In 1946, the Nuremberg Tribunal rejected German arguments of the “necessity’’ for pre-emptive attacks against its neighbors. “To initiate a war of aggression,’’ said the tribunal’s judgment, “is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.’’

To this, the Palestinian writer Ghada Karmi adds, “a deep and unconscious racism that imbues every aspect of Western policy toward Iraq.” It is this racism, she says, that has cynically elevated Saddam Hussein from “a petty local chieftain, albeit a brutal and ruthless one in the mold of many before him, (to a figure) demoniZed beyond reason”. To Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill, the Iraqis, like all Arabs, were “niggers’’, against whom poison gas could be used. They were un-people; and they still are. The killing of some 80 villagers near Baghdad last Thursday, of children in markets, of the “chicks who get in the way’’ would be in industrial quantities now were it not for the voices of the millions who filled London and other capitals, and the young people who walked out of their schools; they have saved countless lives.

Just as the American invasion of Vietnam was fueled by racism, in which “gooks’’ could be murdered with impunity, so the current atrocity in Iraq is from the same mold. Should you doubt that, turn the news around and examine the double standard. Imagine there are Iraqi tanks in Britain and Iraqi troops laying siege to Birmingham. Absurd? Well, it would not happen here. But the British military is doing that to Basra, a city bigger than Birmingham, firing shoulder-held missiles and dropping cluster bombs on its population, 40 percent of whom are children. Moreover, “our boys” are denying water to the stricken people of Basra as well as to Umm Qasr, which they have controlled for a week. It is no wonder Blair is furious with the Al-Jazeera channel, which has exposed this, and the lie that the people of Basra were rising up on cue for their liberation.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, “our’’ propaganda and its unspoken racism has required an imperial distortion of intellect and morality. The Iraqis are not fighting like lions, in defense of their homeland. They are “cowardly’’ and subhuman because they use hit-and-run tactics against a hugely powerful invader — as if they have any choice. This belittling of their bravery and disregard of their humanity, like the disregard of thousands of Afghans recently bombed to death in dusty villages, confronts us with a moral issue as profound as the Western response to that greatest act of terrorism, the wilful atomic bombing of Japan. Have we progressed? In 2003, is it still true that only “our’’ lives are of value?

These Anglo-American invasions of weak and largely defenseless nations are meant to demonstrate the kind of world the US is planning to dominate by force, with its procession of worthy and unworthy victims and the establishment of American bases at the gateways of all the main sources of fossil fuels. There is a list now. If Israel has its way, Iran will be next; and Cuba, Libya, Syria and even China had better watch out. North Korea may not be an immediate American target, because its threat of nuclear war has been effective. Ironically, had Iraq kept its nuclear weapons, this invasion probably would not have taken place. That is the lesson for all governments at odds with Bush and Blair: Nuclear-arm yourself quickly.

The most forbidden truth is that this demonstrably militarist British government, and the rampant superpower it serves, are the true enemies of our security. In the plethora of opinion polls, the most illuminating was conducted by American Time magazine among a quarter of a million people across Europe. The question was: “Which country poses the greatest danger to world peace in 2003?’’ Readers were asked to tick off one of three possibilities: Iraq, North Korea and the United States. Eight percent viewed Iraq as the most dangerous; North Korea was chosen by 9 percent. No fewer than 83 percent voted for the United States, of which, in the eyes of most of humanity, Britain is now but a lethal appendage. Only successful propaganda, and corrupt journalism, will prevent us understanding this and other truths.