Terminology and images used to legitimise war crimes and military occupation should be scrutinised and challenged, said journalists speaking at an international anti-war conference in Kuala Lumpur.

While propaganda has moved beyond the simple images and slogans used during the world wars of the 20th Century and become more sophisticated, it is still discernable and identified as such, they said.

Speaking on the war and the US military occupation in Iraq, Al Ahram Weekly journalist Hana Bayaty said the US' and its allies' use of terms such as 'insurgents' and 'sovereignty' had been misapplied on the legitimate Iraqi resistence and the illegitimate Iraqi government set up by the US.

These terms have also become accepted and used by many media organisations, said Hana.

"We have to insist that the Iraqi so-called 'insurgents' cannot be (called) insurgents," said Hana.

"Insurgency is a force that is rioting against a legitimate and legal government. In Iraq there is no such thing as a legitimate and legal government," she added.

She was speaking at the three-day War Crimes Conference, organised by the Perdana Global Peace Organisation, headed by former Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, which entered its second day at the Putra World Trade Centre.

Hana also said the media's simplification of the current unrest in Iraq as a merely sectarian conflict between Shias and Sunnis also serves to legitimise the occupation's division of the Iraqi people who had never experienced sectarian conflict.

"They profit from the blur they are creating with their terminologies in the society so that people (outside Iraq) never know the resistence (which is united)," said Hana.

Perpetuating Islamophobia

Another panelist, Oxford Centre for Public Affairs founder Michael Carmichael, said principles of 'perception management' and psychological-warfare have long been applied in the media.

These, including in entertainment, are done to build a public consensus that supports US foreign policy and demonise opponents of US foreign policy.

Carmichael drew a comparison between, among others, the works of an ancestor of the US president with the same name, Reverend George Bush AM - who had demonised Islam and the Prophet Muhammad - with the statement last year of Pope Benedict XVI who had also linked Islam with violence and things "only evil and inhuman".

He also noted that there are many instances of Hollywood demonising Muslims and perpetuating Islamophobia, such as the television series 24/7 that had, in one episode, depicted an Arab Muslim as a terrorist who had taken an enforcement official hostage.

He also pointed out that Walt Disney animation Aladdin had all its evil figures consistently looking and speaking as Arabs, while the hero Aladdin acts and speaks as a typical American teenager.

Greater power game

Another speaker, freelance journalist and columnist Dr Gwynne Dyer said the US attacked Iraq not only for its oil, but also to control the flow of the valuable commodity.

"Going to war with Iraq was just a distraction from the actual intention, that is to control the entire supply of oil in the Persian Gulf," Dyer said at a session entitled "The Ultimate War Crime & How to Distract the Media".

"You don't need to invade a country to get oil from them. They are in the business of selling it. But if you want to control where the oil is being sold, then you control whoever buys that oil and in this case, China. The main aim is to get to the heart of the Persian Gulf and control the flow of oil," he added.

"The reason given for the attack or invasion is of course nonsense. It was a manufactured reasoning," Dyer revealed.

The real reason for the invasion, he claimed was a "greater power game" to impose American superiority over the world.

PGPO chairperson Mahathir yesterday called for the establishment of an international network of activists and groups to counter the 'lies and propaganda' of powerful media corporations 'owned and controlled by warmongers'.

Mahathir is also setting up a War Crimes Tribunal in Kuala Lumpur to hear charges against and prosecute 'warmongering' leaders and governments of aggressor nations guilty of war crimes.