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WORLD CONDEMNS IRAQ WAR
AFP JOINS BURGEONING GLOBAL PEACE MOVEMENT
By Christopher Bollyn
GENEVA, Switzerland—The tide has clearly turned on the Bush administration’s “war on terror.” The political and media elites that once supported the unconstitutional and illegal invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan are now calling, seemingly in unison, for troop reductions and investigations into how they were misled.
“The war in Iraq was and remains one of the great acts of misleading and deception in American history,” Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) recently told a news conference on Capitol Hill.
Kerry, the former Democratic presidential nominee, has changed his tune. During his presidential campaign in 2004, both he and his running mate, former Sen. John Edwards (DN. C.), were among the 29 Democrats in the Senate who voted with 48 Republicans for the Iraq war authorization measure in late 2002.
A sea change in opinion on the war in Iraq is readily apparent in the editorial pages of the big media. The opinion-setting New York Times and
its International Herald Tribune, for example, which both actively supported the war by publishing a number of false propaganda articles by Judith Miller about Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction, have done a quick about-face. Now they say that to continue the war in Iraq is “worse than pointless.”
In a lead editorial of Nov. 29 by Bob Herbert, responded to comments by Rep. Jack Murtha (D-Pa.), a “traditional war hawk,” who has called for a quick withdrawal of American troops from Iraq.
“America needs to cut its losses in Iraq,” Herbert wrote. “The folly of the Bush crowd and its apologists is now plain for all to see. Murtha is right: The war is not sustainable. “To continue sending people to their deaths under these circumstances is worse than pointless, worse than irresponsible,” Herbert wrote. “It’s a crime of the most grievous kind.” “It is pointless to dream of long maintaining an American empire for which most Americans will neither pay nor fight,” Anatol Lieven wrote in The Financial Times.
“The Bush administration deserves to be savagely criticized for the timing and the conduct of the Iraq war.”
In Europe, there is also growing anger and consternation about the CIA’s practice of kidnapping, and the agency’s use of European airports and military bases to facilitate the illegal transport and torture of its victims. The CIA’s kidnap victims have reportedly been taken from and through many European nations.
Now a search is under way to discover in which countries the torture sessions have actually been held. In Britain, where the political discussion on Iraq has been more informed and open than in the United States, Sir Menzies Campbell, a MP from Fife and deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, is publicly demanding “an objective examination of the causes of the bloodbath of Iraq.”
“In truth, the situation in Iraq could hardly be worse,” Campbell wrote. “Yet in Britain, the bloody fallout from Iraq is second-order news. There is no sense of outrage, no call for accountability and no demand for a new strategy. The atmosphere is one of sullen acceptance.”
With Iraq in ruins, plundered and occupied, and drug lords firmly in control of Afghanistan, the controlled media is suddenly changing its tune for the mid-term elections in 2006. The face-saving shift on the war in Iraq by The New York Times and Sen. Kerry are, however, neither convincing nor sincere. Kerry and the Times have only become anti-war after supporting a disastrous war for years, a war which American Free Press opposed from its beginning as unwinnable and illegal.
American Free Press is also the only U.S. newspaper to have vigorously challenged—with evidence—the official version of 9-11, the seminal event of the Bush administration’s “war on terror.”
For these reasons, American Free Press was the only U.S. news outlet invited to participate in the Axis for Peace conference held in Brussels on
November 17-18 at the International Press Center at the Résidence Palace.
Sponsored by the Paris-based Voltaire Network for Freedom of Speech, the Axis for Peace conference was chaired by the French author and activist Thierry Meyssan and drew more than 150 participants from 37 nations. The two-day conference brought together political leaders, diplomats, military officers, intellectuals and opinion-makers from both right and left who spoke from their own experiences and facts. The speeches and final declaration, signed by the participants, are online at www.axisforpeace.net.
This writer spoke during a plenary session on the final afternoon, before major television networks from three continents, and addressed the importance of comprehending the lies of the official version of 9-11 in order to understand the motivation behind the fictional “war on terror.”*
Showing the high-resolution photographs of the explosive demolitions of the twin towers from Eric Hufschmid’s book Painful Questions and citing the recent paper by Prof. Steven Earl Jones of Brigham Young University, I presented the best case I could in 10 minutes that the official version of 9-11 is a massive hoax.
“It is quite plausible that explosives were pre-planted in all three buildings and set off after the two plane crashes—which were actually a diversion tactic,” I said, quoting Jones.
“Muslims are probably not to blame for bringing down the World Trade Center building after all.”
Understanding how the controlled press has censored discussion of the many unanswered questions about 9/11 while supporting the illegal invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan is essential to exposing the complicity of the media oligarchs in the massive hoax known as the “war on terror,” I said.
Although my speech was limited by the constraints of time, there was extraordinary interest in the message.
“A criminal gang controls opinion, media and governments,” Gen. Leonid Ivashov, former chief of staff of the Russian army, said. “Everywhere, government and opinion leaders are bought. As for the media, it is involved in the intimidation of personalities who might emerge.”
Former British intelligence agent David Shayler spoke about the role of the British and U.S. secret services in the creation and use of Islamic terrorism. “I resigned from the British secret services when the MI6 decided to finance Osama bin Laden’s associates,” he said. “I tried to warn them, but it was I who went to prison.
“This terrorism is coordinated by MI6 and the CIA,” Shayler said.
A final declaration, signed by the participants, challenges the “military coalition” that has begun an “unbridled exploitation of the world’s resources and energy reserves.
“To justify their thirst for conquest, they form terrorist groups with the aim of manipulating them, create pretexts for military action, propagate theories of an international Muslim plot and fuel conflicts between civilizations. They seize power for themselves and contribute to pushing humanity toward ruin and disorder.
“This coalition continually violates the principles of international law,” the declaration reads. It goes on to ask the UN Security Council to “enforce the respect of the sovereignty of nations, which forms the basis of international law.”
* For a copy of Christopher Bollyn’s speech delivered at the Axis for Peace Conference in Geneva, Switzerland, send $5 to AFP, 645 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 100, Washington, D.C. 20003 or call AFP at 1-888-699-NEWS (6397) toll free charge a copy to Visa or MC.
(Issue #50, December 5 & 12, 2005)
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