Gideon Polya, “Guardians of the Wall of Silence. UK Media Censorship & Distortion”, MWC News, 20 July 2007, not cached by Google.
Guardians of the Wall of Silence. UK Media Censorship & Distortion
ANTI-RACIST humanitarians around the world view the UK Guardian as possibly being the best and most liberal of British Mainstream newspapers. However the following letter of protest sent to the Guardian suggests otherwise.
What is more dangerous - explicit, racist, genocide-ignoring Mainstream Anglo-American media or an ostensibly liberal newspaper that in various ways has been minimizing public perception of the awful cost of the War in Iraq?
As detailed in the letter, a recent article in the UK Guardian gave the cost of the war as $10 billion per month – ignoring the Economics Nobel Laureate-derived estimate of the accrual cost of the Bush War on Terror of $2,500 billion (overwhelmingly for the 52 month old Iraq War) i.e. about $50 billion per month (5 times greater).
The article grossly under-estimated the Iraqi casualties at about 70,000 as estimated by the much-criticized Iraq Body Count organization – whereas the post-invasion excess deaths in Occupied Iraq now (July 2007) total about 1.1 million (16 times greater) according to the data of the top US and World medical epidemiology group in the World’s top Public Health School (the Nobel Laureate-containing Bloomberg School of Public Health) at the top US Johns Hopkins University, published peer-reviewed in the top UK medical journal The Lancet and endorsed by 27 top Australian medical experts.
Now one article doesn’t make a newspaper policy but, as detailed in the letter to the Guardian below, the Guardian Comment is Free is also censoring comment giving authoritative estimates of the actual horrendous carnage in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories.
People seriously minimizing like this about the Jewish Holocaust face 10 years in prison in Austria and lengthy incarceration in some other West European countries. Indeed Germany has proposed laws for the EU that would punish denial or minimization of contemporary genocides by 3 years in prison (see MWC News). Thus any holocaust- or genocide-minimization or holocaust- or genocide-denial is seen by many Continental Europeans (if not by the British Mainstream media) as extremely serious.
Read on and make your own judgment – but in doing so remember those key words from the American Declaration of Independence: “All men are created equal and have an unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
THE LETTER:
UK Guardian,
Reader comments
I am writing to protest (A) a gross under-estimate by the UK Guardian of post-invasion Iraqi excess deaths and the cost of the Iraq War (B) clear evidence of sustained censorship by Guardian Comment is Free of people trying to tell the truth about the actual shocking cost of the Bush War on Terror. A highly published scientific researcher over 4 decades, after 3 years of intensive research I have published a book on the matter entitled “Body count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950 (G.M. Polya. Melbourne, 2007) and accordingly have some credentials for informed comment.
(A) Cost of the War
The Guardian (13 July 2007) stated: “A 25-page administration report was issued in the fifth year of the war that has claimed the lives of more than 3,600 US troops and is costing US taxpayers an estimated $10bn (£5bn) a month. There have also been around 70,000 Iraqi civilian deaths as a result of the military action by the US and its allies, according to the Iraq Body Count website.”
This is palpably false on 2 counts and I refer you to a recent article entitled “The Cost of War” in the highly ethical, humanitarian, Canada-based MWC News which quotes top expert advice of an accrual cost of the War on Terror of $2.5 trillion and 1 million post-invasion excess deaths in Occupied Iraq.
Thus it states: “A recent article in the highly respected humanitarian UK journal The New Statesman quoted an estimate of the accrual cost (i.e. the long-term committed cost) of the Bush War on Terror at $2.5 TRILLION – and the estimate came from 2001 Economics Nobel Laureate US Professor Stiglitz (Columbia) and Professor Linda Bilmes (Harvard)”
And
“As of March 2007, after 4 years of war, the post-invasion Iraqi excess deaths (avoidable deaths, deaths that did not have to happen) now total ONE MILLION as estimated from data from a top US medical epidemiology group in the World’s top Public Health School (the Nobel Laureate-containing Bloomberg School of Public Health) at the top US Johns Hopkins University, published peer-reviewed in the top UK medical journal The Lancet and endorsed by 27 top Australian medical experts.
The latest 2006 Johns Hopkins data ( indicating 13.3 deaths annually per 1,000 people and an annual Iraqi pre-invasion death rate of 5.5 deaths per 1,000) yields an annual excess death rate of 7.8 per 1,000 i.e. 7,800 per million. Assuming an average population of 27 million this yields post-invasion excess deaths = 7,800 x 27 x 4 = 842,000 i.e. 0.8 million.
However taking the 2006 Johns Hopkins data but using a Jordan/Syria comparative baseline of 4 deaths per 1,000 per year (as opposed to a baseline of 5.5 deaths per 1,000 per year for pre-invasion Iraq after 12 years of crippling Sanctions) gives an annual excess death rate of 9.3 per 1,000 i.e. 9,300 per million and post-invasion excess deaths totalling 9,300 x 27 x 4 = 1,004,400 i.e. 1.0 million as of March 2007.”
Using the same assumptions it can be estimated that the post-invasion excess deaths in Iraq as of July 2007 (4 months on from the 4th anniversary of the invasion) now total 1,004.400 x 52/48 = 1,088,100 = 1.1 million.
(B) Holocaust-denying secret censorship on Guardian Comment is Free
The Guardian’s Comment is Free has gone one stage further, compounding the Guardian’s holocaust-ignoring and holocaust-minimizing by repeatedly secretly censoring those trying to alert their fellow citizens of the world to the carnage in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories.
Thus a recent quite disgusting article on the Guardian Comment is Free attacked bereaved mother and anti-war campaigner Cindy Sheehan . Many commentators were just as disgusted with the article and the Guardian as I was. However repeated attempts to post the following sensible, humanitarian comment were unsuccessful and I have discovered that past comments about the carnage in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories that slipped through the Guardian Wall of Silence have been subsequently deleted. This is the comment that the Guardian Comment is Free repeatedly and secretly blocked:
“What an utterly disgusting article. Cindy Sheehan no doubt has deficiencies like the rest of us but is motivated by (a) the death of her son (b) the evil carnage of war. This revolting and callous article obfuscates both issues.
From UN Population Division and the latest medical literature data it can be estimated that the post-invasion excess deaths (avoidable deaths, deaths that did not have to happen) in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories now (as of March 2007) total 1.0 million and 2.4 million, respectively and the post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 0.5 million and 1.9 million, respectively (90% avoidable and due to gross US, UK and White Australian Occupier violation of Articles 38, 55 and 56 the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Civilian Persons in Time of War)(for details and documentation see “The Cost of War” and “Body Count”).
Whatever her deficiencies Cindy Sheehan is a decent American who like all decent people around the world believes in the great words of the American Declaration of Independence: "All men are created equal and have an unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" - rights grossly violated by UK-US State Terrorism and its supporters and apologists.”
(C) Conclusions
Sensible, decent, anti-racists and humanitarians KNOW what they are getting when they read the typically extreme right-wing, racist, holocaust-ignoring Anglo-American Mainstream media. The Guardian’s continuing crime – well illustrated by these examples - is that it does the same kind of dishonest reporting while PRETENDING to have a humanitarian position. The Guardian is really the media equivalent of Tony Blair – pretending high principle while ignoring or minimizing horrendous atrocities by Anglo-American ”democratic imperialism” (democratic tyranny, democratic Nazism).
A conservative, professional English friend of mine coined the neologism “slie” (spin-based untruth and hence “slying sliars slie by telling slies”). I extended this to “blie” (oh-so-English blather-based untruth and hence “blying bliars blie by telling blies”). The Guardian is doing both.
In 1945 the ex-Nazi Germans adopted a protocol that can be summarized by the acronym C4A (CAAAA) (e.g. see my Australian nation-wide broadcast on the subject, “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” now being published in a book by Australia’s prestigious, publicly-owned ABC radio, TV and on-line media network ). C4A involved Cessation of the killing, Acknowledgement of the carnage, Apology, Amends and Assertion of “never again”.
Thanks to the reprehensible secret policies of ostensibly “liberal” media such as the Guardian, the UK has not even got to the C ( “Cessation”) in relation to its involvement in the Bush-Blair War on Terror that is in horrible reality a cowardly, racist, Anglo-American War on Women and Children (who represent most of the victims) and, more specifically, a War on Arab Women and Children, a War on Muslim Women and Children, a War on Asian Women and Children, a War on South Asian Women and Children and a War on Non-European Women and Children. One can understand why it took 150 years for Britain to finally Apologize for the Irish Famine (1 million dead, 1.5 million exiled refugees as compared to Iraq’s 1.0 million post-invasion excess deaths and 4 million refugees) and why it is STILL continuing the same vile, racist carnage around the world today.
My hero is the late Professor Jan Karski, a Polish war hero who resolutely attempted to tell a disbelieving world about the horror of the Jewish Holocaust as it was happening. Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity – we are obliged to inform others about horrendous abuses of humanity and major risks to humanity. I am inviting all pro-peace, anti-racist humanitarians to publish this letter around the world in the interests of humanity.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Gideon Polya.
Melbourne, Australia