89 of 98 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Could it Be? Yes, It's Actual Journalism!!, January 11, 2003
This review is from: The New Rulers of the World (Hardcover)
Another reviewer said it best: Pilger is like Noam Chomsky, only he's a better writer. Exactly. Pilger's work is an inspiring blend of poingnant personal interviews, on-the-ground examination of "failed states," and laser-like analysis of the Orweillian spin machines of the New Imperialists. There really are sections of this book which will move you to tears.
It is a pathetic testament to the brain-dead nature of homo consumptus that anyone could actually accuse Pilger of "left-wing fundamentalism," or of being obsessed with imaginary conspiracies of the powerful. Clearly these are the ridiculous attestations of folks who get their "news" from corporate talking heads and radio imbeciles. When someone like Pilger comes along and actually does journalism (that is, actually GOES to the places that others only read off of Teleprompters about), the brutality that comes to light is profoundly disorienting. Such is the distance of the rich from the truth.
Please buy this book, especially for the section on Iraq. I defy anyone to read this chapter and then make a cogent case for attacking this country that has been decimated by war, dictatorship, and blockade. The violence of neo-imperial countries like the US and Britain can only survive if their citizens remain aloof and alienated from their brothers and sisters on the ground in the victim states. Pilgers's work explodes that complacency and ignorance. We need a hundred or even a thousand Pilgers.
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27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An indispensable account of globalisation, December 23, 2003
Pilger offers a detailed and well documented account of gross global injustices and their lingering implications. He explains the underlying causes of poverty and terrorism and asserts that imperialism constitutes the most dangerous threat to international peace and stability. After you finish reading this book you will learn that human lives are not equally important (for example, American lives are much more valuable than those of Afghanistan, Iraq etc). Consider one of the most cynical concepts ever coined- 'collateral damage' which implies that any means justify the end, that is, certain human lives may be sacrificed but only if these lives are not American. September 11 was a horrible tragedy, let there be no doubt about that. Nonetheless, countless tragedies occur every day in other parts of the world of which we hardly even hear, much due to mass media's extreme bias. The images of the two planes crashing into the Twin Towers have been permanently imprinted on our memory. In fact, there are not many people in the world who are not familiar with the September 11 attack. On the other hand, how many people know what happened in Srebrenica in 1995? How many people know or even care about the number of the victims killed (inadvertently or not) by unilateral U.S. interventions? How many people die in Iraq as a result of depleted uranium and the sanctions? These stories are considered to be of minor importance by the mainstream media and are rarely even accounted for in major newspapers. Clearly, some lives are more important than others. Pilger argues that only by eliminating poverty and oppression and by respecting human rights can we obliterate terrorism. If the world's only remaining superpower shows contempt for international law and treaties, can we expect others to abide by international laws? It would be extremely hypocritical to demand that others respect human rights while simultaneously displaying a flagrant disregard for all international laws. Pilger correctly points out that we have to practice what we preach; failure to do that is indicative of gross hypocrisy and cynicism. This book further exposes gross economic inequalities between the West and the Rest. You will further learn how the World Bank impedes the progress of the developing countries through the imposition of preposterous loan conditions. Not many people know that the U.S. collaborated with Saddam and even vetoed a U.N. resolution calling for a condemnation of Saddam's massacres against the Kurds. When it serves the U.S. strategic and economic interests then collaboration with a tyrant is justifiable. Discover why developing countries become increasingly poorer and how the wealth of the West is constantly increasing. No one seems to think that it is extremely unjust that an executive can make up to 100,000 dollar a month while a great number of people live below the poverty line and do not even have enough food to survive. In fact, did you know that people working for Nike and the Gap in Indonesia receive 1 U.S. dollar a day? Did you know that the working conditions of these people are gruesome? Their employers are apathetic and indifferent individuals who show a flagrant disregard for human suffering! We keep ignoring Pilger's truth at our own peril.
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
George Orwell said:, September 14, 2003
''During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.''
After the Iraqi invasion on Kuwait and the American intervention (the numbers shown in Congress say that at least 100,000 Iraqi soldiers were killed, whereas the toll of civilian casualties was not assessed), Iraq was denied equipment and professional help for decontamination of its battlefields, which resulted in a noticeable increase of malignant diseases. Under the influence and control of the US and Britain the United Nations Commission for sanctions prevented Iraq from being supplied with necessary medical devices and supplies, for example for chemotherapy, even the vaccines for diphtheria and yellow fever, under the pretense of Iraq using these preparations to produce chemical and other weapons (that is why the Iraqi pharmaceutical plants were destroyed). Due to this "dual weapon usage" even the nitrogen oxide that is used to stop bleeding during the Caesarian section was banned. Very few journalists from the West who were interested in this bear witness to children dieing due to lack of chemotherapy and anesthetics, not allowing using morphine to ease pain - that is why people have seen one little bottle of aspirin being divided among two hundred patients. John Pilger, who won the British prize for the Journalist of the Year twice, the French prize Reporters sans Frontiers and Emmy (to name only a few), writes on all these issues in his uncommonly illuminating and sobering book "The New Rulers of the World".
Being aware of the situation, two chief UN humanitarian relief coordinators for Iraq as well as the head of the World Food Program for Iraq submitted their letters of resignation. The latter one told that even she could no longer tolerate what was being done to the Iraqi people. The result of the sanctions is following: about 500,000 dead children, whereas 250,000 of them were under 5 years of age. If we add the grown ups, "the figure is now almost certainly well over a millionØ (in the words of Denis Halliday, one of the two former coordinators who had resigned). When in 1996 the US ambassador to the UN, Madame Madelaine Albright, was asked a question on the 60 Minutes show, whether the toll of 500,000 dead children was justified, she answered: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price - we think the price is worth it". And if we add to that a ban on sending parcels that contain children's clothing and toys to the relatives in Iraq, which was imposed by the Customs Service of Great Britain, and even a ban on sending books, it becomes clear that all these measures have only consolidated Saddam's dictatorship. All of this reminds us of the subjugation of Germany after World War I. The results are well known.
As it was the case with the talibans, Saddam's dictatorship regime has not always been America's and Britain's enemy. Back in 1963, when it became possible to nationalize the Iraq Petroleum Company, the foreign consortium that was exploiting the Iraqi oil, the CIA installed Saddam's political party the Ba'ath, according to the words of the party×s chief secretary. The American diplomacy refused to condemn Saddam's regime for using mustard gas and nerve gas against the Iranian soldiers and Kurdish civilians, although it was demanded on the part of human rights associations that provided evidence as well. He was given financial support during the invasion on Iran. Besides that, the American administration has supported the genocide on the Kurds (in Iraq and Turkey) and Palestinians, both directly and indirectly. Opposite to the popular opinion, the al-Qa'ida training camps "were kindergartens compared with the world's leading university of terrorism at Fort Benning, Georgia" (Pilger). "Around 60,000 Latin American soldiers, police officers, paramilitary units members and intelligence officers have been trained there". Two thirds of military officers, who were responsible for the heinous crimes in El Salvador, were trained in Fort Benning. The students of this military school were leading death squadrons, military juntas and concentration camps for example in Chile, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama and Grenada, thus making the American administration happy, for it supported these actions directly, introducing the expression "desaparecidos" into the Latin American folklore. As the former State Department official, Mr. William Blum, who is now one of the greatest critics of the American politics, says, the US had bombed 21 states after the World War II, whereas the largest intervention in Vietnam took 58,000 American and 4 million Vietnamese lives. With regards to the scale of bloodshed, they have competition from the Korean War, during which (according to the conservative estimates) approximately 3 million people were killed. Prominent position in this matter holds also the support for the coup and corporate taking over of power in Indonesia 1965-68 (million fatalities), but the holocaust in Cambodia 1969-70 (600,000 peasants killed in the US bombardment) just as well, which was carried out ØsecretlyØ and was not covered by mass media. The way was paved for the demented Khmer Rouge to come up through the front door. In neighbouring Laos, thirty years after the American testing of cluster bombs that scatter 160 clusters around, they "go on killing or mutilating approximately 20,000 people yearly".
The US is still among the countries that have not ratified the international agreement on land mines, the agreement on banning chemical and biological weapons, the agreement on the International War Crime Tribunal, the Convention on children's rights, the decisions of the International Labor Organization, the Kyoto Protocol etc. etc.
"The Congress investigation discovered in 1992 that Bush senior and his counsellors ordered a hush-up of the illegal weapon supplies through third countries" (Pilger). The documentation (that can be found in the Library of Congress) on smuggling of biological weapons to Iraq was mentioned in the Senate report from 1994: anthrax that was cultivated in a company in Maryland (under the license of the Department of Commerce and the permission of the State Department) and in a British state laboratory Porton Down. The slogan "business first" takes on additional meaning, if we bear in mind that America and Britain supplied both sides with weapons during the war between Iraq and Iran in 1980-90. After the Gulf war the selling of the American weapons was increased by 64 percent. That "business as usual" is also to be expected in the future shows the information that thirty two highest officials of Bush's administration used to be executives, counsellors or major share holders in the weapon industry (Source: Arms Trade Resource Center). The rest of the players are oil businessmen, whereas many industry branches are often united and represented by one powerful man - a rich share holder and/or a lobbyist - as it is the case with the vice president Dick Cheney, the representative of the petroleum elite, whose former working place, military company Halliburton, recently closed a ten-year-contract with the government in the "war against terrorism".
The war is a desperately needed financial boost for the economic system, because the legendary military industrial complex makes the third of the American economy and is the strongest lobby besides the oil one, with which it interwines. The USA spends over 400 billion dollars on army and weapons yearly, which is half of the overall allocations of the world in this respect. Even Blair's war enthusiasm becomes much clearer when we know that when it comes to the size Britain's war industry is second largest, after the American one. Their greatest buyer is Saudi Arabia, the most extreme Islamic regime in the world. The other customers are mutually opposed India and Pakistan, and Britain was providing the Indonesian genocide makers in East Timor for twenty years.
The US Senate passed an executive order in 2000 on the 75 million dollars aid for the poorest countries in the world, which is one tenth of the price of a B 52 bomber. The same order appropriated 1,3 billion dollars for the Columbian army which is one of the worst violators of human rights in the world, as Pilger states in his book.
The renowned economist Ernest Mandel wrote once that every 4 years there is a World War that is being waged against children.International organizations such as the UN or the World Resources Institute state that 13 to 18 million children die of starvation yearly or rather 35,000 children daily, which means one child every two seconds. True pacifists should know that there can be no peace in the world while injustice and greed are blooming, and empty phrases on "democracy" are being made.
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