False reality
The last US combat troops have left Iraq “as promised, on schedule”, according to President Barack Obama. The TV news has been filled with cinematic images of the “last US soldiers”, silhouetted against the dawn light, crossing the border into Kuwait.
Fact
They have not left. At least 50,000 troops will continue to operate from 94 bases. American air assaults are unchanged, as are special forces’ assassinations. The number of “military contractors” is 100,000 and rising. Most Iraqi oil is now under direct foreign control.
False reality
BBC presenters have described the departing US troops as a “sort of victorious army” that has achieved “a remarkable change in [Iraq’s] fortunes”. Their commander, General David Petraeus, is a “celebrity”, “charming”, “savvy” and “remarkable”.
Fact
There is no victory of any sort. There is a catastrophic disaster, and attempts to present it as otherwise are a model of Bernays’s campaign to “rebrand” the slaughter of the First World War as “necessary” and “noble”. In 1980, Ronald Reagan, running for president, rebranded the invasion of Vietnam, in which up to three million people died, as a “noble cause”, a theme taken up enthusiastically by Hollywood. Today’s Iraq war movies have a similar purging theme: the invader as both idealist and victim.
False reality
It is not known how many Iraqis have died. They are “countless”, or maybe “in the tens of thousands”.
Fact
As a direct consequence of the Anglo-American-led invasion, a million Iraqis have died. This figure, from Opinion Research Business, follows peer-reviewed research by Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC, whose methods were secretly affirmed as “best practice” and “robust” by the Blair government’s chief scientific adviser. This is rarely reported or presented to “charming” American generals. Neither is the dispossession of four million Iraqis, the malnourishment of most Iraqi children, the epidemic of mental illness, or the poisoning of the environment.
False reality
The British economy has a deficit of billions which must be reduced with cuts in public services and regressive taxation, in a spirit of “we’re all in this together”.
Fact
We are not in this together. What is remarkable about this PR triumph is that only 18 months ago, the diametric opposite filled TV screens and front pages. Then, in a state of shock, truth became unavoidable, if briefly. The Wall Street and City of London trough was on full view for the first time, along with the venality of once-celebrated snouts. Billions in public money went to inept and crooked organisations known as banks, which were spared debt liability by their Labour government sponsors.
Within a year, record profits and personal bonuses were posted and the “black hole” was no longer the responsibility of the banks, whose debt is to be paid by those not in any way responsible: the public. The received media wisdom of this “necessity” is now a chorus, from the BBC to the Sun. A masterstroke, Bernays would surely say.
False reality
Ed Miliband offers a “genuine alternative” as leader of the Labour Party.
Fact
Miliband, like his brother and almost all those standing for the Labour leadership, is immersed in the effluent of New Labour. As a New Labour MP and minister, he did not refuse to serve under Blair or to speak out against Labour’s persistent warmongering. He now calls the invasion of Iraq a “profound mistake”. Calling it a mistake insults the memory and the dead. It was a crime, of which the evidence is voluminous. He has nothing new to say about the other colonial wars, none of them mistakes. Neither has he demanded basic social justice – that those who caused the recession clear up the mess and that Britain’s fabulously rich corporate minority be taxed seriously, starting with Rupert Murdoch.
The good news is that false realities often fail when the public trusts its own critical intelligence. Two classified documents recently released by WikiLeaks express the CIA’s concern that the populations of European countries, which oppose their governments’ war policies, are not succumbing to the usual propaganda spun through the media.
For the rulers of the world, this is a conundrum, because their unaccountable power rests on the false reality that no popular resistance works. And it does.
One of the replies to the above article by John Pilger was:
“I celebrate Pilger’s diversity. But I am still glad Saddam and his sons are members of the dead community.
And the third world has a high birth rate, anyway, so these people will soon be replaced.”
wasapnin world? 
Rarely we see the ‘western’ invaders as the ones causing terror, when in fact it’s always very obvious. and there’s always a lot of ego in it, like back in the vietnam war, which american obviously lost..so they had the whole ‘vietnamisation’ idea trying to make it look like they trained the vietnamese to deal with their own country…when in fact they could’ve just left them alone in the first place. Capitalism took its course eventually throughout vietnam. They never will admit to be the losers in any situation…that says a lot about their pride. too much of it.
Very true Mizah. You might want to check out ‘The Shock Doctrine’. It’s on Youtube and is published book. The concept goes through how the shock doctrine is used to implement the Western (Capitalist) foreign policy ie. self interest.