“The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called Al Qaida. And any informed intelligence officer knows this. But there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an identified entity representing the ‘devil’ only in order to drive the TV watcher to accept a unified international leadership for a war against terrorism. The country behind this propaganda is the US.”
Robin Cook, Former British Foreign Secretary.

“Of course the people do not want war. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it is a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism.”
Herman Goering, Nazi Leader-Nuremberg Trial.

October 10th, 1990. Do you remember watching a Kuwaiti “nurse” named “Nayirah” sobbing her eyes out on your TV? Her account of Iraqi soldiers removing babies from incubators was repeated over and over on US news media channels and inflamed American public opinion against the Iraqis – drumming up public support for a US invasion of Iraq. President Bush repeated the story. It was also recited as fact in Congressional testimony, on TV and radio talk shows, and at the UN Security Council. “Of all the accusations made against the dictator,” John MacArthur, author of The Second Front, observed, “none had more impact on American public opinion than the one about Iraqi soldiers removing 312 babies from their incubators and leaving them to die on the cold hospital floors of Kuwait City.”

However, the “baby massacre” never took place. And the American public were certainly not told that “Nayirah” was actually the daughter of Saud Nasir al-Sabah, the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US. She had been coached by a PR firm to fabricate the whole story. Had the truth been revealed at the time, it’s highly likely that the American public would have remained divided over the war, or even galvanized against it.

So have we learned anything in the last twenty years? It appears not …

Weapons of Mass Distraction?

On January 24th Fox News was bold enough to publish on its website: Bin Laden Claims Responsibility For Christmas Terror Attacks. Well there you have it. Public enemy number one gone n’ ‘fessed up again. It even shows a video-still of the main man himself. But read on and it’s revealed … it was just an audio recording. There in small print – the video still is taken from October 7, 2001. So this audio “Osama bin Laden” takes responsibility for the ridiculous incident in Detroit where a halfwit armed with a useless “bomb” attempted to blow up an airliner. Do they actually expect people to buy this? Clearly …

Even if the tape was real, surely you would have to question why the bad guys are resorting to AUDIO tapes? You might have thought that somebody in Al CIAda might be able to afford a video recorder these days? Maybe the latest “Doctor Evil” stand-in has gotten all camera shy after the “bin Laden” stunt doubles in earlier video tapes were so thoroughly debunked on the Internet. Must try harder.

The only reliable information the world has on Osama bin Laden is that he was killed by American troops on December 13, 2001 and buried outside Tora Bora by his following, 30 Mujahideen. At least six of these witnesses were alive at last check. Since his death, every “leaked” video or statement invariably coordinates with “terrorist” scares. Now with Iran, or rather its oil fields, finding themselves almost completely surrounded by US-occupied countries, are we being lied to again? Is it within the realms of possibility that all this talk of Iran’s “nuclear ambitions” is really incubating another agenda? Dare we mention the oil? For it’s not the prospect of another war that concerns me most. It’s the possibility that we don’t care, so long as our gas prices stay low for a little while longer.

WORDS: Boris Bell