Iraq

Is there to be no honest accounting for the events in Basra? Do we simply accept John Reid’s customary arrogance?

The destruction caused by Katrina has enabled us to glimpse realities that are usually carefully hidden away. And what we discover is that New Orleans and Baghdad are not so far apart.

The Indian writer Vandana Shiva has called for an “insurrection of subjugated knowledge”. The insurrection is well under way. In trying to make sense of a dangerous world, millions of people are turning away from the conventional sources of news and information and to the world wide web, convinced that mainstream journalism is the voice of rampant power.

An RAF officer is about to be tried before a military court for refusing to return to Iraq because the war is illegal.

When journalists report propaganda instead of the truth, the consequences can be catastrophic – as one largely forgotten instance demonstrates.

In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes a kind of war lover and war salesman (and woman) very different from the ‘almost endearing fools’ he has met in real wars.

In a cover article for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes the headlong rush by the United States, aided by Britain, to attack Iran. Like the attack on Iraq, there is a secret agenda.

The rights of ordinary people to speak out against an unjust war and atrocities unleashed in their name are being crushed. Fascism is at the door. Who else, asks John Pilger, will fight it?

In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes the the difference between Iraq as seen on the corporate news and the real news, such as the return of US-trained and armed death squads, reminiscent of Central America and Vietnam.

Censorship by journalism is virulent in Britain and the US – and it means the difference between life and death for people in faraway countries.