Tag Archives: iraq

Supporting the troops

thoughtcat,

I just had a frightening thought. Given that Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” theory of evolution must surely now lay in tatters with George W. Bush not only in the White House but now leading one of the most stupid wars ever conceived, could Dubya be proof of the existence of God?

More seriously, I deeply resent the assumption by people like Peter Hain and the Prime Minister himself in his TV address (as reported in “Blair addresses divided nation” in today’s Guardian) that even though the country is divided over the war, “the British people will now be united in sending our armed forces our thoughts and prayers”. The argument from these and other quarters that “the troops just have a job to do” and that we should “show unity for their sake” is naive, patronising and simplistic. This isn’t to say I don’t care about our soldiers’ lives and welfare; on the contrary, that is exactly what I do care about. What sickens me is that the people who put the soldiers on the front lines have done so less to disarm Saddam than to fight a political war against “old Europe” and shore up public opinion for this conflict in a far more horrifyingly vivid way than they have been able to achieve by debate and diplomacy alone. To recognise the country’s division, and then to say that we should support the military regardless, is both emotional blackmail and Orwellian doublespeak of the most repulsive kind.

Blair’s TV address incidentally was bizarre. Come ten o’clock, the Blair broadcast had been mysteriously replaced by a one-man performance of The Iceman Cometh. His haggard, exhausted appearance was as disingenuous as his words, coming across less as a reflection of how knackered and stressed he is than a conscious effort to drive home exactly how knackered and how stressed he is. This was borne out by the designer harsh lighting that did him no favours whatsoever – what a coincidence. And then there was the wobbly camera and dodgy slow close-up as he wound up his address, giving the suspicious impression the whole thing had been jumped on a surprised Blair at two in the morning by a couple of minor members of his clerical staff, who had filmed it themselves with a Woolworths camcorder. Who are these people trying to kid?

The reality of war

thoughtcat,

I happened to be indoors on the first morning of the war, tidying up the chaos of the flat after three days of redecoration. I sat down for a break and reluctantly turned the TV on, which I never do in the daytime, to be confronted with the reality of war – that there are huge chunks of time when nothing actually happens. Of course, these days, this doesn’t stop the main TV channels from continuing to broadcast nonetheless. Faced with this, Nicholas Owen found himself interviewing a ballistics expert on scud missiles. “We’ve heard a lot about the use of scud missiles,” said Owen to the expert, who, shot from behind, was revealed to be miked up so comprehensively that he looked like an android. “Can you tell us something about them? For example, what is a scud missile?” The robot-expert churned out a textbook definition of a scud missile, which seemed to be basically that it was a missile that exploded when you fired it at something. Owen then introduced a report from a journalist sitting in a tent in Kuwait wearing a gas mask. The despatch was also broadcast via the trendy new technology of videophone, which reproduces for the ordinary television viewer the exact experience of watching a movie downloaded off the internet on a 56k modem. “As you can see, I’m wearing my gas mask,” mumbled the flickering journalist. The rest of his report seemed to amount to little more than “not much has happened since last night”. Owen, keen to milk the despatch for as long as he could, said, “I see you’re in a tent. Can you pull the camera back a bit and show us what that tent is like?” I decided I didn’t really want to know what the tent was like, and turned off the TV.

I was sad and angry enough that the war had finally started without having to contemplate crap like this. The whole thing reminded me of something my Grandad once said: “War is ninety per cent total boredom and ten per cent total terror.”

Sense of humour failure

thoughtcat,

A really nice interview with Benjamin Zephaniah today in The Independent’s “You ask the questions” feature. Asked by one reader how he would disarm Saddam, he replies: “First, I wouldn’t have armed him in the first place. Britain went out of its way to sell arms to Saddam Hussein. I think we should be offering him a refund.” He also tells a bittersweet story about his only meeting with Tony Blair at some Foreign Office function a few years ago. Zephaniah gave a performance, and then Robin Cook gave an address. The two sat together afterwards and shared a joke ‘about how we [i.e. Cook and Zephaniah] worked really well as a team and should become a double act. So he introduced me to Tony Blair and said that we were going to go on tour together. Blair didn’t see the joke at all. He said something like, “You will do no such thing and you will report to my office tomorrow.”‘ In light of current events, it says it all, really.

Ignoramuses

thoughtcat, ,

The governments the world over are now busy studiously “ignoring” all the demonstrations from Saturday. It really is hypocrisy of the highest order because the next time they want our votes they’ll be waving whatever carrots they can find under our noses. I don’t think people’s memories will be that short this time, though. Why don’t these dickheads just have it out between themselves in a boxing ring when it’s obvious that so many ordinary people don’t want to be part of their war? It seems clear to me that Tony Blair has had his day now. I guess the only problem is who’s going to replace him: would a new Labour leader really make a difference or would the party just eventually spin itself back up its own arse? The Tories are absolutely pointless, Duncan Smith the living definition of a platitude, and in any case I wouldn’t want them back in. Maybe Charles Kennedy’s ship really is coming in; could the Liberal Democrats really be The Third Way?

From the London Stop the War march

Uncategorized,

The Stop the War march today was truly amazing. It was only the third march I’ve ever been on (the first being immediately after September 11th when we were all terrified the US would lash out in retaliation, and the second last autumn, also against the impending war). My wife and I got to the Embankment at about 2pm and shuffled along with the good-humoured and highly cosmopolitan crowd, a great swathe of ages, backgrounds and political persuasions. There was a fantastic sense of humour present on the placards people were holding, such as a picture of Bush with his head split open in Monty Python fashion and an arrow pointing in saying EMPTY WAR-HEAD, a wooden placard stick with BUSH IS A PLANK written on it, and a picture of Blair’s face with his eyes replaced with Bush’s and the slogan BLUSH. This image was a very shrewd revamping of the old Tory “demon eyes” campaign, where Blair’s eyes were replaced with the Devil’s during the 1997 general election. We all thought that was very tacky scare-mongering at the time, but who’s the tacky scare-mongerer now, eh?

I attach a few photos, including some from Hyde Park. We got there too late for the speeches, partly because we stopped into a café in St Martin’s to thaw out after the 90-minute trudge from Embankment to Trafalgar Square. By the time we got to the rallying point it was nearly dark and there were all these little groups of people huddling around tiny bonfires they’d made from placards and leaflets to ward off the bitter cold. Overall it was a very positive day. I carried a “Not in my name” placard all the way home and two complete strangers stopped me to chat for a moment about the march, both of them supportive and one of them saying he was from an army family but still disagreed with taking military action on this occasion. Surely I was dreaming – strangers? Talking to each other?? In England??? It’ll be highly ironic if this (potential) war ends up bringing people together more effectively than politicians ever could.

Make tea not war placard
Make tea not war placard
Buddhists for Peace
Buddhists for Peace
Protest debris along the Victoria Embankment
Protest debris along the Victoria Embankment
Placard inserted into Whitehall statue
Placard inserted into Whitehall statue
Even the Trafalgar square lions are in on the act
Even the Trafalgar square lions are in on the act
A couple huddle round an improvised fire of protest debris in Hyde Park
A couple huddle round an improvised fire of protest debris in Hyde Park

TV cookery is all wrong…

thoughtcat, , ,

We’ve got Martin Bashir grilling Michael Jackson, while Tony Benn slowly marinades Saddam Hussein. Surely it should be the other way around? Meanwhile, Tony Blair proves too slippery a fish even for a Paxo stuffing. Who’s going to step into the ring and make mincemeat of George Bush – “Laughing” Aynsley Harriott or “Naked” Jamie Oliver? Or could Delia Smith be persuaded to come out of her recently-announced retirement and give all these bananas a no-nonsense roasting? Yes – the global situation definitely requires the involvement of more women; Condoleeza Rice must not be allowed a monopoly. Too many men are spoiling the broth.

Propaganda all is phoney

thoughtcat

I was shocked by an item on ITV’s News at Ten last night reporting on an address by Tony Blair to a group of hand-picked card-carrying Labour supporters on UK politics. Iraq went deliberately unmentioned in his speech, but Iain Wilson, a student who had “infiltrated himself into the audience” with a borrowed membership card, started to harangue Blair about the Iraq issue – only to be physically manhandled out of the room. At the end of the address the supporters gave Blair a standing ovation. Congratulations to Wilson for having the guts to do it, and shame on those yes-men who swallowed Blair’s propaganda.

The Independent ran a story about this on its front page today, with a photo inside of Wilson being “removed” by Tony’s henchmen. Robert Fisk also refers to the incident with approval today in his excellent piece “The wartime deceptions“.

Speculating on a war

thoughtcat,

As part of my job at a London press cuttings agency (he said hurriedly) I have to read through editions of financial magazines, including Professional Pensions. The references to “war” and “potential war” are increasing daily and are not very reassuring. In a story headlined “Schemes urged to invest in equities and catch upturns”, from the edition dated 9th January,  Threadneedle Investments’ head of investment communications Helen Mackin says, “An outbreak of peace or a quick, clean victory for a US-led but UN-backed force would be the best outcome [for the markets]. Either could swiftly erase the ‘war premium’ in the oil price … with positive knock-on effects for the US economy.” Shurely shome mishtake… she can’t be both for and against war, can she?

However, this is nothing compared with Mark Dampier of Hargreaves Lansdown’s sentiment in a piece headlined “Between Iraq and a hard place” from Money Marketing of  9th January: “A short war could be good for Isa business.” What on earth is wrong with these people?