The Lying Game
by John Pilger
www.informationclearinghouse.info/,
September 30, 2009
In 2001, the Observer in London published
a series of reports that claimed an "Iraqi connection"
to al-Qaeda, even describing the base in Iraq where the training
of terrorists took place and a facility where anthrax was being
manufactured as a weapon of mass destruction. It was all false.
Supplied by US intelligence and Iraqi exiles, planted stories
in the British and US media helped George Bush and Tony Blair
to launch an illegal invasion which caused, according to the most
recent study, 1.3 million deaths.
Something similar is happening over Iran:
the same syncopation of government and media "revelations",
the same manufacture of a sense of crisis. "Showdown looms
with Iran over secret nuclear plant", declared the Guardian
on 26 September. "Showdown" is the theme. High noon.
The clock ticking. Good versus evil. Add a smooth new US president
who has "put paid to the Bush years". An immediate echo
is the notorious Guardian front page of 22 May 2007: "Iran's
secret plan for summer offensive to force US out of Iraq".
Based on unsubstantiated claims by the Pentagon, the writer Simon
Tisdall presented as fact an Iranian "plan" to wage
war on, and defeat, US forces in Iraq by September of that year
- a demonstrable falsehood for which there has been no retraction.
The official jargon for this kind of propaganda
is "psy-ops", the military term for psychological operations.
In the Pentagon and Whitehall, it has become a critical component
of a diplomatic and military campaign to blockade, isolate and
weaken Iran by hyping its "nuclear threat": a phrase
now used incessantly by Barack Obama and Gordon Brown, and parroted
by the BBC and other broadcasters as objective news. And it is
fake.
On 16 September, Newsweek disclosed that the major US intelligence
agencies had reported to the White House that Iran's "nuclear
status" had not changed since the National Intelligence Estimate
of November 2007, which stated with "high confidence"
that Iran had halted in 2003 the programme it was alleged to have
developed. The International Atomic Energy Agency has backed this,
time and again.
The current propaganda-as-news derives
from Obama's announcement that the US is scrapping missiles stationed
on Russia's border. This serves to cover the fact that the number
of US missile sites is actually expanding in Europe and the "redundant"
missiles are being redeployed on ships. The game is to mollify
Russia into joining, or not obstructing, the US campaign against
Iran. "President Bush was right," said Obama, "that
Iran's ballistic missile programme poses a significant threat
[to Europe and the US]." That Iran would contemplate a suicidal
attack on the US is preposterous. The threat, as ever, is one-way,
with the world's superpower virtually ensconced on Iran's borders.
Iran's crime is its independence. Having
thrown out America's favourite tyrant, Shah Reza Pahlavi, Iran
remains the only resource-rich Muslim state beyond US control.
As only Israel has a "right to exist"in the Middle East,
the US goal is to cripple the Islamic Republic. This will allow
Israel to divide and dominate the region on Washington's behalf,
undeterred by a confident neighbour. If any country in the world
has been handed urgent cause to develop a nuclear "deterrence",
it is Iran.
As one of the original signatories of
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has been a consistent
advocate of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East. In contrast,
Israel has never agreed to an IAEA inspection, and its nuclear
weapons plant at Dimona remains an open secret. Armed with as
many as 200 active nuclear warheads, Israel "deplores"
UN resolutions calling on it to sign the NPT, just as it deplored
the recent UN report charging it with crimes against humanity
in Gaza, just as it maintains a world record for violations of
international law. It gets away with this because great power
grants it immunity.
Obama's "showdown" with Iran
has another agenda. On both sides of the Atlantic the media have
been tasked with preparing the public for endless war. The US/Nato
commander General Stanley McChrystal says 500,000 troops will
be required in Afghanistan over five years, according to America's
NBC. The goal is control of the "strategic prize" of
the gas and oilfields of the Caspian Sea, central Asia, the Gulf
and Iran - in other words, Eurasia. But the war is opposed by
69 per cent of the British public, 57 per cent of the US public
and almost every other human being. Convincing "us"
that Iran is the new demon will not be easy. McChrystal's spurious
claim that Iran "is reportedly training fighters for certain
Taliban groups" is as desperate as Brown's pathetic echo
of "a line in the sand".
During the Bush years, according to the
great whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, a military coup took place
in the US, and the Pentagon is now ascendant in every area of
American foreign policy. A measure of its control is the number
of wars of aggression being waged simultaneously and the adoption
of a "first-strike" doctrine that has lowered the threshold
on nuclear weapons, together with the blurring of the distinction
between nuclear and conventional weapons.
All this mocks Obama's media rhetoric
about "a world without nuclear weapons". In fact, he
is the Pentagon's most important acquisition. His acquiescence
with its demand that he keep on Bush's secretary of "defence"
and arch war-maker, Robert Gates, is unique in US history. He
has proved his worth with escalated wars from south Asia to the
Horn of Africa. Like Bush's America, Obama's America is run by
some very dangerous people. We have a right to be warned. When
will those paid to keep the record straight do their job?
John
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