On March 20, 2003 the U.S. government launched its mammoth bombing of Iraq. Processo, a weekly news magazine published in Mexico City, used this photograph, which it characterized as "an icon of barbarity" for the front cover of its March 30th issue. The caption says: Washington doesn't believe in tears.
 

Picture taken by Associated Press photographer Nabil
on Saturday, March 22, 2003, three days later

      On page 4 Processo provided the following information:

      "Front cover photo: On Saturday morning, March 22, AP photographer Nabil came close to a cargo truck that transported injured to a Basora hospital, in southern Iraq. Some hours earlier allied forces had bombed the city. Nabil took the picture of an Iraqi girl in shock with her legs mutilated, in the arms of a turbaned man who is preparing to put her down into the truck. The following day the photograph was published in the principal daily newspapers of the world. Then the image appeared in posters during protest marches against the war in Iraq in cities such as Barcelona and London. It was converted into an icon of barbarity. For its testimonial value, Processo is publishing it this week on its front cover."

      We Americans, most of us, didn't see this "icon of barbarity", this gruesome testimony to the savagery of the U.S. government's attack, in our local newspapers. Why not? Because our local newspapers are either themselves owned by, or are dependent for their news sources on huge corporate conglomorates which were accepting of, and for the most part avidly promoting the government's agenda.

      And the television and radio networks were (and are) even worse in misinforming us about the reality of events. For example, right now the Israeli government is continuing to cause the same kinds of horrors by its so-called targeted bombing in civilian areas of Palestinian towns and cities. Most Americans, though they know of these attacks, are not viscerally aware of their impact. In contrast, Palestinian suicide bombings are fully and graphically reported here, and their horror gets us in our guts. People outside the U.S. are much better informed than we are about the reasons why the U.S. and Israeli governments are acting with such savagery, and why most of the world is justifiably outraged by their aggressions.

      Our urgent task, if we want to end the U.S. drive for global domination and Israel's conquest of the Palestinians, is to counter the propaganda of corporate media and the government. We must continue to develop every grassroots mode of communication to the fullest, and educate ourselves and each other. And reach out to those of our fellow Americans, citizens and non-citizens, who currently support government policy. We should ally ourselves with the opposition to the government, i.e. the peace movement, in Israel. Building the communications part of the global grassroots infrastructure deserves the highest priority in our efforts to make a better world.

      Building the global grassroots infrastructure is of course necessarily a long-term endeavor. It is discussed in an essay, Building the Global Grassroots Infrastructure, a task both local and global, at http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/Grass/Infra/index.htm.