Fallujah, The US Elections And 9/11

Edward S Herman's landmark essay, The Banality of Evil, has neverseemed more apposite. "Doing terrible things in an organized and systematicway rests on 'normalization'," wrote Herman. "There is usually adivision of labor in doing and rationalizing the unthinkable, with the directbrutalizing and killing done by one set of individuals... others working onimproving technology (a better crematory gas, a longer burning and more adhesiveNapalm, bomb fragments that penetrate flesh in hard-to-trace patterns). It isthe function of the experts, and the mainstream media, to normalize theunthinkable for the general public."

On Radio 4's Today (6 November), a BBC reporter in Baghdad referred tothe coming attack on the city of Fallujah as "dangerous" and"very dangerous" for the Americans. When asked about civilians, hesaid, reassuringly, that the US marines were "going about with a tannoy"telling people to get out. He omitted to say that tens of thousands of peoplewould be left in the city. He mentioned in passing the "most intensebombing" of the city with no suggestion of what that meant for peoplebeneath the bombs.

As for the defenders, those Iraqis who resist in a city that heroicallydefied Saddam Hussein; they were merely "insurgents holed up in thecity", as if they were an alien body, a lesser form of life to be"flushed out" (the Guardian): a suitable quarry for "ratcatchers", which is the term another BBC reporter told us the Black Watchuse. According to a senior British officer, the Americans view Iraqis as untermenschen,a term that Hitler used in Mein Kampf to describe Jews, Romanies, andSlavs as sub-humans. This is how the Nazi army laid siege to Russian cities,slaughtering combatants and non-combatants alike.

Normalizing colonial crimes like the attack on Fallujah requires such racism,linking our imagination to "the other". The thrust of the reporting isthat the "insurgents" are led by sinister foreigners of the kind thatbehead people: for example, by Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian said to be al-Qaeda's"top operative" in Iraq. This is what the Americans say; it is alsoBlair's latest lie to parliament. Count the times it is parroted at a camera, atus. No irony is noted that the foreigners in Iraq are overwhelmingly Americanand, by all indications, loathed. These indications come from apparentlycredible polling organizations, one of which estimates that of 2,700 attacksevery month by the resistance, six can be credited to the infamous al-Zarqawi.

In a letter sent on 14 October to Kofi Annan, the Fallujah Shura Council,which administers the city, said: "In Fallujah, [the Americans] havecreated a new vague target: al-Zarqawi. Almost a year has elapsed since theycreated this new pretext and whenever they destroy houses, mosques, restaurants,and kill children and women, they say, 'we have launched a successful operationagainst Al Zarqawi'. The people of Fallujah assure you that this person, if heexists, is not in Fallujah... and we have no links to any groups supporting suchinhuman behavior. We appeal to you to urge the UN [to prevent] the new massacrewhich the Americans and the puppet government are planning to start soon inFallujah, as well as many parts of the country." Not a word of this wasreported in the mainstream in Britain and America.

"What does it take to shock them out of their baffling silence?"asked the playwright Ronan Bennett in April after the US marines, in an act ofcollective vengeance for the killing of four American mercenaries, killed morethan 600 people in Fallujah, a figure that was never denied. Then, as now, theyused the ferocious firepower of AC-130 gunships and F-16 fighterbombers and500-pound bombs against slums. They incinerate children; their snipers boast ofkilling anyone, as snipers did in Sarajevo.

Bennett was referring to the legion of silent Labour backbenchers, withhonourable exceptions, and lobotomized junior ministers (remember ChrisMullin?). He might have added those journalists who strain every sinew toprotect "our" side, who normalize the unthinkable by not evengesturing at the demonstrable immorality and criminality. Of course, to beshocked by what "we" do is dangerous, because this can lead to a widerunderstanding of why "we" are there in the first place and of thegrief "we" bring not only to Iraq, but to so many parts of the world:that the terrorism of al-Qaeda is puny by comparison with ours. There is nothingillicit about this cover-up; it happens in daylight. The most striking recentexample followed the announcement, on 29 October, by the prestigious scientificjournal, the Lancet, of a study estimating that 100,000 Iraqis had died as aresult of the Anglo-American invasion. Eighty-four per cent of the deaths werecaused by the actions of the Americans and the British, and 95 per cent of thesewere killed by air attacks and artillery fire, most of whom were women andchildren.

The editors of the excellent MediaLens observed the rush - no,stampede - to smother this shocking news with "skepticism" and silence(mediaLens.org). They reported that, by 2 November, the Lancet report had beenignored by the Observer, the Telegraph, the Sunday Telegraph,the Financial Times, the Star, the Sun and many others. TheBBC framed the report in terms of the government's "doubts" andChannel 4 News delivered a hatchet job, based on a Downing Street briefing.

With one exception, none of the scientists who compiled this rigorouslypeer-reviewed report was asked to substantiate their work until ten days laterwhen the pro-war Observer published an interview with the editor of the Lancet,slanted so that it appeared he was "answering his critics". DavidEdwards, a MediaLens editor, asked the researchers to respond to themedia criticism; their meticulous demolition can be viewed on medialens.org 2November.

None of this was published in the mainstream. Thus, the unthinkable that"we" had engaged in such a slaughter was suppressed - normalized. Itis reminiscent of the suppression of the death of more than a million Iraqis,including half a million infants under five, as a result of the Anglo Americandriven embargo.

In contrast, there is no media questioning of the methodology of the IraqSpecial Tribune which has announced that mass graves contain 300,000 victims ofSaddam Hussein. The Special Tribune, a product of the quisling regime inBaghdad, is run by the Americans; respected scientists want nothing to do withit. There is no questioning of what the BBC calls "Iraq's first democraticelections". There is no reporting of the fact that the Americans haveassumed control over the electoral process with two decrees passed in June thatallows an "electoral commission" effectively to eliminate partiesWashington does not like. Time magazine reports the CIA buying its preferredcandidates, which is how the agency has fixed elections all over the world. Whenor if the elections take place, we will be doused in cliches about the nobilityof voting as America's puppets are "democratically" chosen.

The model for this was the "coverage" of the American presidentialelection: a blizzard of platitudes normalizing the unthinkable that whathappened on 2 November was not democracy in action. With one exception, no onein the flock of pundits flown from London described the circus of Bush and Kerryas the contrivance of less than one per cent of the population, the ultra-richand powerful, who control and manage a permanent war economy. That the loserswere not only the Democrats, but the vast majority of Americans, regardless ofwhom they voted for, was unmentionable.

No one reported that John Kerry, by contrasting the "war on terror"with Bush's disastrous attack on Iraq, merely exploited public distrust of theinvasion to build support for American dominance throughout the world. "I'mnot talking about leaving [Iraq]," said Kerry. "I'm talking aboutwinning!" In this way, both he and Bush shifted the agenda even further tothe right, so that millions of anti-war Democrats might be persuaded that the UShas "the responsibility to finish the job" lest there be"chaos". The issue in the presidential campaign was neither Bush norKerry but a war economy aimed at conquest abroad and economic division at home.The silence on this was comprehensive, both in America and here.

Bush won by invoking, more skillfully than Kerry, the fear of an ill-definedthreat. How was he able to normalize this paranoia? Let's look at the recentpast. Following the end of the cold war, the American elite - Republican andDemocrat - were having great difficulty convincing the public that the billionsof dollars spent on the war economy should not be diverted to a "peacedividend". A majority of Americans refused to believe there was still a"threat" as potent as the red menace. This did not prevent BillClinton sending to Congress the biggest "defense" bill in history insupport of a Pentagon strategy called "full spectrum dominance". On 11September 2001 the threat was given a name: Islam.

Flying into Philadelphia recently, I spotted the Kean Congressional report on11 September on sale at the bookstalls. "How many do you sell?" Iasked. "One or two" was the reply. "It'll disappear soon."Yet, this modest, blue-covered book is a revelation. Like the Butler report,which detailed all the incriminating evidence of Blair's massaging ofintelligence before the invasion of Iraq, then pulled its punches and concludednobody was responsible, so the Kean Commission makes excruciatingly clear whatreally happened, then fails to draw the conclusions that stare it in the face.It is a supreme act of normalizing the unthinkable. This is not surprising asthe conclusions are volcanic.

The most important evidence to the commission came from General RalphEberhart, commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (Norad)."Air force jet fighters could have intercepted hijacked airliners roaringtowards the World Trade Center and Pentagon," he said, "if only airtraffic controllers had asked for help 13 minutes sooner... We would have beenable to shoot down all three... all four of them."

Why did this not happen?

The Kean report makes clear that "the defense of US aerospace on 9/11was not conducted in accord with pre-existing training and protocols...

If a hijack was confirmed, procedures called for the hijack coordinator onduty to contact the Pentagon's National Military Command Center (NMCC)... TheNMCC would then seek approval from the office of the Secretary of Defense toprovide military assistance..." Uniquely, this did not happen. Thecommission was told by the deputy administrator of the Federal AviationAuthority there was no reason the procedure was not operating that morning."For my 30 years of experience..." said Monte Belger, "the NMCCwas on the net and hearing everything real-time. .. I can tell you I've livedthrough dozens of hijackings... and they were always listening in with everybodyelse." But on this occasion, they were not. The Kean report says the NMCCwere never informed. Why? Again, uniquely, all lines of communication failed,the commission was told, to America's top military brass. Secretary of DefenseDonald Rumsfeld could not be found; and when he finally spoke to Bush an hourand a half later, it was, says the Kean report, "a brief call in which thesubject of shoot-down authority was not discussed." As a result, NORAD'scommanders were "left in the dark about what their mission was".

The report reveals that the only part of a previously fail-safe commandsystem that worked was in the White House where Vice-President Cheney was ineffective control that day, and in close touch with the NMCC. Why did he donothing about the first two hijacked planes? Why was the NMCC, the vital link,silent for the first time in its existence? Kean ostentatiously refuses toaddress this. Of course, it could be due to the most extraordinary combinationof coincidences. Or it could not. In July 2001, a top secret briefing paperprepared for Bush read: "We [the CIA and FBI] believe that OBL [Osama BinLaden] will launch a significant terrorist attack against US and/or Israeliinterests in the coming weeks. The attack will be spectacular and designed toinflict mass casualties against US facilities or interests. Attack preparationshave been made. Attack will occur with little or no warning."

On the afternoon of 11 September, Donald Rumsfeld, having failed to actagainst those who had just attacked the United States, told his aides to set inmotion an attack on Iraq - when the evidence was non-existent.

Eighteen months later, the invasion of Iraq, unprovoked and based on lies nowdocumented, took place. This epic crime is the greatest political scandal of ourtime, the latest chapter in the long 20th-century history of the west'sconquests of other lands and their resources. If we allow it to be normalized,if we refuse to question and probe the hidden agendas and unaccountable secretpower structures at the heart of "democratic" governments and if weallow the people of Fallujah to be crushed in our name, we surrender bothdemocracy and humanity.

John Pilger is a visiting professor at Cornell University, New York. Hislatest book, Tell Me No Lies: investigative journalism and its triumphs,is published in the UK by Random House. First published in the NewStatesman and published here courtesy, Znet