The Face of War

The Face of War
By Gabriele Zamparini (*)

It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder. - Albert Einstein

I get the title for this article from Dahr Jamail’s website. (1) “The Face of War” is a collection of 82 images embedded journalists in the mainstream media should be forced to watch, before deciding to work for the Pentagon.

A few days ago, the BBC News website ran an article on the 60th anniversary of the Nuremberg trials. The article reads:

“BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus says the Nuremberg trials set an important legal precedent, which laid the ground for subsequent international war crimes prosecutions and the International Criminal Court. (...) The defendants were charged with the then-new offences that have since become fixed in international law, including waging a war of aggression, war crimes and crimes against humanity. (...) The Nuremburg cases were also the first time government leaders were held personally responsible for their actions during war. They mostly claimed that they had not known, or were not responsible for what happened.” (2)

The BBC is right. In 1946 those judges wrote:

"To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." - Judgment of the International Military Tribunal for the Trial of German Major War Criminals - Nuremberg, Germany 1946

Kofi Annan echoed these words in 2004:

“The United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has told the BBC the US-led invasion of Iraq was an illegal act that contravened the UN charter.” (3)

In the words of the Nuremberg trials, “the supreme international crime.“

Through silence and lies, most of the Western mainstream media have been cooperating with the “US-led invasion of Iraq”, and therefore they are directly responsible for “an illegal act that contravened the UN charter” or, to use the Nuremberg trials’ words, “the supreme international crime.“

Mainstream media keep lying till to the point to write, as the BBC did a few days ago, outrageous pornography:

“Washington is not a signatory to any treaty restricting the use of white phosphorus against civilians.” (4)

As Karen Parker, Chief Counsel of the Association of Humanitarian Lawyers said:

“The comment ‘Washington is not a signatory to an international treaty restricting the use of the substance [WP] against civilians.’ assumes that therefore civilians may be targeted by WP weapons. This is an outrageous assumption because civilians may NEVER be the target of military operations -- whether using bows and arrows or white phosphorous, or any other weapon.” (5)

On the other side of the Atlantic, All The News That’s Fit To Print published an article where the only honest thing was the date. In “US Is Slow To Respond To Phosphorous Charges” Scott Shane writes:

“Italian public television showed a documentary renewing persistent charges that the United States had used white phosphorus rounds, incendiary munitions that the film incorrectly called chemical weapons, against Iraqis in Falluja last year.” (6)

Five days earlier, Professor Paul Rodgers, of the University of Bradford's department of peace studies, had told the BBC:

"It is not counted under the chemical weapons convention in its normal use but, although it is a matter of legal niceties, it probably does fall into the category of chemical weapons if it is used for this kind of purpose directly against people." (7)

Let alone that a US Department of Defense’s de-classified report I brought to the attention of the media on November 21, calls WP “CHEMICAL WEAPONS”. (8)

In his NYT’s article (sic!), Scott Shane also writes:

“Firsthand accounts by American officers in two military journals note that white phosphorus munitions had been aimed directly at insurgents in Falluja to flush them out. War critics and journalists soon discovered those articles.” (9)

“War critics and journalists soon discovered those articles”?

On November 8, 2005, after reading my article “EXCLUSIVE: the BBC is WRONG!!! Fallujah, the RAI NEWS 24 documentary and my e-mail exchange with the BBC” (10) Mark Kraft of insomnia.livejournal.com sent me two pieces of information:

1) "The Fight for Fallujah," a "memorandum for record" by Captain James T. Cobb, First Lieutenant Christopher A. LaCour, and Sergeant First Class William H. Hight, published in the March-April 2005 issue of the US Army's Field Artillery magazine.

2) Darrin Mortenson’s "Violence Subsides for Marines in Fallujah," published in the North County Times, on 10 April 2004.

Wednesday morning, November 9, 2005 I wrote “BBC and Fallujah: War Crimes, Lies and Omertà” (11) and I sent my article to many on-line publications and through my e-newsletter which also goes to many journalists working in the mainstream media.

The Guardian (12) here in London picked up the story on Tuesday, November 15, 2005 ONLY AFTER the US State Department on November 10, 2005 had been forced to issue a “NOTE” admitting that WP was indeed used in Fallujah as a weapon.

If we had to rely on the ‘respectable’ media, we would still be talking about fairy tales:

“ ‘It's discredited the American military without any basis in fact,’ said John E. Pike, an expert on weapons who runs GlobalSecurity.org, an independent clearinghouse for military information. (…) ‘The story most people around the world have is that the Americans are up to their old tricks - committing atrocities and lying about it,’ Mr. Pike said. ‘And that's completely incorrect.’ ” (13)

On December 3, 2002, I interviewed Reed Brody for my documentary XXI CENTURY. Reed Brody is a veteran human rights defender and special counsel with Human Rights Watch in New York. He told me:

“You know, war is no longer two armies fighting it out from trench to trench. In modern wars unfortunately 90 percent of the casualties are civilians. We see that in civil wars, but we also see it in international wars - so any war is going to have a devastating impact on civilian populations.” (14)

In those same days, too many were beating the drums for war. It wasn’t just Bush, Blair and the psychopaths of the Project for the New American Century. While millions of people all over the world were demonstrating and organizing to stop this slaughter, the “supreme international crime” was being prepared by the corporate media months before the invasion officially started. And it wasn’t just the FOX News and the other Murdoch’s gems of journalism. The “liberal” (sic!) media were adding their candid voice, singing the ‘liberation of the oppressed Iraqis’. So full of nobility!

We must remember those days, now that many among these "liberal-hawks" have become running mice abandoning the sinking boat.

But careful to the big rats!

In the United States, a country where people fight every day against the occupation of their land by the Business Party that controls the political-economical system through its two factions, the big names are running in support of the Bush junta.

[If the United States pulled out now] "Sunni Iraq would become the very terrorist hotbed they were accused of being before." said former President Clinton (15)

The day after, his wife and Sen. Clinton added ''I think that [an immediate troop pullout from Iraq] would cause more problems for us in America'' (16)

Shameless promotion. There is a beautiful picture at page 143 of my book ‘American Voices of Dissent’. It was taken in Washington, DC on October 26, 2002. Next to a smiling face of Ms Clinton, the words “voted yes to WAR”. Underneath, the WANTED sign reads: WARMONGERING AND COWARDICE.


NOTES:

(1) Dahr Jamail’s website

(2) “Germany marks Nuremberg tribunals”, BBC News website, Sunday, 20 November 2005

(3) “Iraq war illegal, says Annan”, BBC News website, Thursday, 16 September, 2004

(4) Shameless Bbc: When Misinformation Means War Crimes. Exclusive interview with Karen Parker, Chief Counsel of the Association of Humanitarian Lawyers By Gabriele Zamparini, The Cat’s Blog, Thursday, November 17, 2005

(5) See Note 4

(6) Us Is Slow To Respond To Phosphorous Charges, By Scott Shane, The New York Times, November 21, 2005

(7) Iraq probes US phosphorus weapons, BBC News, 16 November 2005

(8) A De-Classified Report from the US Department of Defense calls WP “CHEMICAL WEAPONS” by Gabriele Zamparini, The Cat’s Blog

(9) See Note CC

(10) EXCLUSIVE: the BBC is WRONG!!! Fallujah, the RAI NEWS 24 documentary and my e-mail exchange with the BBC, by Gabriele Zamparini, The Cat’s Blog

(11) BBC and Fallujah: War Crimes, Lies and Omertà, by Gabriele Zamparini, The Cat’s Blog

(12) The US used chemical weapons in Iraq - and then lied about it, by George Monbiot, The Guardian, Tuesday November 15, 2005

(13) See Note 6

(14) XXI CENTURY, PEACE! and AMERICAN VOICES OF DISSENT, by Gabriele Zamparini and Lorenzo Meccoli - The Cat's Dream

(15) Bill Clinton Says U.S. Must Stay In Iraq, By Liz Anderson, The Journal News, November 21, 2005

(16) Sen. Clinton: Immediate Iraq Exit ‘Mistake’, by the AP, November 22, 2005


(*) Gabriele Zamparini is an independent filmmaker, writer and journalist living in London. He's the producer and director of the documentaries XXI CENTURY and The Peace! DVD and author of American Voices of Dissent (Paradigm Publishers). He can be reached at info@thecatsdream.com - Find out more about him and his work at http://TheCatsDream.com