BY LEIGH HUGHES
ADELAIDE — Wearing a shirt with "The battlefield is between your ears: put up a fight" written on it, David Barsamian, founder of Alternative Radio in the United States, gave a lecture on war, propaganda and hypocrisy at the Mercury Cinema on October 4.
The son of Armenian refugees and co-author of books with activists Noam Chomsky and Edward Said, Barsamian described the "war on terror" as a war for oil and the Iraq conflict as "illegal and immoral". He argued that in US planning "Iraqis are incidental" compared to the interests of the "real winners", the weapons contractors and US corporations Halliburton and Bechtel.
Receiving most cheers after saying that all leaders of the pro-war Coalition should be "with Milosevic at the Hague", Barsamian catalogued how the war was built "on a tissue of lies" about banned weapons, threats to other countries, terrorism and UN resolutions: so much, "that now they're telling lies about the lies".
Speaking on US President George Bush's recent visit to Australia, he said it was "like a king emperor visiting a colony" and that Australia and Britain's main role is as cover for US aggression.
Barsamian said that the most revealing part of Bush's visit was in his praising of Australian PM John Howard's ability to "see through the noise of democracy" and go to war in defiance of the popular will. The journalist highlighted the fact that the centres of protest and "noise" this year have been countries in the "coalition of the willing".
Barsamian outlined what he thought people should do, now that resistance to the "empire" was "breaking open again": "We can't just be 'good Americans or Australians' now, like there were 'good Germans' who did nothing to oppose the genocide under Hitler, and after excused themselves by saying, 'we didn't know'.
"To oppose Bush's policies is not being un-American; when you see your country doing terrible things and protest for it to change its course, that is the highest form of patriotism ... We need to be able to deconstruct the propaganda and to build our own voices. We've got to stand up."
The event was sponsored by Radio Adelaide and the Don Dunstan Foundation.
From Green Left Weekly, November 12, 2003.
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