Marshal Suvorov and Prince Kutuzov were resurrected in order to win the masses for what was officially named the Great Patriotic War.
Saddam Hussein does it now. He calls upon his people to stand up and kill the invaders - not in the name of the Ba'th party (whose founders were Christians), but in the name of Allah and the Muslim homeland.
*Uri Avnery is an Israeli journalist, writer and peace activist.
© Uri Avnery