The following Editorial was published in "The Guardian", newspaper of
the Communist Party of Australia in its issue of Wednesday, March 26, 2003.
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Editorial - Lies rejected
The farrago of lies told by Howard, Blair, Bush and their supporters to
justify war against Iraq has not swayed millions of people in Australia
and around the world. People are demonstrating their rejection of these
lies.
Government leaders lied about weapons of mass destruction, that Iraq had
links with al-Qaida, about the legality of their invasion, about the
rightness of the cause, about regime change, that Australia is
threatened by Iraq and that it is in Australia's national interest to go
to war.
Faced with these failures the government and supporters of war are now
attempting to hide behind the cry - "support our boys". Howard, Blair
and even Crean are beating this drum as a desperate and backdoor means
of pushing the Australian people into supporting an illegal, unjustified
and criminal war. If those who now demand support for war were concerned
about the well-being of the troops, they would never have sent them to
Iraq in the first place. If the war is wrong and illegal what troops are
being ordered to do in Iraq is also wrong and illegal.
The Australian troops are not defending Australia. They are involved in
a war of blatant aggression against a sovereign country for illegal
objectives. The invasion of Iraq is already an international crime.
The so-called "allied" troops - three countries out of 192 - are
bringing death and destruction to one of the oldest centres of
civilisation, highly cultured and highly educated.
The bombers, cruise missiles and attack helicopters are killing from a
great height. The TV images that follow the missiles to their targets do
not show the mangled bodies. This is what war is all about and this is
what it is for - killing people, occupying another nation's land and
seizing its resources.
Soldiers are trained to kill other human beings and that is what the
invading forces are doing - killing civilians and Iraqi soldiers
defending the sovereignty of their own country even though Iraq has been
virtually disarmed compared with the technology arraigned against them.
Consideration is now being given to charging Howard and others
responsible with war crimes. Russian President Vladimir Putin has also
hinted at similar moves.
When threatening the Iraqi leadership and military that they would be
charged as war criminals unless they surrendered, George Bush declared
that it would be no defence to say: "I was just following orders". This
must also apply to others.
All these considerations mean nothing to those who run Australia's
Government and the military and strategic analysts who regard war as a
parlour game of tanks, planes, guided missiles. They do not speak about
the people whose lives, children, and hopes are blighted.
These experts are joined by prostitute journalists of the ABC, CNN and
other TV channels and the mass media who record their "on-the-spot"
comments - an essential element in the service of the war machine. The
consequences for the Iraqi people will be rapidly forgotten once their
war game is over.
Many supporters of war have also invoked God on the side of war.
"Godspeed" screamed Sydney's Daily Telegraph front page while Bush
repeatedly intones, "God bless America" as though there is no other
country in the world other than the USA.
"God bless America, Australia and Britain", wrote one correspondent to
the Daily Telegraph. Another wrote, "May God be your protector". They
call on a God to bless those whose job is killing. Their God is actually
Mars, the Greek God of war.
The troops are also declared "freedom fighters" by the same media and
politicians who savagely restrict the democratic rights of the people
with so-called anti-terrorist legislation and, in some countries,
violently suppress anti-war protests.
They will not liberate Iraq but impose an American occupation and a
government that is totally subservient to US dictates as has already
been done in Afghanistan.
The oil resources of Iraq will be stolen by the US and British corporations.
Millions of Iraqi families will be decimated, lives lost, homes
destroyed, turned into refugees - thanks to the "allied" war machine in
violation of international law.
That is why the demand to "Stop the War" is ringing out around the world.
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