The U.S. government considers itself in a state of worldwide war against what it calls international terrorism. It entered into war against Iraq because, according to them, Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction which threatened the United States. In support of this charge, the Americans have not, up to now, provided any real proof but only fallacious demonstrations.

Certain observers think that this absence of real evidence must embarrass at the same time the White House and those who, in the international community, have made chorus with George W. Bush and Tony Blair to assure us that Saddam Hussein had such weapons. These observers are mistaken. They ignore the history of war propaganda. They should consult the revisionist authors on this subject. They would learn whereas, for the general public taken as a whole, the best proof of the existence of these weapons is precisely that one finds neither any trace of it, nor proof.

Lies of the Past

Let us recall the witch trials, the so-called "Nazi war crime" trials and the court cases brought against the revisionists.

In centuries passed, in particular from 1450 to 1650, but also towards the end of the 18th century, if we have to believe some ecclesiastical courts and university scientists, there were sixty places on a woman’s body where traces of intercourse with the Devil could be detected. However, other courts made-up of no less scholarly minds determined that, in spite of the precise details brought by these experts, the best proof on the matter lay in the fact that the Devil had erased all traces of his activity; if not, they put forward, it would not have been the Devil.

In the last century, especially since 1945-1946, with the show trials at Nuremberg, then from that time on ceaselessly conducted trials—to this day!—against "camp guards", "war criminals", "collaborators" and, lastly, during legal actions brought against revisionists, one observed a similar phenomenon with the alleged genocide of Jews and the alleged Nazi homicidal gas chambers. The know-it-alls initially sustained that, considering the abundance of evidence and witnesses, it was enough to affirm that these horrors were "facts of common knowledge" (Article 21 of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg). The other learned ones nevertheless wanted to carry out in their work a demonstration, but it has finally come out from this work that, according to these experts themselves, one could not, when all is said and done, discover more than "beginnings of proofs", accompanied by testimonies that should be taken with caution (the case of Jean-Claude Pressac, for example, author of a bulky work, in English, devoted to the gas chambers of Auschwitz, and the case of Robert Jan van Pelt, author of two books on the subject). Lastly, the most cunning have chosen to affirm: "Everyone knows that the Nazis destroyed these gas chambers and systematically eliminated all the witnesses"; the declaration, this time, emanating from Simone Veil (France-Soir Magazine, May 7, 1983, p.47) who made us thus understand that Hitler would not have been Hitler if he had left the smallest trace of his gigantic crime. In fact, in the millions of documents left behind by the new Satan, one will find not even a single order to kill the Jews, no plan to exterminate millions of them (including in the report of a certain meeting held in Berlin-Wannsee), no instruction on how to physically eliminate the Jews (including in the case of Einsatzgruppen), no trace of a budget for so vast an enterprise, not a single execution gas van nor a single execution gas chamber, if not Potemkin’s theatrically grotesque gas chambers, awkwardly "reconstructed" after the war. Such authority as that most learned of the experts, a Jewish Master by the name of Raul Hilberg, finished, in a sigh of despair, by explaining that the formidable slaughter had taken place thanks to "an incredible meeting of minds, a consensus-mind reading by a far-flung bureaucracy," of course the German bureaucracy. More diabolic than Beelzebub, Adolf Hitler had not been satisfied to wipe out all evidence of the crime spree but, to better mislead the world, he left evidence intended to make people believe that he had never wanted to exterminate the Jews. To take only three examples, first, he had granted a safe life to millions of them; then, as the documents prove, he had not sought "to solve the Jewish question in Europe", but to find a "final territorial solution" (the Madagascar plan or a similar plan); finally, he made his military courts shoot Germans who were found to be guilty of murdering a Jew. And so on. As for the magic gas chambers, he made them disappear so well that nobody could take up the challenge of the revisionists demanding that one show them or, at the very least, either describe or draw a picture of the crime weapon and that one explain how these chemical slaughterhouses could function without killing the personnel in charge of clearing the gas chambers of the thousands of corpses, highly cyanided and thus rendered untouchable. Thus the impossibility where the Jews are to prove their main accusation confirms the fully diabolic character of Adolf Hitler.

The Lie of Today

At the beginning of 21st century, it seems that we are replaying the same scenario with the weapons of mass destruction of Saddam Hussein. I say well: "it seems," because it should be stressed here the difference in size. While intercourse with the Devil was physically impossible and the Nazi gas chamber was chemically inconceivable, it should be recognized that the terrifying weapons of Saddam Hussein are, in theory, perfectly possible, from the point of view of physics and chemistry; they are all the more possible since his accusers, starting with Ariel Sharon, are themselves in possession of a huge number of the same but under the innocent name of "weapons of deterrence."

The Eternal Big Fat Lie

In times of war, all political regimes, whatever they may be, that of Saddam Hussein just like that of G.W. Bush, use the coarsest of lies. To launch a country into a war or to maintain the war fervor or to justify a military crusade afterwards, only the good old big lie will speak to the crowd. A clever lie or a newly invented lie will not seal the deal. There exist recipes to provoke a crowd to indignation, anger, the desire to fight and to arouse, at least temporarily, the desire to engage heart and soul into the war cause. The politician who has experience handling the masses knows the virtue of over-simplification which ultimately consists in fictitious touching on the themes: "I love you; you love me!" or: "I am good, you are good and the others are vicious." The televangelist intones: "God is love, God is with us and He is against the foul wretches." The first weapon of the ordinary con artist is not the ingeniousness of his swindle but the ability to gain sympathy when approaching his victim and to hold him to the simplest dialogue. Among the leaders of a country in times of war, one always finds the traits and evasions of the politician, the televangelist and the swindler. From this point of view, in the 20th century, Franklin D. Roosevelt will perhaps be known as the master of duplicity among the warmongers. Will Bush outdo him?

The Comfort of Credulity

The perfect crime leaves no trace, no proof. In the same way, here the perfect accusation is not based on any verifiable proof. The war propagandist knows this. It will be sufficient for him to launch the never ending atrocity stories about numerous accounts of the adversary which he will most plainly describe as spending its time killing babies, using invisible weapons, operating corpse factories located near mass graves. These accounts will seduce only if they are not accompanied by some hard evidence or at least if they are only flanked by "clues", "testimonies" or references to unidentified "sources." Hard evidence presents the disadvantage of restraining imagination and passion. Vague clues have the advantage of giving the impulse to the fevered imagination. As for testimonies, they are touching to sensitive souls, especially if they are accompanied by tears or scenes of fainting (a specialty of the Israeli witnesses). A gratuitous and stereotyped slander will make the deal better than one with detailed accusations and supporting evidence. The recipe of choice is that of a genuine photograph accompanied by a false caption; for example, the photograph will show bodies but the caption will speak about those killed, those murdered, those exterminated. The ideal witness provides no further information on the crime other than vague details, which allows those who grant him faith to build the décor with his imagination fantasy, and to construct the scene of the crime to his own liking. Without any difficulty and as if on a flying carpet, this last one flies away then in his mind towards Auschwitz, Timisoara or the hospital of Kuwait City where, according to father Bush, the Iraqis had, in 1991, disconnected the incubators of Kuwaiti premature babies. The one who listens to or sees this witness feels delightfully flooded with compassion; he enjoys himself; all at the same time he feeds his shameful craving for the spectacle of horror, his need to hate and his yearning for the finer feelings. Thus the seasoned propagandist leaves to those he has deceived the illusion of some personal freedom.

The Need to Believe

The crowd is simple and one will never quite explain the charm that can pepper the simple-minded with elementary reasoning and, in particular, with circular reasoning. It will be said to him, for example, that the proof that one is malicious, is that the latter is malicious. The proof that the latter is malicious is that he does not love us. If he does not love us, it is that he is barbarian. If he is barbarian, it is that he does not see things as we see them. This malicious barbarian belongs to another world, which can only be an inferior people. If they are an inferior people, it follows that we have a superior culture. Here is what assures us that, if we are good, our enemy is fundamentally bad. The circle is complete: it is perfect. Any other proof is superfluous and, just as the white horse of Henri IV is white because it is white, in the same way it should not be wondered how the mass murder attributed to Hitler was technically possible; "It was technically possible given that it took place." This brilliant stupidity was uttered, in a joint declaration, by Léon Poliakov, Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Fernand Braudel and about thirty French historians when in 1978-1979 I had to some extent requested of these people to explain how the gassings of Jews, such as they have been described to us, could have been technically possible (Le Monde, February 21, 1979, p.23). As for the weapons of Saddam Hussein, if they are not in his country, then they must be elsewhere. If they are not in Iraq, it is that they are in Syria. Or in Iran. Or on the Moon. The Devil knows where. But does it matter? The masses have a short memory. They will not go and demand accountability of the liars. For them, with or without a weapon, with or without any proof, the crime of the defeated side remains the crime and the vanquished criminal, a criminal. The circular reasoning delightfully finds its place in the cerebral convolutions of the simple-minded. It coils out there. Reptilian or not, isn’t the brain a relatively soft, spongy, formless mass? Isn’t the heart a pump which suctions in and pushes out without one thinking about it? Isn’t the idleness voluptuous? The mental concentration, tiring? Effort of memory, painful? Then, why, in a consumer society, complicate one’s life when it is sufficient enough to receive, to absorb, to regurgitate, to have a full belly and a brain full of air, to feel good hearted at the side of the winner killer?

The Third World War Recycles the Old Lies

American leaders never make an impression of having very much interest in nuance or detail. At least since 1898, they have, to justify their ceaseless military expeditions, employed the same inventions. Why would they change them? These inventions successfully covered the horrors which the boys accumulated during the Second World War, throughout their war in Vietnam and at the time of twenty other military expeditions. These same deceptions were used to justify the masquerade of a trial at Nuremberg and are found again in the hideous holocaustic propaganda whose American Jews were the champions. Very recently, the White House and its Judeo-Israeli cabal did nothing but recycle the most hackneyed machinations of war propaganda while creating and exploiting this fable about the weapons of mass destruction supposedly held by Saddam Hussein, who, it should be said in passing, moreover forgot, when the time came, to put them to use. Their second war against Iraq illustrated to the Americans the progress of their inventions in any field except, on one side, in the manufacture of the horrors loaned to the adversary and, on the other, in the manufacture of the supposed prowess of their soldiers. Their propaganda could change form but the content never varied. Incidentally we were entitled to the doubles of Saddam Hussein (six in all, of which none have been found up to now) and to the heroic account of pure fiction in the alleged rescue of the young soldier Jessica Lynch.

The revisionists have a chance. Over the new world war, their task will be easy. War propaganda will imperturbably remain the same. Jean Norton Cru for the First World War and Paul Rassinier for the Second World War, to some extent, already described to us the great impostures of this third world war. It should be enough to read these authors again. They have, if one dares say, recorded in advance the long-standing lies of Bush Sr., Bush Jr., Blair and Sharon. The third world war will be extremely different from the two great wars which preceded it and it will innovate in many scientific fields, but its propaganda containing accounts of atrocities will continue to abide by the previously set standard. Coarse and heavily cynical, it will continue to illustrate the wisdom of experience: in times of war fever, the charge which really carries the masses is that which is not accompanied by real evidence. The Americans will compensate that absence of real evidence with the montage-work of spin doctors, with the tomfoolery of Powell (putting on a show by waving in front of the cameras a tube of Iraqi poison), or still more by Hollywoodian frame-ups in the tradition of the Shoah Business and the Holocaust Industry.

Applied to the history of the third world war, the revisionist method will at least offer the advantage of flushing out these kinds of impostures.

© May 11, 2003