Rejecting the propaganda of silence so that truth can prevail

Iqbal Widastomo, London

It has often been said that the first casualty of war is truth. This is indeed the case with the war in Iraq, which continues at a terrible cost in lives and on-going misery for the people of that country.

But alongside truth as the first casualty of war, I fear that we need to place another sad victim -- innocence. Images of children weeping in pain and misery, and images of children screaming their hatred of America and the American president, displays the wretchedness of loss of innocence.

Some people might claim that these children are being cynically exploited; that they are deliberately being put before cameras to send some kind of message. However, it cannot be denied that a great many Iraqi children are going through a terrifying experience, witnessing horrific injuries, and the deaths of their loved ones.

These children see the horrors of war and they see them first- hand, every single day, as the attacks and bombings continue. They are horrified and traumatized by the devastation of the war that is being wrought upon their country. Much of the world is horrified by this too. But of course, most of the rest of the world cannot possibly know or imagine the depth of horror and despair of actually living in a war zone.

The depth of feeling that is felt around the world causes people to speak out; to even cry out in outrage at what is happening, and people of all nations, races and creeds stand together demanding that the slaughter be stopped. The notion that the war in Iraq is a war between Muslim and non-Muslim forces is left looking ridiculous when people of all faiths come together to campaign against it.

But it seems increasingly clear that too many people remain ignorant of what is really happening in Iraq. It seems particularly regrettable, and very disturbing, that a large number of the unaware or badly informed are in fact Americans. This is the same American public that recently re-elected their president, no doubt on the basis that they think he is standing firm and doing a good job with his proclaimed and continuing war in Iraq -- not to mention Afghanistan.

But sadly the American public is also a casualty in this war. It is a casualty of its own government's decisions in managing the war -- or perhaps that should be "stage-managing" the war -- to such an extent that it appears that the American people are now quite incapable of taking a reasoned stance on the issue of the war.

An American friend of mine illustrates this point. He seems well aware that many American troops have lost their lives, as American media updates the number killed in the manner of a sports scorecard. But he seems much less aware of the thousands of mostly innocent Iraqis who have fallen victim in this "war on terror". It is difficult to understand these words -- "war on terror" -- when you see pictures of mutilated children in Iraq.

It is possible to assert that Indonesian people are probably better informed about the war than are Americans. Americans, like my friend, do not get to see pictures of innocent Iraqi civilian deaths. When he saw a picture (deliberately shown to him) of some poor child being carried by an elderly Iraqi man, her body horribly ripped apart, he, understandably, went pale and expressed his disgust at such an awful sight and such a terrible occurrence; sights and occurrences unseen by so many Americans.

This is the problem -- Americans are not seeing enough of the real consequences of what their leaders have unleashed on Iraq. The Iraqi dictator may have fallen -- a good thing -- but far too many other people have fallen who are wholly undeserving of such an awful fate.

Fallen Americans also go mostly unseen by the great mass of the American public. Implementing a policy created by Bush senior during the Gulf War of 1991, Bush junior bans television networks and newspapers from showing images of dead American soldiers arriving at American air force bases.

In a way, the American people are being denied an opportunity to mourn and honor their fallen. It is a propaganda of silence; a silence that wishes to hide the images and realities of war.

But this propaganda is powerful. This silence is a killer. The damage that the real images of the war can and would do to American public opinion is too great for the managers of the war to contemplate. The images of brave and courageous warriors have to be promoted, and the virtues of America engaged in a war on "evil-doers" has to be maintained. But the more the war is promoted, the deeper America gets stuck in the mud, misery and suffering of war.

America's commitments and losses in the war in Iraq are now massive and some say that they cannot now afford to withdraw. The specter of defeat is too great and fearsome. So the propaganda of silence must be continued, but the grim reality for America is that eventually, gradually, the truth will come out and the truth is more powerful than any conspiracy of silence.

America needs its allies to bail it out of Iraq. These allies will be allies for peace not war, and they will come from many nations and all faiths. The silence that haunts too many Americans now will be replaced by real cries of pain of the victims of the war, and of outrage for what has been done.

The writer is a researcher at the Southeast Asian Division of Global Link Business Consultancy in London.