Iraq conjures up images of war and destruction. For far too long, the “opinion-makers” of the world, the “keepers of conscience” and the “champions of human rights” have presented the country as a land torn apart by internecine conflict, destruction and death.
For much of recent modern history, the popular press has visually represented Iraq as a country oppressed by savage dictators who rule by the sword. Hardly a day went by without seeing reports of corruption, crime, exploitation, injustice and human rights abuse.
Saddam Hussein the savage dictator, it was reported, possessed weapons of mass destruction. That information, which was presented as the truth – and nothing but the truth, later turned out to be mere propaganda, a weapon of mass distraction, peddled by the champions of war. Every newspaper, television channel, radio station, digital news outlet which published that lie as the truth failed to do their most basic due diligence. Far from speaking truth to power, they just regurgitated what was told to them by the powers that be.
By successfully presenting Iraq as a perennial battleground where bloodshed, hostility and conflict is the norm, they offered the “guardians of the world” a pretext to invade the country in the guise of democracy and human rights, breaking all international norms and rules. They have acted as – and continue to serve as – vehicles of interventionist foreign policy.
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