Andy Rowell, 27 November 2004
Arabic version here
Truth, so the old saying goes, is the first casualty of war. The bloody fight for Falluja has been the latest example of where military propaganda has prevailed over truth. With so few journalists in the city, the outside world had to rely on the military for information. This ancient city of a thousand mosques and 300,000 people now lies in ruins. It had become an insurgent "stronghold" that had to be "pacified".
In the city, Iraqi place names were replaced with American ones. Even the dying and dead were fought over, as Falluja’s hospital was stormed by the Americans to stop it becoming a "centre of propaganda". So the soldiers become the defenders of truth and the doctors became the deceivers.
There has now been a "clear-cut win" against the insurgents. Whereas the military argue there have been "no civilian casualties" as civilians had all the "guidance" to avoid trouble, Amnesty International " fears that civilians have been killed, in contravention of international humanitarian law, as a result of failure by parties to the fighting to take necessary precautions to protect non-combatants".
The lesson of history is that if we do not confront propaganda it will only get worse. Edward Said wrote about Israeli propaganda in 2001. He said that "Fifty years of unopposed Israeli propaganda in America have brought us to the point where, because we do not resist or contest these terrible misrepresentations in any significant way with images and messages of our own, we are losing thousands of lives and acres of land without troubling anyone's conscience."
A week after Said’s article was published, September 11th happened and the world changed forever, as America turned its attention to revenge in Afghanistan and then Iraq. The terrorist attack lead to the invasion of Iraq and the subsequent bloody quagmire that we see today.
The Iraqi war would lead to the severe distortion of truth and language, as oppressors became saviours, ordinary civilians became terrorists and Iraqi victims became invisible. Military propaganda is now played out daily on our television screens and in our newspapers.
Sometimes the spin machine is laid bare. Leaked restricted British government documents from September 2003 show how there was a "Media Operations" conference for the "Iraq Troop Contributing Nations" in South East Iraq, including representatives from the Czech Republic, Denmark, Italy, Lithuania, Holland, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal and Romania.
Whereas the focus of the Coalition’s propaganda campaign was the "Iraqi People" for the British military it was "the UK public and media." The military spin-doctors identified over 30 key themes and messages that would be targeted at different key audiences. The over-riding one was to dispel the popular perception about the long-term aims of the US led invasion. Instead "Iraq was for the Iraqis"; and "the removal of weapons of mass destruction is a priority for the UK." So the UK wanted to push the line that WMD was a priority when we now know there were no WMD in the first place.
The leaked minutes also show that the UK had developed an Information Operation for Ramadan entitled "big October"; whose primary message was "Security in Iraq - try to push the perception that Iraq is becoming more secure." It was a message that was quietly forgotten as the carnage in Iraq continued.
But now the British military propaganda is getting more perverse and is targeted at relatives of active servicemen in the Gulf and to the mothers of those killed in action. The level of protest by families of servicemen is said to be unprecedented in a time of war. "They are trying to shut everybody up that is speaking out which is wrong," says Rose Gentle, whose son Gordon, a British soldier, was killed in Iraq in June this year.
Just weeks after finishing his training Gordon Gentle was blown up in a roadside bomb in Basra. He was only nineteen. Since then his mother has led a fight to highlight how she believes her son was murdered by the British military due to key failings on their behalf. There can be no greater struggle for any mother than to seek justice for her son’s death. She holds Tony Blair personally responsible.
Rose started to tell people that her son did not have the right equipment that might have saved his life. Gentle’s patrol was not carrying an electronic signal-jamming device that Rose believes could have prevented the bomb exploding.
As a direct result of Rose speaking to the media, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) issued what is called a D-Notice" to all British newspaper editors. The notice was first revealed by SpinWatch in September. The "Defence Advisory" notice is a form of censorship where the military tell editors that an issue should not be reported because it is deemed too sensitive to national security.
Headed "Protective Counter Measures in Iraq" the D Notice read "following the recent press conference given by the family of the late Fusilier Gordon Gentle" certain counter-measures employed by the British Army in Iraq should only be discussed in "general" terms because of this "highly sensitive matter". News editors were told to "remind your staff of the real and serious danger to life of publishing" details of counter measures.
Although the MOD claim that such D notices relate to matters of national security, the clear effect of this notice is to interfere with Rose Gentles' attempts to pursue justice for her son and highlight it through the media. Gentle has now started legal proceedings against the Ministry of Defence.
Gentle is not alone in criticising the military. Last month the Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon was accused of curtailing free speech after it emerged the wives of Black Watch soldiers were being told to stop talking to the media. Jeff Duncan, a spokesman for the Save the Regiments Campaign, a campaign group trying to save the Black Watch from being disbanded, said: "I have taken a number of calls from wives of soldiers in the Black Watch who say their husbands have been told to tell them not to speak to the media. Orders have come from the top." Other senior servicemen have also been issued with injunctions to stop them speaking out.
Undeterred, this month the families of some of Britain’s soldiers who have been killed in Iraq formed a group Military Families Against the War. Rose Gentle was one of them. So was James Buchanan, the father of two Black Watch soldiers serving in Iraq, who said: "Had they told us the truth from the start we would have sat down and shut up".
The families handed a letter to Tony Blair. It read: "When enlisting, servicemen and women sign an oath of allegiance to Her Majesty's government. All these people ask in return is that their Government acts in an honourable, truthful and responsible manner and only deploy troops into the theatre of war to risk their lives when absolutely necessary, when all avenues of diplomacy have been exhausted".
But the British government has not acted in a truthful manner. Rose has asked for a meeting with Tony Blair but her request has been turned down. "I am not afraid of him. He can’t hurt me any more. Nothing will shut me up. We need to speak out more now that Bush has got back in because it is going to get worse."
Since my interview with Rose Gentle, the fight for Falluja has happened. A city has been bombed into submission. An unknown number of Iraqi civilians have been killed; countless other traumatised, and dehumanised as their homes have been destroyed. The insurgency is spreading across Iraq as the outrage to the US-led coalition grows.
When will the military learn? Just because you wear a uniform it does not give you the right to kill. Just because you are a military spokesperson, it does not give you the right to lie. We hear from the military how they "liberated" Falluja. The trouble is that we don’t believe their lies any more. We don’t even believe their truth anymore.
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