Perfidious Albion and the lying American
By John Helmer
03/29/07 "Asia
Times" -- - MOSCOW - Wars usually start with one
large lie. Throwing more troops into the breach requires a great
many little lies. Wars usually end when the lying can't staunch
the bleeding, and the stench.
According to the wife of the David Kelly, the British Defense
Ministry expert on Iraqi weapons who committed suicide last
Friday by cutting his left wrist, and bleeding to death while on
painkillers, "this was not really the kind of world he wanted to
live in". But the kind of world prime ministers of England and
presidents of the United States hatch, when they go to war
together, should have been familiar to Kelly, as he was old
enough to remember the Vietnam War.
The big lie for which Kelly killed himself was no different from
the one that created the Tonkin Gulf incident, the invented
Vietnamese attack on US warships which purported to justify the
first landings of US troops 40 years ago. The little lies which
Tony Blair and George W Bush go on telling, as they, too, try to
land more troops, and fight a guerrilla war, soon to expand into
a national liberation struggle - these lies are no different.
Not even the methods for feeding them to the press have changed.
I remember the day in 1972, when I was poking around the
archives of Time newsmagazine in New York - I was a consultant
to one of Time Inc's senior executives at the time - and I came
across a file of telexes from the Time war correspondent in
Saigon. His New York editor had begun by asking him to write a
story on the effectiveness of the US bombing in Vietnam,
especially the Ho Chi Minh Trail, through which Vietnamese
forces were being replenished and resupplied. The editor was
being told by officials in Washington that the bombing was
crippling the Vietnamese effort, and the war would soon be over.
The officials wanted congressional backing for more money and
more troops on the ground. They needed the press to put the
justification in print.
At the same time, the Saigon journalist reported back, someone
had dropped an unusual package on his doorstep. It was a report
on the impact of the US bombing campaign. From the stamps on the
document, and the packaging, it appeared to have been drafted by
British intelligence. But the Time man was suspicious, he wrote
New York. He wasn't sure about the facts, he said, because the
capabilities of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army looked
much better on the ground. The timing suggested to the reporter
either that the British were working secretly with their
American counterparts to fabricate information; or else US
intelligence was forging British intelligence in order to make
their own claims look more credible. The Time reporter told his
editor that while he was prepared to report US military claims
for what they were worth, he wasn't going to report that a
secret British intelligence source had corroborated and
confirmed them. A great many little lies were to follow, and not
all of them Time's editors and reporters were able to resist.
The outcome is well known.
A great many people, in editorial offices of newspapers, as well
as government offices in Washington and London, know very well
that the intelligence for which David Kelly killed himself was
fabricated. They already know that the stream of little lies has
begun. They know that it isn't worth their career prospects, let
alone their lives, to expose them. In time, those who remember
Vietnam realize that Blair and Bush won't be able to staunch the
investigations of the family, business and other links they,
their advisors and supporters have with the war machine they
have set in motion in Iraq. In time, those who remember Vietnam
understand that the fighting men of the US Army will fear every
Arab they see, and will lose the will to risk their lives for a
cause they don't believe is worth it.
As the gap grows between the facts on the ground in Iraq and the
facts in the air of Washington and London, even the media
proprietors who have willingly retold the lies, and fashioned
many of their own - men such as Conrad Black and Rupert Murdoch
- will recognize the noses on their faces, and smell the way the
wind is blowing. By themselves, Time's Saigon correspondent in
1972, and his New York editor, couldn't stop the bombing
campaign in Vietnam. By himself, David Kelly couldn't stop the
Iraq war. That is going to require a great deal more transfer of
treasure, and loss of blood. Perfidious Blair and lying Bush
aren't the kind of people who ask themselves whether this is
really the kind of world in which they want to live.
John Helmer , since 1989 the longest-serving Western
correspondent in Russia, was an official of the Carter
administration in Washington between 1977 and 1981. In 1975 he
published Bringing the War Home: The American Army in Vietnam
and After, a celebrated analysis of disintegration in the US
Army.
Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online
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