Hypocritical Propaganda 

One Man's Web > Politics and Ethics > Iraq War > Hypocritical Propaganda
March 31 2003

The Americans are upset about alleged Iraqi flouting of the Geneva Convention over the treatment of prisoners of war, especially their display on the media.  Let it be clear I have no sympathy for the Iraqi regime at all.  However the Americans seem to have forgotten Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.  Hundreds of POWs have been held there for over 15 months since the invasion of Afghanistan.  We've all seen them on TV in their orange suits.  We've heard the rumours of them being forced to kneel for hours at a time.  The US has flouted the Geneva conventions by defining these men out of existence.  They are not prisoners of war, they are suddenly 'illegal combatants.'  

The American captured fighting for the Taliban has been through the courts there, and been sentenced.  The two Australian citizens who were captured have been denied legal representation or any trial.  This is a basic denial of human rights.

Let's look at the publicity of the war.  Firstly, here in Adelaide, both the local and national daily prominently figured an Iraqi prisoner of war on the front page.  He could easily have been known to members of the Iraqi community in Australia... he may be a brother or son or cousin.  Is it somehow OK for us to do this because the two nice GI's were giving him a drink? It flouts the very conventions the US is complaining about, and the same has been done by US media.  Arab TV is learning the lessons of the US media, and the US military propaganda machine with its "embedded journalists," yet somehow they are not allowed to follow the US lead in this.

We've heard much of the Iraqi regime building strategic targets in the middle of residential areas. No doubt they have. But here in Adelaide the military headquarters are across the railway track from suburban housing on one side and across Anzac Highway from a hospital and then houses, on the other.  The Oaklands Barracks are in the middle of a residential area.  The multi-storey government media, (The ABC) is in a suburban street at Collinswood as is one of the multi-storey  Department of Transport buildings out at Walkerville. Channel 9 is in a residential area, and Channel 10 is next door to a hospital.  Is this government design, or did it just happen?  What would we see if we investigated British and US installations?  

The US has a habit of setting its own agenda at variance to the rest of the world.  It withholds its dues to the UN and then complains it is not working properly.  It will not sign up to international criminal law in case its citizens and troops become subject to persecution, but is quick to cite the law in the case of others. A colleague wrote of the war recently 

The problem is that the USA does not want to cooperate with the alternatives to war. It does not want to go the legal route. The nations who believe that Saddam Hussein has breached international law by committing crimes against humanity and war crimes should either ask for him to be prosecuted in the International Criminal Court, or, if he somehow falls outside its ambit, in a specially convened tribunal (a process used recently for other people accused of crimes against humanity). The USA does not like such mechanisms - it they are used for other people, they could potentially also be used for US leaders. That is, the US does not want to be accountable in international law, so they won't use legal processes. They have to go to war instead. That is not a failure of the UN, or of the protesters, but of the USA which wants to be the world's policeman, as long as it can also be prosecutor, defence counsel, judge, jury and executioner, and as long as it is given total discretion to decide when the law applies and to whom. (Rev Dr Anne Wansborough)
(Use of Nicholson's cartoons is free in a nonprofit situation.  Please see his website http://www.nicholsoncartoons.com.au for details.)

What is especially troubling about this is the sycophancy of our own government which mirrors this attitude.  A classic Bill Leak cartoon in the Australian has a TV viewer saying "Hmm... I see they're now protecting us from the more offensive images of the war."  John Howard's  and George Bush's faces are pixelated out as John licks George's arse.  There has been virtually no Australian government support or questioning about the status of David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib. Only the minor parties have been decent.

 [Mamdouh Habib's arrest, unlike that of David Hicks, is the story of a man travelling in a country not at war, and without warning being arrested, transferred, and treated as an illegal combatant, despite the fact that he was never any kind of combatant. After being arrested on a bus heading to Karachi in Pakistan, where he was booked to return to Australia, his two Germen companions were released within weeks, due to strong diplomatic pressure from their government. Habib however, was unlucky, because the Australian authorities left him stranded, and refused to demand a fair trial, access to a lawyer, or to extradite him to Australia. What is worse is that after 14 months in prison, the Australian government has still not demanded these things, and he sits in Guantanamo Bay, his fourth country of incarceration, still without being charged, or convicted.]  as per link above

I do not think I would like either Hicks or Habib.  But that is not the point.  Our government is following the US line.  As someone remarked, they make more fuss about people arrested for drug running in Asian countries.

We too are beginning the American habit of withdrawing from the international community and setting its own unilateral agenda.  We are holding off signing international treaties.  We break international treaties in our treatment of refugees. Phillip Adams once said Howard was not a conservative but a great breaker of conventions.  I think he was right.

Printed from http://us.altnews.com.au/print.php?sid=3896:

10.12.02

"Mr Hicks has been incarcerated for more than a year and Mr Habib for over six months. Both men are held without charge, without legal representation, without visitation rights, no consular access, and without the support of their government," Senator Nettle said.

"This appalling situation has gone on long enough, the Government must insist on their return.

"It's inconceivable that if a U.S. citizen were detained by Australian forces in Afghanistan that that person would not be transferred to U.S. authorities, Australia should demand the same treatment for its nationals.

"The Government's assertion that the detention of Mr Hicks and Habib is in line international law is ludicrous.

"On International Human Rights Day this Government has seen fit to continue to deny these two Australian citizens their fundamental rights, it's a disgrace."

David Hicks has been in U.S. Military Detention since December last year, and Mamdouh Habib since April 2002.

Motion moved by Senator Nettle

That the Senate:
1) Notes that Mr David Hicks and Mr Mamdouh Habib remain incarcerated in Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, without having been charged or brought before the courts for trial;

2) Notes that Article 9 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that: 'No one shall be subject to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile';

3) Recalls the commitment that the Defence Minister and Attorney General made on 14th December 2001 that: " If Mr Hicks has committed a crime against Australian Law, the Australian Government will do whatever is necessary to bring him to justice."

4) Calls on the Australian Government as a matter of urgency to take what ever steps are required to return both Mr Hicks and Mr Habib to Australia to determine whether they should be freed or face trial, as is their right.

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