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Bombing the Truth

BY ADAM PORTER
www.yearzero.org

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Well, where do you want to start? The war that seemed so likely is commenced. Various Hollywood straplines and adjectives are applied to the start of the bombing campaign by the media. You know, like, `America Strikes Back` (CNN). And almost without effort the holes, discrepancies and ridiculous geo-political non-starters are presented as fact. To some at any rate.

For a start the `humanitarian` side of the operation is emphasized over and over again. Loyal party stalwarts from the media brush their free market epaulettes and repeat the news they know will keep them their job. Voices may be heard, questions may be asked, but the `war` is still a `war`. The `terror` is still `terror`. The difficult questions are ignored.

So let us take the `humanitarian `effort. The BBC said that “wave after wave”of planes attacked various targets around Afghanistan. General Richard Myers in a press conference shown live on CNN and BBC went on to be questioned by some skeptical journalists. Myers is the serving head soldier of the US military, current spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He admitted that 37,500 rations were being dropped. It was not all food. Some was medicine. He then went on to admit that the drop method was “pretty similar” to the drop methods used in Bosnia. You remember, the ones that killed people.

The reasons they kill is because they are dropped without parachutes. Great big crates fall from the sky. You might remember the Bosnian pictures. But one change has happened, the planes dropping the rations are now to fly at “high altitude.” One journalist asked how anyone would find the rations and whether or not they would be destroyed on impact. Myers replied by taking another question. Of the “wave after wave” of planes two were set aside for `humanitarian` purposes, two C-17 transporters who made one trip each.

Major Bob Stewart, former commander of the UK forces in Bosnia, called the drops “only a token effort” (BBC News 24) although he supported them. James Rubin (“Tibet is part of China, that’s settled, Tibet is part of China,” BBC Radio 5 Live) the former Whitehouse spokesman and assistant secretary of state under Clinton didn’t agree. He called it “a massive humanitarian effort” (CNN).

But the BBCs Adam Mynott on the ground at the Afghan border had a slightly different tale. “There are hunger related deaths already happening here,” he said before he and presenter Chris Lowe went on to admit that the `humanitarian effort` was only “symbolic” and that indeed “the drops may fall in pretty remote areas” (Mynott) or that Afghans would be unlikely to go near any drops they may see out of fear that “the drops could be bombs,” (Lowe). Mynott then had a rush of honesty pointing out that the drops are “targeted at the outside world.” And he didn’t mean the high altitude crates.

Perhaps the most humanitarian effort the `allies` could now make is to open the borders and let the fleeing, starving, dying, ebola-infected people out of the war zone and into care. But maybe that is just a bit too `humanitarian.`

CNN as you would expect were not in a mood to question anything. What do you think they are, journalists? One guest Robert Sobhani, a Professor from Georgetown university was exultant. “We have to get out there and dehumanise Bin Laden.” As if he hasn’t done a good enough job himself. “We have to get them (Muslims) burning the effigies of him. We need to dehumanise that guy.”

But the dehumanising has been done. We see the first sight of smart bombing but we know that B-52s are being flown from Diego Garcia. B-52s are carpet bombers. General Myers tried to miss questions on the use of B-52s but he did end up having to admit their use. “We try to match ordinance with targets.” B-52s also carry a huge tonnage of bombs, far bigger than the B2 stealth bombers. We have yet to hear any concrete statistics on the tonnage of bombs dropped by B-52s. In the Gulf War so-called `smart` bombing was 9% of the total tonnage (Pentagon). The perversity of the fact that these aircraft are leaving from Diego Garcia, a country ethnically cleansed of its entire population by the British Labour Party and secret services in the 1960s, has also gone unmentioned. BBC Radio 5 Live also lapsed into subtle discrimination. One guest (whose name I failed to get) did not accept that a civilian life lost in the WTC attacks was the same as a civilian Afghan. Because the WTC attacks were “terror” and the bombing of Afghanistan “is a strategic attack.” Once again the media is trying to give a shadow show of debate. To try and pretend that ordinary people’s concerns (What are the aims? When does it end? Where is the evidence? Will we make it worse?) are being voiced. But in the end the strapline remains, “America Strikes Back”. And there ain’t no truths enough to stop them.

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