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WHEN Bush and Blair
begin their illegal and immoral attack on a country that offers
us no threat, we all have a choice.
We can wring our hands
and say there is nothing we can do in the face of such powerful
piracy - or we can reclaim the democracy that has been so
corrupted by an elected dictatorship (in Bush's case, unelected).
There is only one
responsible way to achieve the second goal. The polite term is
civil disobedience. The street term is rebellion.
In 1946, Justice Robert
Jackson, the chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials of the
Nazi leadership, said that the "very essence" of
international justice "is that individuals have
international duties which transcend national obligations of
obedience imposed by the state".
The British government
is about to commit a great criminal act. That is not rhetoric -
it is true. Every tenet of international law makes that clear,
not least the United Nations Charter itself. Indeed, the judges
at Nuremberg were quite clear about what they considered the
gravest of all war crimes: that of an unprovoked invasion of a
sovereign territory.
In the face of this
impending crime, the "international duty which transcend
national obligations of obedience" now belongs to you, the
millions of people who have understood the nature of the crime.
Now, you have both the right and the duty to act.
Rebellion against a
government committing a crime in your name is now of vital
importance. Silence and inaction will only embolden Blair, this
man who has taken this country to war unnecessarily five times
in his six years in office. Remember his remark that North
Korea, a nuclear power, is "next".
On the day of the
attack on Iraq, leave what you are doing if you can. Leave your
home, work, college, school. Join a demonstration. If you are
unsure where to go, contact the Stop the War Coalition on 07951
235915. Their website is www.stopwar.org.uk
Or get in touch with
Globalise Resistance, which is organising mass walkouts and
street blockades in the cities. Phone them on 020 7053 2071.
Their website is www.resist.org.uk
Amnesty International
is another source: 020 7814 6200.
Their website is www.amnesty.org.uk
There will be
non-violent protests by Reclaim the Bases, which is organising
gate blockades and peace vigils at military bases. Contact 07887
585721. Their website is www.reclaimthebases.org.uk
Be encouraged that the
revolt is already under way. In January, Scottish train drivers
refused to move munitions. In Italy, people have been blocking
dozens of trains carrying American military personnel and
weapons, and dockers have refused to load arms shipments. US
military bases have been blockaded in Germany, and thousands at
Shannon in Ireland have made it difficult for the US military to
refuel its planes on their way to Iraq.
Propaganda is a weapon
almost as lethal as any bomb. For months, "weapons of mass
destruction" has been a phoney news issue. As former chief
UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter has said constantly, Iraq is
"90-95 per cent" disarmed. The current head of the
weapons inspection team, Hans Blix, has all but called Blair and
Bush knaves and liars. When asked what secret arsenals there
were in Iraq, one of his inspectors said: "Zilch".
And yet we have been
forced to participate in this charade: to debate and analyse its
specious agenda. BBC current affairs programmes, on radio and
television, have consistently promoted the government's
warmongering as legitimate by channelling and echoing its
ever-changing deceptions.
A memorandum leaked
last week, written by Richard Sambrook, a senior BBC executive,
warns programme makers against broadcasting too much dissent and
"attracting some of the more extreme anti-war views (even
though) there is no question there is a majority public view
which is against unilateral US action."
That he regards
principled objection to the killing of innocent people as
"extreme" while saying nothing about the murderous
willingness of Blair and his apologists reflects the distortion
of intellect and morality that pervades so much of BBC current
affairs.
When a maverick BBC
documentary dared to investigate Israel's weapons of mass
destruction and the use of gas by the Israelis, thus showing the
hypocrisy of Bush and Blair, it was dropped from a prime slot on
BBC2 at the last moment and put out at 11.20 pm - when most
people were asleep.
In the United States,
where a recent survey found that 75 per cent of current affairs
interviews were with either current or former government or
military officials, censorship is more entrenched. However, when
the attack begins, watch how politicians and former military
brass and assorted "experts" fill the small screen in
this country.
Propaganda may well
have made the difference between war and peace, and life and
death for untold numbers of Iraqi men, woman and children. Had
the great broadcasting institutions and the great newspapers, on
both sides of the Atlantic, not channelled and echoed the lies
and the false agendas, but relentlessly exposed them, the Bush
gang, I believe, would not have been able to go ahead with this
outrage. Neither would Blair.
For this reason,
journalists and broadcasters now have a special duty to rebel.
Wherever they are, they should follow their conscience, not the
demands of a propaganda machine, however subtle and seductive,
and materially rewarding.
They might compare
their comfortable lives with those of journalists in dangerous
countries, like Turkey, an American satellite, which, like
Britain, has a population overwhelmingly hostile to an attack on
its neighbour, Iraq.
Many Turkish
journalists have done their job fearlessly and exposed the
mendacious nature of what George Orwell called "official
truth". Some have gone to prison and others have been
murdered by the state; but their courageous actions have
provided millions of their compatriots with the truth.
Unlike in Britain, for
example, a great many Turks are aware of the deaths and
suffering of Iraqis caused by the American and British led
embargo.
Winston Churchill, when
he was colonial secretary, said: "I do not understand this
squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favour of
using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes." Nothing has
changed. That was 80 years ago. He was referring to Kurds and
Iraqis.
When the Bush/Blair
attack begins, the insidious equivalent of Churchill's poison
gas will be used by the Americans and almost certainly by the
British.
This is depleted
uranium, a sinister component of tank shells and airborne
missiles. In truth, it is a form of nuclear warfare, and all the
evidence suggests that its use in the Gulf War in 1991 has
caused an epidemic of cancer in southern Iraq: what the doctors
there call "the Hiroshima effect", especially among
children.
America and Britain
have denied Iraq equipment with which to clean up its
contaminated battlefields, and towns and villages, which are
about to be poisoned all over again, just as they have denied
cancer treatment equipment and drugs, just as this week they
caused the United Nations to dismantle an efficient Iraqi food
distribution system.
As the dissident
reporter Robert Fisk asked recently: Who will have the courage
to describe the effects of depleted uranium, a true weapon of
mass destruction, a crime against humanity, as part of the
"liberation" that will be the headlined propaganda?
By refusing to echo
state lies, and by recognising and rebelling against censorship
by omission, no British journalist risks jail, or worse, as in
Turkey.
Instead, they begin to
restore honour to their craft and, along with millions of their
readers, listeners and viewers, the very best of people, reclaim
democracy from its powerful thieves.
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