June 28, 2005

After the Thanksgiving massacre in Fallujah, which marked the beginning of Death Squad Democracy in Iraq for the first time, ABC News broadcast a sanitized report from the city of one thousand mosques. The most beautiful city in Iraq laid in ruin and of the 300,000 original residents only a mere 8000 were actually struggling in the ruble of a city devastated by the Imperial Tsunami.

Although our deep affection and sympathy towards the victims of the tsunami must not distract us from our deep resentment and condemnation of the nightmare that has been imposed on Iraq by the United States, it seems the corporate mass media has become the publicity agent of the U.S. government in order to divert world public opinion from the U.S. atrocities in Iraq.

A critical analysis of the propagated information about the tsunami gives credence to our view that the media’s position is turning into a political smoke screen, covert propaganda, and a publicity stunt of our corporate rulers to shape world public opinion towards the corporate benevolence and divert public attention from the tragedy in Iraq. The reality is that there have been over 100,000 deaths, millions uprooted, and hundreds of mosques destroyed as a result of the U.S. neocolonial invasion of Iraq which has a population of 24 million. Yet, the covert propaganda machine of the media diverted attention to the tsunami, which had 147,000 deaths in a population area of 2.5 billion people. Iraq has proportionally lost 100 times more lives than Southeast Asia. Unfortunately, disasters must be compared proportionately and we should not allow the covert propaganda of the U.S. media about a natural disaster to distort the reality of premeditated mass murder of the people of Fallujah.

No one has ever seen a vivid report of how the U.S. forces separated all males of military age in Fallujah from their families, who were forced out of the city, then were hunted down like stray dogs and murdered in cold blood. We had been inundated, daily, by vivid reports of the effects of the tsunami immediately all over the world by the corporate media, yet as Sheik Abbas al-Zubeini of Fallujah told IRIN: "The world should see the real picture of Fallujah."

Indeed, it’s been months since the "Thanksgiving Massacre" of Fallujah in 2004, which took place in memory of the first Thanksgiving Massacre of 700 Pequot Indians in 1637, and the world has yet to see an investigative report from the scenes of death and destruction in Fallujah. All we know is that the "city of a thousand mosques" was demolished so brutally that residents spoke of even dogs not being able to live there. In the words of Captain Paul Fowler to the Boston Globe: "The only way to root them out is to destroy everything in your path."

The "liberators" of Fallujah have not shown one picture of their presumed "liberated" population. Their proclaimed aim of rescuing Fallujah from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was as phony and illusive as their overt propaganda about Iraq’s WMD. Indeed the 300,000 people of Fallujah have disappeared from the world radar scene. No one knows how many were murdered. The world has forgotten the pains and suffering of citizens of this beautiful city, and while the UN assistance is pouring for the natural tsunami, no UN agency has bothered to help the suffering masses of Fallujah.

Indeed, a U.S.-made tsunami of bombs and missiles has been pounding the small country of Iraq every day for two years, with more than 100,000 dead and millions of displaced people, and the U.S. forces have successfully prevented any report or body counts. The natural tsunami was over in one day with virtually no long-lasting effects or long-term heath hazards to the affected population, whereas the U.S. warplanes have dropped a half million pounds of depleted uranium on Iraq, affecting the health, reproductive organs, and well-being of millions of Iraqis for generations to come. The tsunami destroyed shacks and flimsy beach houses whereas the U.S. invasion forces in Fallujah destroyed the city of a thousand mosques and displaced 300,000 people. Why do the mass media not show the faces, lives, and the cries for help of murder victims in Iraq?

Why is there a conspiracy of silence about Iraq, with nobody talking? On the other hand, the mass media were fascinated by the feeding frenzy over the tsunami, and the meager U.S. humanitarian assistance to its victims. Did the tsunami provide the cover under which the suffering people of Iraq would be buried? Suddenly, the covert propaganda machine of the American corporations and American government found in the tsunami their greatest ally, not only to try to put Christianity over Islam but also giving it an opportunity to expand their business and global control overseas by improving the U.S. image abroad.

While the whole world was mesmerized by their TV sets watching the images of the tsunami in Aceh and Sri Lanka, U.S. invaders continued their campaign of death and destruction in Fallujah, Mosul and elsewhere in Iraq at the rate of one billion dollars every four days. Instead of condemning their own government for their brutal campaign of terror and occupation of Iraq, the U.S. media are condemning the Muslim world for not pledging enough help to tsunami victims. The Muslim charities have been prevented from helping anyone in Iraq and the Western media are wondering why the Muslim nations are not pledging more money and pouring more help to the tsunami-stricken world? U.S. forces are not letting any independent reporters inside Fallujah, where they have put thousands of people in mass graves to eliminate every trace of evidence of mass murder and destruction, while the media showed pictures of the tsunami to desensitize the public toward death and destruction.

The media has a great responsibility to expose the imperial design and to not let the daily coverage by the corporate media bury the atrocities of the U.S. invasion and colonial occupation of Iraq.

Unlike the natural tsunami, the Imperial Tsunami of death, destruction, carnage, and torture is not producing any pictures or videos because every unbiased reporter has been intimidated, murdered, exiled, bought out, or banished from Iraq. As human beings we are responsible to become the voice of the voiceless. We owe it to the brave people of the beautiful city of Fallujah, who resisted the imperial domination of their country and were murdered while defending their land, their homes, their dignity, their families, and their honor against the shameless neo-crusaders.