The first barrage of modern warfare is not heard on the battlefield. Instead, it thunders forth from our TV screens and leaves trails of fiery words across the printed page.

It is often said that 'the first casualty of war is truth’, but we rarely reflect on the bloody reality of these words. During war, more than at any other time, language is twisted, stretched, and degraded. 'Precision airstrikes', 'collateral damage', and 'friendly fire': all phrases thrown over a tragedy like a blanket over a corpse; to blur uncomfortably sharp edges and make tolerable the ugly truth beneath.

The corpses are piling high in Iraq. A conservative estimate calculates 100,000 since our invasion; most killed by 'coalition' forces and most of them women and children (Iraq Mortality Survey, The Lancet, 29 October 2004). Our media continues to bury their bodies.

Who will speak for dead Iraqis when our media will not? Denied their voice, our dead brothers and sisters are 'unpeople': like our own fallen soldiers, just more lives lost to the fires of a 'war' that the UN Secretary-General condemns as 'illegal'. Almost as lost are the voices who oppose this bloody crime: 57%, according to a recent survey in the UK.

As George Orwell once wrote: 'Freedom of the Press, if it means anything at all, means the freedom to criticize and oppose.' A healthy democracy needs a free and investigative media, willing to view our own government with the same scepticism it accords official enemies. Objective reporting requires balance; not only between warring factions, but also between the powerful and the powerless. Our media must be held to this standard, so that no body is hidden and no voice unheard.

Join with us, if you can, and help us shine a light on Iraq, on this 'war', and on ourselves.

All are welcome

* Please bring your family and friends.

* Please stand in silence, to mark the silence of the unreported and of the dead.

* Please come with candles, to light the truth and your own placards, to commemorate the dead in Iraq.

* Please come as an individual, leaving symbols of party or organisation affiliations at home.


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