Thoughts from London

Bombs that muzzle the messenger
"A good war makes sacred any cause," wrote the German philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche in his Will to Power more than 100 years ago.
The invasion of Iraq by the coalition of two - well say two and a half with a few Australians thrown in by that racist Prime Minister John Howard - was no war in the real sense of the word. But it was a good war for the two Bs - Bush and Blair, never mind the body bags and grieving families.

It was the sheer use of brute force in the way of technologically advanced weaponry that had been developed over the decades for use against a more formidable enemy that was let loose upon the Iraqi people.

As it happened it were not only Iraqis who died. Last Sunday we argued that truth is the first casualty of war and of peace, too. As this invasion and occupation of a sovereign country has shown, it is not only truth that dies but also those who try to see the truth behind the heavy camouflage of official lies, misinformation and deceptions and tell it to the world.

The number of journalists killed in this short, sharp invasion should focus public minds on the dangers that journalists too undergo not only in times of war but even in times of so-called peace, to keep them informed, as our own experience in Sri Lanka has shown.

While paying tribute to colleagues who sacrificed their lives to tell this story of might against a weaker and carefully crafted "enemy", it is necessary to ask whether some of them were deliberately targeted by the great democratic forces of the United States and the United Kingdom who publicly hold high the flag of press freedom.

The Qatar-based TV station al-Jazeera had gained quite a worldwide reputation in the last 18 months or so for screening videos depicting the notorious Osama bin Laden with his messages to American and western leaders, speaking to his supporters or in one or another of his hideouts untouched by the myriad of precision bombs and missiles dropped or fired by President Bush and his bushmen.

Al-Jazeera was fast becoming a real thorn in the side of the west that was trying to rally the world in its war against international terrorism, because it was one Arab TV station that was telling another side of the story ignored by western media and their anti-Islamic crusade.

At the start of this so-called war al-Jazeera lost its seat at the New York Stock Exchange on the ostensible ground that media arrangements were being reorganised. Curiously it was the only foreign media organisation to be so shabbily treated as Sri Lankan journalists who have experienced such treatment would understand.

When the Qatar-based station showed the faces of four captured American soldiers, Bush and his president's voice Blair, were so horrified that they promptly invoked the Geneva Convention and threatened action against all and sundry.

Nothing could have shown better the face of western hypocrisy than this righteous concern for international conventions and treaties. Before and after this incident-and in fact even at the time of this writing when Baghdad has just been occupied - western TV was showing the humiliation heaped on Iraqi soldiers and other Iraqis only suspected of being militiamen or Baath party officials.

Hundreds of innocent people killed in market places or residential areas by US and British missiles or bombs-and precision and smart weapons too, according to US publicists - were mere 'accidents' if they were admitted at all and were hardly shown on western TV.

But the much-derided Arab station was showing another side of the picture - the carnage caused by western bombardments and the suffering of the Iraqi people who have already suffered for years under Saddam Hussein and later under UN sanctions imposed following pressure by western powers.

If the American and British public who first opposed the war but later were urged to support their "boys" at the front, were to be won over, then their attention had to be constantly focused on the reasons for "liberating" the Iraqi people and the humanitarian concerns shown by the invading forces.

Such objectives cannot be easily achieved and international support for the invasion won, if another TV station - and in this case an Arab station - showed a different face of Anglo-American warfare. This Arab TV station not only had the gall to telecast to the world the challenging face of Osama bin Laden and expose the ultimate ineffectiveness of the Anglo-American military strikes against Afghanistan - unless the intention was to change the topography of that country and flatten it beyond recognition - but also to give the lie to much of the coverage of this invasion, particularly by those journalists "embedded" with the invading forces.

If much of the western media was helping to buttress the coalition argument that this was a liberation not an occupation, al Jazeera and some other more independent-minded journalists such as The Independent's Robert Fisk, were conveying to their viewers and readers a different and more real account of what was happening.

This was something that the minders of the transatlantic partners, Bush and Blair, could not afford to allow the world to see and read without seriously undermining their own flimsy cause for launching this terrible war that has no basis in international law.
Is it surprising then that this television station that has been the bane of western militarists and rightwing politicians in the US and the UK and has given some cause for celebration in other parts of the world strongly opposed to the attack on Iraq, was destroyed a few days ago in Baghdad and one of its journalists killed while making a live broadcast?

Another accident? If the world is made of gullible people like many of those who make up the 250 million or so Americans, then I suppose such a simplistic explanation might pass muster. How can such a military machine made of the latest in advanced technology as another advocate of war in the Bush administration with oil interests, Dick Cheney, described proudly the other day, bomb the TV station by accident?
All this time the Americans were boasting how they targeted the restaurant at which Saddam and his close associates were present, with such accuracy within minutes of intelligence being received in Washington.

They bombed Iraqi government ministries and Saddam's palaces with the same precision. Had US technology suddenly gone askew and its advanced weaponry turned into misguided missiles? No, it was a deliberate act of provocation that killed a journalist while performing his duties.

This was not the only Arabic TV station knocked out. Abu Dhabi TV that had its name written in huge blue letters on its roof in Baghdad so it could be seen from the air, was bombed at the same time.

Thus millions of people in the Arab world and around the globe lost the unfolding of the final stages of this invasion and have been deprived of seeing how the enormous humanitarian issues such as supplying food, water and medicines are being handled by the occupation forces.

It is this unfortunate suffering of a population coupled with the rising anarchy in the absence of authority that the occupying nations do not want the world to see reported from a different perspective. It was no accident either that tank fire was directed at the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad where most foreign journalists stay and have stayed over the years. In the event two journalists were killed and others wounded.

The explanation offered by the military spokesmen was that the forces faced "significant enemy fire" from the hotel, the same kind of excuse given for firing at Al Jazeera. "Significant enemy fire" would surely mean heavy fire that would be threatening to armour like that armour-plated tank or sustained fire. Does it come as any surprise that not one single journalist, some who were at the very moment in their balconies looking out or going on the air did not see or hear any "significant" fire from the hotel- in fact not even a single shot being fired.

So were these great advocates of press freedom who are determined to bring democracy and civilized values to Iraq, actually warning the media how to behave in the aftermath of the virtual collapse of the regime? With one Iraqi dictator who will probably be replaced shortly by another dictator, foreign to the Iraqis, a warning to the media might be deemed appropriate.

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