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The people who died in the Twin Towers in that terrible crime mattered. The people who were bombed to death in dusty villages in Afghanistan didn't matter, even though it now seems that their numbers were greater. The people who will die in Iraq don't matter.

John Pilger

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John Pilger
Age: 85
Born: 1939
Born: October 9
Director
Film Director
Journalist
Screenwriter
War Correspondent
Writer
Sydney
NSW
Seems
Crime
Mattered
Matter
Terrible
Twin
Even
Numbers
Towers
People
Greater
Twins
Dies
Afghanistan
Though
Village
Bombed
Death
Iraq
Dusty
Didn
Died
Villages

More quotes by John Pilger

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Bill Clinton kept funding Star Wars. He took the biggest military budget to Congress in history. He routinely bombed Iraq, and he kept the barbaric sanctions in place. He's really played his part. The George W. Bush gang has taken it just a little further.
John Pilger
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In the sublime days before 11 September 2001, when the powerful were routinely attacking and terrorising the weak, and those dying were black or brown-skinned non-people living in faraway places such as Zaire and Guatemala, there was no terrorism. When the weak attacked the powerful, spectacularly on 9/11, there was terrorism.
John Pilger
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We have an extreme rightwing government in this country, although it's called the Labour government.
John Pilger
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What Nixon and Kissinger began, Pol Pot completed.
John Pilger
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Not all the Americans in Iraq are those who torture and murder, or course they're not, I don't know how many are doing it, I know it is systematic throughout the United States military I think that's been revealed.
John Pilger
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Israel is the American watchdog in the Middle East, and that's why the Palestinians remain victims of one of the longest military occupations. They don't have oil. If they were the Saudis, they wouldn't be in the position they are now. But they have the power of being able to upset the imperial order in the Middle East.
John Pilger
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Orwell is almost our litmus test. Some of his satirical writing looks like reality these days. When you have someone like Cheney who talks about endless war or war that might last fifty years, he could be Big Brother. You have Bush incessantly going on about the evil ones.
John Pilger
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I grew up in Sydney in a very political household, where we were all for the underdog.
John Pilger
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It's quite clear that Gore won most of the votes. I think the accurate description for them is a military plutocracy. Having lived and worked in the United States, I must add that I don't want to make too much of the distinction between the Bush regime and its predecessors. I don't see a great deal of difference.
John Pilger
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I think the accurate description for the George W. Bush administration is a military plutocracy. Having lived and worked in the United States, I must add that I don't want to make too much of the distinction between the Bush regime and its predecessors. I don't see a great deal of difference.
John Pilger
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The impact of the human tragedies I've reported on is that, more often than not, I'll be angry. I want to know why is this child dying? These are not acts of God they're results of respectable politicians' decisions.
John Pilger
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Many journalists become very defensive when you suggest to them that they are anything but impartial and objective. The problem with those words impartiality and objectivity is that they have lost their dictionary meaning. They've been taken over. Impartiality and objectivity now mean the establishment point of view.
John Pilger
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The British Labour Party has always had a very strong Atlanticist component, with an obsequiousness to American policies, and Blair represents this wing. He's clearly obsessed with Iraq. He has to be because the overwhelming majority of the people of Britain oppose a military action. I've never known a situation like it.
John Pilger
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Watch how the propaganda unfolds once the bombing is over and the Americans are running Baghdad and their spin machine. There will be the discovery of Saddam's secret arsenal, probably in the basement of one his palaces.
John Pilger
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I'm absolutely convinced of that. Israel is the representative of the United States in that part of the world. Its policies are so integrated with American policies that they use the same language.
John Pilger
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Many journalists now are no more than channelers and echoers of what Orwell called the official truth. They simply cipher and transmit lies. It really grieves me that so many of my fellow journalists can be so manipulated that they become really what the French describe as functionaires, functionaries, not journalists.
John Pilger
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Using the passive voice is always very helpful. Mind you, a lot of that propaganda English emanates from here. The British establishment has always used the passive voice. It's been a weapon of discourse so those who committed terrible acts in the old empire could not be identified.
John Pilger
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When governments and other vested interests attack me personally I usually regard it as a vindication, otherwise they would use facts. That's why I believe in the wonderful Claud Cockburn dictum, 'Never believe anything until it is officially denied.' It has certainly been my experience.
John Pilger
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Israel is the American watchdog in the Middle East, and that's why the Palestinians remain victims of one of the longest military occupations.
John Pilger
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Whenever a journalist says to me, Oh, you don't understand, I'm impartial, I'm objective, I know what he's saying. I can decode it immediately. It means he channels the official truth. Almost always. That protestation means he speaks for a consensual view of the establishment. This is internalized.
John Pilger