Learning from the Iraq war

In USA today – media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s main mouthpiece – Richard Perle candidly invites us to ‘Relax, enjoy, celebrate victory.’ Every attempt is being made to hush up that the war continues. Every day reports appear of more victims. Every day more lies are added to justify this war in retrospect. The synchronized voice of the media is unbearable. It is imperative that people are informed about the manipulation techniques that are being implemented in order to limit their effect. According to iraqbodycount.net the number of civilian victims, which was 2,706 on 8th May, had risen to 7,203 by 11th June. Those are only the dead. Many other victims of this war have not yet been counted: For example the 32-year-old Iraqi who must learn to live with the fact that he has lost his legs. Or 11-month-old Rosslal who is in hospital and screams with pain because she did not get the vitally necessary clean water and poisoned herself drinking dirty water. Or the mentally handicapped boy who was left alone after the physicians and nurses left the hospital. Or the soldier who was lured into the war with false promises and who must now attempt to cope with the Gulf war syndrome for the rest of his life, an illness whose existence has been immediately denied in a hastily published expertise. They are all victims of this war as well.

Against the will of all peoples, against the voices of all religious leaders, cold and calculating power politics has prevailed. Here, human beings have no value. Racist tones can be heard in this jungle of lies which seek to psychiatrize the Arab people (cf. Stephen Sniegoski Wacky Iraqis Must Be Controlled, p. 8). The fact that a clique of power-hungry politicians completely ignored the voice of peoples all over the world against this war has made many such people look at one another in consternation and rightly so. Such consternation is a natural reaction and should not surprise anyone. It will take some time to recover from this blow, before one begins to remember the facts and start thinking again: Wars are always planned long in advance. When in mid-February the voices of peoples world-wide were raised, it was really already too late in the day. Several independent intellectuals had been pointing out for some time that the war against Iraq had been planned years ago. And even now, if one can escape the influence of the propaganda machinery, one can observe that further wars have already been planned: They will be even faster, even more ‘civilised,’ more sophisticated and even more lethal. Top scientists are currently working on it.

But we could nevertheless learn from history. It has always been the consistent small and steady steps which have led to peace. Those huge numbers of citizens who expressed their desire for peace in such individual ways have both the law and human nature on their side. We may, however, on no account stop and wait until the next war is started. We must continue and join together as human beings, from people to people. We will become stronger and more courageous as solidarity and sympathy grow. Human solidarity is an immense force which makes us independent, courageous and which nothing can shake. There are so many encouraging voices – on both this side and the other side of the Atlantic. Therfore we have every reason to continue with our efforts for peace.

Eva-Maria Föllmer