BY JOHN PILGER 

Today, I am reminded of all the other great demonstrations that have happened around the world. At the end of September, I addressed 400,000 people in the centre of London. In Washington, there have been something like 200 demonstrations in the last couple of months. In Florence, a couple of weeks ago, the population of that city was doubled when up to a million people marched and demonstrated against the outrageous prospect of attacking Iraq. 

And your being here today is so important. You are the democratic opposition in this country. Newspapers often categorise people into moderates and extremists. You are the moderates, the members of the Australian government are the extremists. 

They have to be extreme to attack — unprovoked — a country that offers no threat to Australia, a country with whom Prime Minister John Howard's government is prepared to trade. Iraq is a nation held hostage to a medieval embargo, which has strengthened the grip of Saddam Hussein. The people of Iraq — 22 million of them — are young, more than half are children. Many of the rest are widows, vulnerable people. Many of those are suffering after a dozen years of one of the most vicious blockades of any society in modern history. 

Five-billion dollars worth of humanitarian goods approved by the United Nations Security Council are currently kept “on hold” in New York by the United States, with Britain's backing. They include medicines, dialysis machines, agricultural equipment, fire-fighting equipment, infrastructure for schools and school books. All are being blocked by the US. 

We hear much propaganda about how the regime in Iraq is starving its own people and denying them medicine. In fact, it is the other way round. Our governments — the Australian government, the US government and the British government — have contrived, if not conspired, to kill more people in Iraq than in many wars in my life time. 

They want to attack Iraq for one reason only. The stated reason, that of concern about Iraq's “weapons of mass destruction” is repeated incessantly in the media; and yet the issue is false. It is a red herring. 

Four years ago, the same Hans Blix who is leading the UN weapon inspectors back to Iraq said that 90-95% of Iraq's arsenal of chemical and biological weapons had been dealt with. There was not a country in the world that had been so comprehensively disarmed. The basic structure of Iraq's weapons-making industry had been destroyed; and that is what the inspectors are finding now. But the US has no intention of accepting that truth. 

On November 20, Richard Perle, one of US President George Bush's closest advisers, told a British parliamentary committee that regardless of what the inspectors found, the US reserved the right to attack anyway. 

The true reason why the US wants to attack Iraq is strategic control of a country that is of pivotal importance to the US. Iraq is the only oil producing country in the world that can increase its production. Oil is running out. In five to 10 years, oil production will decline by about 5 billion barrels of oil per day. According to the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, Iraq is the only oil-producing country whose known reserves will increase. The Americans want that oil. 

Saudi Arabia, the greatest oil source, is proving unreliable. Although a US oil protectorate, Saudi Arabia was the home of 15 of the alleged hijackers of September 11 and of al Qaeda. So Saudi Arabia is, in imperial thinking, unreliable. 

Iraq is what they want. What they want is control of the oil fields of the Middle East. There is nothing new about this. Indeed, nothing has changed since the 1920s, when the British Royal Air Force bombed Iraq in order to control it. It is an insult to our intelligence for us to have to go through all these pretexts, of weapons of mass destruction and so on. 

And that Australia should write another chapter in its melancholy history of following great power in its imperial adventures is tragic. Yet again, the Australian establishment is putting its hand up: “Please let us be part of this! Please!” 

So our heroic SAS go from their great campaign against helpless asylum seekers on the high seas to chasing tribespeople in Afghanistan — for which they were just given medals. What for? Now, they are off to join the Americans in a new adventure. 

I watched ABC news last night and there was an item about an Australian warship back from the Gulf. There were the familiar scenes that press all the right emotional buttons. Someone draped a sign over the ship, saying, “I will marry you”, and the fresh-faced sailors were reunited with their wives and children. All very touching. But what were they really doing in the Gulf? 

The ABC didn't tell us. Instead, there was manufactured pride about Australia being given the leadership of the naval blockade of Iraq. Don't they understand — those sailors and the journalists who echo propaganda — exactly what is being blockaded? The Royal Australian Navy is blockading men, women and children, vulnerable human beings, a stricken nation. 

For example, Iraq cannot import equipment that would decontaminate the southern battlefields, where depleted uranium — a genuine weapon of mass destruction — was used against the Iraqis by the Americans in 1991. The incidence of cancer there is eight to 10 times the rate anywhere else in the world. 

I want to end by addressing my fellow journalists. I have been a journalist for many years. The media is more powerful than it has ever been. Propaganda now is more powerful than it has ever been. Censorship by omission is more powerful than it has ever been. 

This great event today apparently was not important enough to appear in the Sydney Morning Herald, the pre-eminent newspaper of this city or to be reported in advance by the ABC, the national broadcaster. I attended a press conference on November 28. It was virtually boycotted. 

The media in the end will have blood on their hands. I don't say that rhetorically. Only public opinion and the collective action of the public can safeguard humanitarian issues around the world. 

But the public can only know about the issues — the truth about Iraq, for example — if journalists and broadcasters tell them. And I appeal to the many good people that there are in the media, who feel strongly about this form of censorship, but often don't know what to do. I appeal to them to reject this excluding and manipulative system and to start telling the truth. 

I congratulate you all for coming today. Never lose heart. You are the opposition and the hope of many who do not demonstrate. You are at the heart of a huge new movement for which every rally like this one today is a victory. 

[This speech was presented to the 20,000-strong Walk Against the War rally in the Sydney Domain on November 30.]

From Green Left Weekly, December 11, 2002. 
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page. 
 

BY JUDY DAVIS 

I remember my horror the day in 1991 that the US military attacked the retreating Iraqi army on the road from Kuwait to Basra in Iraq. The war had been won, Saddam Hussein had announced a complete troop withdrawal from Kuwait in compliance with UN resolution 660 and a defeated, starving army was making its slow journey home. The attack left thousands of charred, dismembered bodies and 2000 vehicles littered along the 90 kilometres of highway. 

The attack was a violation of the 1949 Geneva Convention, common article 3, which outlaws the killing of soldiers who are “out of combat”. No attempt was made by the US military command to distinguish between military personnel and civilians. It was as if a declaration had been made — rules of etiquette no longer apply. There will be no more discourse. 

War is, of course, the ultimate failure in communication, but the West has long believed it has had the edge on civility. We can no longer take comfort in this fantasy. Those who support Prime Minister John Howard's easy war rhetoric, those who believe in that fantasy, should educate themselves about the society they intend to destroy. 

1) As of early 2001, the bombardment of Iraq had lasted longer than the US invasion of Vietnam. In October 1999, US officials were telling the Wall Street Journal they would soon be running out of targets — “We're down to the last outhouse”. 

2) Iraq's levels of nutrition, schooling and public services were once well above regional standards, with a per capita GNP of over $3000. Today, courtesy of UN economic sanctions, it is under $500, making it one of the poorest societies on Earth. 

A land that once had high levels of literacy and an advanced system of health care has been devastated by the West. Its people are denied the basic necessities of existence; its soil is polluted by uranium-tipped warheads. 

3) According to 2001 UN figures, some 60% of the Iraqi population has no regular access to clean water. 

4) In 1997, the Food and Agriculture Organisation reckoned that 27% of Iraqis were suffering from chronic malnutrition, and 70% of all women were anaemic. 

5) The United Nations Children's Fund reports that in the southern and central regions of Iraq, which contain 85% of the country's population, infant mortality has doubled compared to the pre-Gulf War period. In 1997, it reported that 4500 children under the age of five were dying each month from hunger and disease. 

6) In late 1998, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, former UN assistant secretary general Denis Halliday, resigned from his post in protest against the blockade, declaring that the total deaths it had caused could be upwards of 1 million. 

Down to the last outhouse, indeed. 

The majority of Australians remain unconvinced by the Howard government. The majority of Australians do not want their country to be responsible for any further misery and death in Iraq. I don't believe that the current fear-mongering campaign run by the government and the media will succeed. I believe that the majority of Australians are indeed a peaceful, tolerant people, that the stigmatising of Islamic Australians appalls us, that Howard's vision of the future is utterly alien to our beliefs. 

We're being told that the war is against the Iraqi regime, not the Iraqi people. I challenge Howard, therefore, to revise his views on refugees. I challenge him to justify his government's treatment of Iraqi asylum seekers. Have we fallen into a moral abyss? 

I challenge the Labor Party politicians to show moral courage. The time has come for people in public office to stop wasting energy second-guessing the public — forget about the polls. We want to know what you actually believe in, we need to know you'll risk your political futures for what you believe in. We need tolerance, compassion, we need wisdom from you. Maybe then, we'll listen to you. 

But we will not slide into the moral abyss, with blood on our hands. Mr Howard, you haven't presented us with a single compelling reason for the further slaughter of innocent people. We do not support your war in Iraq. 

[Judy Davis is a renowned Australian actor. This speech was delivered to the November 30 Walk Against War rally in the Sydney Domain. It has been slightly abridged.] 
 

From Green Left Weekly, December 11, 2002. 

Is an Iraqi life of any less value than an American or an Australian life? 

A US-led attack on Iraq will lead to inevitable loss of life — hundreds, thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens will perish as a result. These are people who have already suffered a great deal under a repressive regime. They have suffered mightily in the last 12 years as a result of the United Nations sanctions imposed on Iraq. 

The Catholic aid agency Caritas Australia has expressed great concern about the effects of a war on Iraq's women and children. It points out that already one in four children under the age of five is chronically malnourished. Caritas tell us that the health service has become quite inadequate through the 12 years of sanctions. It points out that two-thirds of the population are dependent on UN food rations. 

In the event of war, the food will be cut off, and water and sanitation systems will collapse. It is obscene when so-called civilised countries are able to devalue the lives of ordinary people in poorer countries. 

But those of us gathered here today in such great numbers, we want something different. We want peace, not war. We believe in the sisterhood and brotherhood of all humanity. We believe in the dignity of every human being. We say that instead of preparing for war, we should be searching and building for peace. 

For the last year or more, we have heard a lot of rhetoric about the “war against terrorism”. I suggest that we should begin talking about a war against poverty. 

The so-called war against terrorism has resulted in a building up of hatred, fear and suspicion. It has meant a widening of the divide between “them” and “us”. It has done everything to build up a climate of war. 

On the other hand, a war against poverty would entail genuine gestures of goodwill. It would mean a real effort to bring about the alleviation of poverty. It would do something to mitigate the debts of the Third World countries, the debts which are crippling the economies of those countries and demeaning their citizens. 

Palestine is clearly a key to world peace. I call upon the US and its allies, through the UN, to adopt a more even-handed approach with regard to Palestine. I say it is time that the West called Israel to account. 

How outrageous is the spectre of Israel's seizing the land and the homes of Palestinians, disrupting their freedom of movement, impeding them from going about their legitimate employment and most recently destroying their olive harvests. These actions need to be roundly condemned, not to mention the atrocities that have been perpetrated in Jenin, Bethlehem and Ramallah. 

I deplore the killing of innocent Israelis in Kenya and the suicide bombings in Israel. Clearly, the cycle of violence and killing must be broken. That can only come about when there is a recognition both of Israel's right to exist and the right of Palestinians to a homeland and to self determination. 

Pope John Paul II frequently states that there can be no peace without justice. The Australian Bishops recently put out a statement with regard to the possibility of war against Iraq and that statement was entitled “Build peace, avoid war”. 

I am proud to be with you all today and in a special way to stand in solidarity with the Muslim, Iraqi and Palestinian community representatives. I know it is the hope of all of us that, what we model today, will become a reality in the wider world, so that there will be genuine peace and a recognition of the dignity and rights of all people. 

[Pat Power is the auxiliary Catholic Bishop of Canberra and Goulburn. This is an abridged version of the speech he presented at the November 30 Walk Against the War rally in the Sydney Domain.] 
 

From Green Left Weekly, December 11, 2002.