The Ominous Shadow of 1988 Hovers Over this July

“The oldest cliche is that truth is the first casualty of war. I disagree. Journalism is the first casualty. Not only that: it has become a weapon of war, a virulent censorship that goes unrecognized in the United States, Britain, and other democracies; censorship by omission, whose power is such that war, it can mean the difference between life and death for people in faraway countries, such as Iraq...
Language is perhaps the most crucial battleground. Noble words such as 'democarcy', 'liberation', 'freedom', and 'reform' have been emptied of their true meaning and refilled by the enemies of those concepts. The counterfeits dominate the news, along with dishonest political labels, such as 'left of centre', a fovourite given to warlords as Blair and Bill Clinton; it means the opposite. 'War on terror' is a fake metaphor that insults our intelligence. We are not at war. Instead, our troops are fighting insurrections in countries where our invasions have caused mayhem and grief, the evidence and images of which are suppressed. How many people know that, in revenge for 3,000 innocent lives taken on Sept. 11, 2001, up to 20,000 innocent people died in Afghanistan?”
John Pilger, The Real First Casualty of War