Tell Me No Lies
S.Elson via sam | 16.06.2006 04:03 | Analysis | Anti-militarism | Repression | World
Rather it will be discovered by those who put their own reputations and often lives on the line, in order to uncover the real actions and outcomes of those who tell us they rule over us. The challenges that emerge from reading "Tell me no Lies" are to find the strength to continue to root them out and even more importantly, to stand up and challenge them publicly.
Continue to root them out
I've been reading recently John Pilger's latest book "Tell me no Lies" in which he presents edited versions of some of the finest reporting on major events of significance since the second world war. Unfortunately it is a catalogue of some the most atrocious scandals and cover-ups that have been facilitated by the governments of the so called "developed" world.
From German atrocities at Dachau to Year Zero to Sabra and Chatila to Iraq, Pilger's book pulls together stories which highlight the complicity the governments of the world have had in allowing each other or their cohorts in other countries to, literally, get away with murder.
Sharing information, withholding information or censoring information is nothing new when it comes to high level government interactions. What stands out in Pilger's book is the way in which the public has been duped by their own government's propaganda campaigns to suppress, distort or discount the evidence of their activities and involvement in the deaths of millions across the globe.
The lies and propaganda campaigns continue. Isn't it strange how just three weeks ago the big headline item in the media was the murder of innocent Iraqi's by US Marines in November last year. Three weeks ago we were hearing how soldiers, who we have been told are only in Iraq to protect the emerging Iraqi "democracy", took revenge on an Iraqi family for the death of one of their pals. We heard how the Marines entered a house and systematically, in cold blood, shot 15 members of the family dead. The Pentagon tried to hide it under wraps but less than five months after the event, the soldiers who had to go in and clean up the mess, writing home to their own families, told of their disgust at what they had seen.
The US government, engaged in a cover up, allowed one of it's officials to try and justify the murders by saying the Marines "suffered a total breakdown in morality and leadership, with tragic results" and that they, "over-reacted because of the pressure on them". The Pentagon responded to the atrocity by saying they would update the "ethics" training their soldiers supposedly receive.
Then, just last week, out of the blue, the US is able to track down their chief bogey man in the region, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, and supposedly kill him. According to the mainstream media Al-Zarqawi was the "leader" of the Iraqi insurgency. What they never reported was that it was more than likely he had been dead for two years already. What we will never know is the truth.
However, what this little turn of events did was divert us away from the real news, the fact the US military was not only involved in but tried to hide the cold blooded murders of innocent Iraqis. All of a sudden the papers and the electronic media were full of more "we got him" stories. Howard, Blair and Bush all fell into lockstep and proclaimed this as a milestone event and how much it meant for the "war on terror" to have Al-Zaqwari dead. Strange isn't it how a negative was transformed into a positive.
Rather than hearing about how law and order in the US military is breaking down as more and more soldiers, Marines and reservists realise how futile their efforts in Iraq are, the propaganda machine of the war fires up a story on how great the US military is and what a wonderful job it is doing. Funny how it seems Osama bin Laden is still at large. Funny isn't it how the mainstream media laps up this propaganda and regurgitates it as truth.
What this so called "truth" backed up by so called "facts" can't hide is the fact that Emperor Bush cannot travel freely around the world. His newest colony in the Middle East is still to unstable for him to make a huge public display of the way US plans are restoring "democracy" and "order" there.
Unlike his visits to satraps Howard and Blair, which have been accompanied by fanfares, the setting of huge tables and much media coverage, Bush has to travel in secret to a place he says is "much safer" and he does so under the cover of darkness. He then only spends five hours there before jetting off once more to the safety of Camp David in Maryland.
As the US plans for Iraq unravel in increasingly dangerous and deadly ways the truth of what is really happening there is casually spun into nice stories of how the US is helping its 'friends' rebuild the country. The strange thing is, before they bombed it to pieces, the country didn't really need rebuilding. What it needed was international assistance to get rid of a tyrant and dictator who had been supported by the US and European governments and, in part, funded by Australian wheat growers with the full knowledge of our government.
Pilger's book, while depressing bed time reading does one thing no other book has done in recent times. It causes one to focus intently on what is going on around them as it urges us to ask the question, "do we really know the truth?"
Some time ago in another Middle Eastern country a governor asked a condemned man "What is truth?" In what has become the norm for our media these days, he didn't bother staying around for the answer. Instead he went off to big note himself in front of an audience that had been assembled solely for his edification. It seems, if history is any teacher, the governor was not interested in truth any more than he was in justice.
Pilger's book more than adequately demonstrates that truth and justice will not be found in the accepted institutions or in the accepted 'wisdom' they supposedly dispense. Rather, truth is to be found by not giving up the quest to find and restore justice to those who have suffered at the hands of others. Truth, if we are to take anything from Pilger's book will not be found in government propaganda or the mainstream media's regurgitating of the same.
Rather it will be discovered by those who put their own reputations and often lives on the line, in order to uncover the real actions and outcomes of those who tell us they rule over us. The challenges that emerge from reading "Tell me no Lies" are to find the strength to continue to root them out and even more importantly, to stand up and challenge them publicly.
Alternative Radio (Aust)
PO Box 780
Morwell VIC 3840 Australia
61-3-5134 8556
61-413 597 828
inquiries@araustralia.org
http://www.araustralia.org
http://www.araustralia.org
From German atrocities at Dachau to Year Zero to Sabra and Chatila to Iraq, Pilger's book pulls together stories which highlight the complicity the governments of the world have had in allowing each other or their cohorts in other countries to, literally, get away with murder.
Sharing information, withholding information or censoring information is nothing new when it comes to high level government interactions. What stands out in Pilger's book is the way in which the public has been duped by their own government's propaganda campaigns to suppress, distort or discount the evidence of their activities and involvement in the deaths of millions across the globe.
The lies and propaganda campaigns continue. Isn't it strange how just three weeks ago the big headline item in the media was the murder of innocent Iraqi's by US Marines in November last year. Three weeks ago we were hearing how soldiers, who we have been told are only in Iraq to protect the emerging Iraqi "democracy", took revenge on an Iraqi family for the death of one of their pals. We heard how the Marines entered a house and systematically, in cold blood, shot 15 members of the family dead. The Pentagon tried to hide it under wraps but less than five months after the event, the soldiers who had to go in and clean up the mess, writing home to their own families, told of their disgust at what they had seen.
The US government, engaged in a cover up, allowed one of it's officials to try and justify the murders by saying the Marines "suffered a total breakdown in morality and leadership, with tragic results" and that they, "over-reacted because of the pressure on them". The Pentagon responded to the atrocity by saying they would update the "ethics" training their soldiers supposedly receive.
Then, just last week, out of the blue, the US is able to track down their chief bogey man in the region, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, and supposedly kill him. According to the mainstream media Al-Zarqawi was the "leader" of the Iraqi insurgency. What they never reported was that it was more than likely he had been dead for two years already. What we will never know is the truth.
However, what this little turn of events did was divert us away from the real news, the fact the US military was not only involved in but tried to hide the cold blooded murders of innocent Iraqis. All of a sudden the papers and the electronic media were full of more "we got him" stories. Howard, Blair and Bush all fell into lockstep and proclaimed this as a milestone event and how much it meant for the "war on terror" to have Al-Zaqwari dead. Strange isn't it how a negative was transformed into a positive.
Rather than hearing about how law and order in the US military is breaking down as more and more soldiers, Marines and reservists realise how futile their efforts in Iraq are, the propaganda machine of the war fires up a story on how great the US military is and what a wonderful job it is doing. Funny how it seems Osama bin Laden is still at large. Funny isn't it how the mainstream media laps up this propaganda and regurgitates it as truth.
What this so called "truth" backed up by so called "facts" can't hide is the fact that Emperor Bush cannot travel freely around the world. His newest colony in the Middle East is still to unstable for him to make a huge public display of the way US plans are restoring "democracy" and "order" there.
Unlike his visits to satraps Howard and Blair, which have been accompanied by fanfares, the setting of huge tables and much media coverage, Bush has to travel in secret to a place he says is "much safer" and he does so under the cover of darkness. He then only spends five hours there before jetting off once more to the safety of Camp David in Maryland.
As the US plans for Iraq unravel in increasingly dangerous and deadly ways the truth of what is really happening there is casually spun into nice stories of how the US is helping its 'friends' rebuild the country. The strange thing is, before they bombed it to pieces, the country didn't really need rebuilding. What it needed was international assistance to get rid of a tyrant and dictator who had been supported by the US and European governments and, in part, funded by Australian wheat growers with the full knowledge of our government.
Pilger's book, while depressing bed time reading does one thing no other book has done in recent times. It causes one to focus intently on what is going on around them as it urges us to ask the question, "do we really know the truth?"
Some time ago in another Middle Eastern country a governor asked a condemned man "What is truth?" In what has become the norm for our media these days, he didn't bother staying around for the answer. Instead he went off to big note himself in front of an audience that had been assembled solely for his edification. It seems, if history is any teacher, the governor was not interested in truth any more than he was in justice.
Pilger's book more than adequately demonstrates that truth and justice will not be found in the accepted institutions or in the accepted 'wisdom' they supposedly dispense. Rather, truth is to be found by not giving up the quest to find and restore justice to those who have suffered at the hands of others. Truth, if we are to take anything from Pilger's book will not be found in government propaganda or the mainstream media's regurgitating of the same.
Rather it will be discovered by those who put their own reputations and often lives on the line, in order to uncover the real actions and outcomes of those who tell us they rule over us. The challenges that emerge from reading "Tell me no Lies" are to find the strength to continue to root them out and even more importantly, to stand up and challenge them publicly.
Alternative Radio (Aust)
PO Box 780
Morwell VIC 3840 Australia
61-3-5134 8556
61-413 597 828
inquiries@araustralia.org http://www.araustralia.org http://www.araustralia.org
S.Elson via sam