An action appeal from an atoning soldier...
Back when I was writing Full Spectrum Disorder, I noted that, during the initial phases of the Iraq invasion, Central Command (CENTCOM), the theater command for Southwest Asia and North Africa, held daily press briefings during which they would produce "the CENTCOM lie of the day." This was in the period when 70% of Amerika thought Saddam did 9-11, and the big news media drank the CENTCOM Kool-aid like thirsty, thirsty children.
Since then, the public has turned against the war. But the news media are still chugging the Kool-aid. That's why they have repeatedly and unquestioningly referred to all those dead Iraqis near Najaf (in Zarqa, in fact) were members of an armed, "insurgent cult." They were dead at the hands of the US and its sketchy Iraqi armed forced "allies," and one of the perennial CENTCOM lies of the day is that every Iraqi who dies during any US operation is an "insurgent" or a "gunman." In fact, most of them were religious pilgrims who were gunned down without any provocation... more then 200 of them. This was no "battle." It was a massacre. The dead were religious pilgrims, not a "cult."
All of us should figure it out, especially news people, that urban guerrillas do not concentrate in groups of 200-plus, and that any time we learn that more than 200 people have been killed, it is a pretty good bet that they were mostly civilians.
"American helicopters participated in the slaughter," Jassim Abbas, a farmer from the area, told IPS. "They were soon there to kill those pilgrims without hesitation, but they were never there for helping Iraqis in anything they need. We just watched them getting killed group by group while trapped in those plantations."
Much of the killing was done by US and British warplanes, witnesses said.
More news on this is available at Truthdig.
Here is what you might like to do.
Lies like this are not only emblematic of this whole war, they are always uncovered and stuck under the noses of official-dum and the corporate entertainment-press by the indoctrination bypass mechanisms available on the internet... like us.
Take this appeal, with links, and distribute it to as many people as possible who have newsgroups, blogs, etc. This lie is still warm, so we can get in front of it fast if we use democratically controlled information technology.
Follow-up steps include sending a copy to your Congress-critter, just to they can't say (like they did the last time) "Gosh oh gee, we didn't know they were lying!" Then call them, using the Congressional Switchboard at 1-800-839-5276, and ask for your Rep, because their beleaguered assistants have to write this stuff down.
Then send a Nasty-gram to the big media, castigating them for their slavish devotion to repeating CENTCOM lies and their extreme disinclination to every question "official sources," ever... even after they have proven to be inveterate liars.
Take 20 minutes today to expose a massacre. Send this to blog-friends. Email and call your Congress-critter. Send a Nasty-gram to each of the media outlets.
CONFRONT THE CENTCOM LIE OF THE DAY!