Culture and Life

by Rob Gowland

A culture of lying

George W Bush lies almost every time he opens his mouth. He 
can't help it: he's a right-wing Christian-fundamentalist 
Republican. Lying is part of the culture in which he exists. And 
which he is trying to export to the rest of the world.

Capitalism was still very much in its formative stage at the time 
of Oliver Cromwell, but even then Gerrard Winstanley had astutely 
characterised it as "the lying art of buying and selling". Today, 
in the most developed capitalist country of them all, the "lying 
art" is also at its most developed.

Bush is but one liar amongst many at all levels of the US 
administration. And the US people are getting jack of it.

They know they were lied to about the weapons of mass destruction 
that supposedly littered the Iraqi countryside. Many of them know 
— many more suspect — that they were lied to about the 
circumstances of the September 11 plane hijackings.

In the past, US citizens were piously informed that it was not 
only their right to question their officials, it was their duty. 
But after September 11, those who question the veracity of 
official accounts are accused of being disloyal or "unpatriotic".

But as the lies grow in number and magnitude, so does the 
questioning. And curiously, it is coming not only from the Left 
but from what are considered the most "patriotic" sectors of US 
society.

The families of US soldiers serving in Iraq are openly accusing 
the Pentagon of lying about the number of US soldiers killed 
there. European and Middle Eastern media accuse US forces of also 
lying about the number of Iraqi civilians they have killed.

Non-US media regularly report eyewitness accounts of US soldiers 
responding to any attack by indiscriminately shooting up 
everything — and everybody — in sight, whether young or old, 
male or female, armed or unarmed. Afterwards the US command 
defends the slaughter of civilians in the vicinity with the lying 
claim that they were armed or "appeared to be armed".

On May 19, US forces attacked with all guns blazing (including 
bombs, rockets, planes, tanks, armoured personnel carriers, the 
lot) a sleeping wedding party in a little desert village near the 
Syrian border, Makr al-Deeb.

US intelligence had apparently concluded that having wedding 
guests come from all around the local area including across the 
border in Syria, putting up a tent for the festivities, hiring a 
band and one of the best wedding singers in Iraq, was evidence 
that a "safe house" was being set up for "foreign fighters".

Al-Arabiya television filmed the result: some 42 men, 
women and children horrifically slain.

Witnesses identified the families involved in what had been a 
major wedding for the region, uniting two large families. Among 
the dead were 27 members of one of those families.

Many of their guests died as well, as did the band of musicians 
and Hussein al-Ali, the wedding singer.

The news footage included shots of two dead babies wrapped side 
by side in a blanket, the body of a little girl of six wrapped in 
a white shawl, and a headless child lying next to the body of his 
or her mother.

Ignoring the women and children seen on the TV footage, Major-
General James Mattis, commander of the US 1st Marine Division, 
claimed all the dead men were "foreign fighters".

When reporters pressed Mattis about TV images of dead children he 
took the classic military out when a lie is uncovered: he did not 
have to justify the actions of his men, he announced.

Brigadier Mark Kimmitt, Deputy Director of Operations for the US 
military in Iraq, brazenly declared that the Iraqis (at the time 
of the US attack a sleeping wedding party) had fired first.

"We took ground fire", said this loyal mouthpiece, "and we 
returned fire". He then said, disingenuously but with possibly 
unconscious accuracy: "But we operated within our rules of 
engagement".

In Washington, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General 
Richard Myers, contentedly repeated the lie, but with an odd 
little caveat: "We feel at this point very confident that this 
was a legitimate target, probably foreign fighters".

Only "probably" foreign fighters, but still a "legitimate 
target"?

Following usual US practice, General Myers tried to link the 
victims in Makr al-Deeb to terrorism. Although all the evidence 
says that the dead were guests at a regional wedding, he had the 
gall to suggest that the (mythical) "foreign fighters" might be 
linked to the killers of American hostage Nick Berg.

Without a shred of evidence, he said with a straight face that 
they could be connected to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Islamist 
militant leader and ally of Osama bin Laden whom the US claims 
personally beheaded Berg.

Although such a connection was "still to be determined", the 
worthy General said it was "not out of the question".

And pigs can fly.

* * *

Next week we'll look at some of the serious doubts that have 
been raised over the Berg "snuff video" that the US tried to use 
to divert attention from the prisoner torture photos.