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James Bovard - After the 9/11 commission staff report effectively nuked the USA’s justification for invading Iraq, White House chief spokesman Scott McClellan was asked whether the Bush administration had misled the American people. McClellan replied, “I guess I don’t look at polls and look at it in those terms. In terms of this administration, we laid out the facts very clearly for the American people.” McClellan’s reply epitomizes how the Bush administration will never admit any of its deceptions. The unjustified, unnecessary war against Iraq should be a lasting warning to Americans not to trust government officials who claim the need to kill in the name of peace.
John Pilger - The story of Diego Garcia is shocking, almost incredible. A British colony lying midway between Africa and Asia in the Indian Ocean, the island is one of 64 unique coral islands that form the Chagos Archipelago, a phenomenon of natural beauty, and once of peace. Newsreaders refer to it in passing: “American B-52 and Stealth bombers last night took off from the uninhabited British island of Diego Garcia to bomb Iraq (or Afghanistan).” It is the word “uninhabited” that turns the key on the horror of what was done there. In the 1970s, the Ministry of Defence in London produced this epic lie: “There is nothing in our files about a population and an evacuation.”
Ramzy Baroud - Imagine the outrage if a series of Palestinian bombings rocked an Israeli town, spontaneously, and in less than four days killed 60 people and wounded hundreds, mostly innocent civilians. Not even the most open-minded of media pundits could dare justify the crime; not even the most lucid of government officials could rationalize the orgy of flesh and blood. How repulsive, albeit insensitive if Fox News decided to inundate its hapless viewers with self-congratulating ‘terrorism experts’ describing the ‘surgical procedure’ followed by the Palestinian bombers whose intent was merely to target a few unidentified Israeli army officers accused of threatening the life of Palestinian civilians. None of this, of course, has occurred. However, its exact antithesis has.
Ahmed Amr - I don’t know how much a Bush speechwriter gets paid these days – but it can’t be much because they seem to be moonlighting for Allawi. One should compliment them for their invaluable assistance to George’s political career. During four years in the White House and two presidential campaigns, they have admirably kept the President ‘on message’. It’s a shame that they have to supplement their meager income by exporting their talents to Iraq. Not a few commentators noticed that Allawi’s speech to Congress was a neocon masterpiece. The administration immediately denied they had a hand in putting words in Allawi’s mouth. They insisted that no one in the White House was involved. OK. But what about all those neocons that linger outside the gates of the President’s sleeping quarters?
Michael Hasty - What is true of the media’s treatment of Warren Commission critics can be equally applied to anyone who questions what is sometimes called the media’s “metanarrative” — the official media version of events. Usually this is accomplished by what Catholic theologians call “the sin of omission.” So, for example, the startling and uncomfortable fact that a Zogby poll found that half of New York City residents believe that the US government either had fore knowledge of, or was complicit in, the 9/11 attacks has been quickly stuffed into the media’s “memory hole.” But the great irony in the media’s rejection of “conspiracy theory” is that the metanarrative requires mainstream news consumers to subscribe to a far less credible “coincidence theory.”
John V. Whitbeck - With polls showing that only 2% of Iraqis consider Americans “liberators”, while solid majorities favour an immediate withdrawal of all American forces, scepticism as to the genuine eagerness of George W. Bush and Iyad Allawi to see free and fair elections held in January is understandable. There is widespread assumption in the region that these elections will be postponed or, rigged to ensure that any government remains effectively subservient to American control. Nevertheless, genuinely free, fair and early elections may offer the USA the best, if not the only, hope for a relatively elegant escape from the deep hole which it has dug for itself in Iraq. To seize this opportunity, Americans must come to grips with four hard truths which, if accepted, could set them (and the Iraqis) free.
Don Nash - I will pose a question to the “leaders” of the world, can’t you come up with any better solutions than bombing? Holy guacamole, it won’t be too long and there won’t be anyone left to bomb. Putting the track record on the table with regards to the current round of bombings that are happening in Iraq, Afghanistan, and every other ‘hot spot’ on the globe, our governments are killing more innocent women and children than they are killing “enemies and insurgents and terrorists”. What are the nations paying these leaders the big bucks for? Bombing? The nations of the free west have been killing the Muslim people for a little over one hundred years in our current scheme of Middle Eastern atrocity so, is it any wonder that the Muslim world is angry with the west?
William Saletan - How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake? That’s what it all comes down to. For all the differences between Iraq and Vietnam, the awful question John Kerry posed in 1971 is the same one hanging over us now. This time, however, Kerry isn’t raising the question. His opponent, the president of the United States, is raising it. Why? Because Iraq is different from Vietnam. We were attacked on 9/11. We thought Saddam Hussein was behind it. We thought Iraq posed the next threat. We don’t want to believe that we were wrong, that we’ve committed $200 billion and sacrificed more than 1,000 American lives in error. We can’t imagine asking thousands more to die for a mistake.
Azmi Bishara - Why did the world have to wake up on 22 September, to George Bush’s heart-warming mood music at the United Nations? For no other reason than that Bush’s speech writers decided it had to. They decided we had to be optimistic, that the circle of liberty is expanding, that this year, unlike its predecessor, is a year of hope and historic opportunity for the UN. Why? Because this is election year in the US and candidate Bush needs to create an upbeat mood on the eve of the elections, a mood of great achievements and victories. So the speech writers give us an opening that suggests that victory has already been won, that liberty and democracy are blooming and that the UN had better wake up and get its act together so that it can reap the fruits.
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