Unlike 9/11 and 7/7, the Bali bomb has been pretty much forgotten here. Clearly it needed a snappy, date-based acronym.
Well, once again we find terrorism is taking up a large amount of space in the news. And for once, America is pretty much uninvolved (apart from one or two spectacularly paranoid conspiracy theories which I'll return to later). A terrorist bomb exploded in Bali last week and, in doing so, reopened the War on Terror debate in earnest. This time Australia claimed the lion’s share of the grief arising from this tragedy. However, as on September 11th, Al-Quaida and their numerous affiliates are being (probably rightly) blamed although no statements have been made by the terrorists to confirm this. So where do we now stand in this stop-start war? Is this a case of "Another day, another atrocity" or is it likely to galvanise those opposed to terrorism into some sort of action other than invading a secular nation that has bugger all to do with sponsoring religious, ideologically led terrorists?
It would seem logical to firstly examine the reaction in Australia. Naturally, a mixture of grief and anger was the immediate reaction. Bali was a popular holiday destination for young Australians and so there have been numerous headlines of the "losing the flower of our youth" type. However, one of the main reactions seems to have been "This bomb is proof that we should have no part of the War on Terror". Now I'm not exactly Pro-Dubya. And I think his little war is nothing more than a cack-handed grab for oil. But leaving aside my distaste for Dubya's warmongering, I'm not sure I agree with the aforementioned Australian reaction at all.
Perhaps it's because I grew up in the UK during the 80's, when bombings by the IRA and INLA were a weekly occurrence. And maybe it's because I grew up in Thatcher's Britain, where the idea of surrender to terror was simply unthinkable. But whatever the reason, it makes those Australians who believe the Balinese bomb was their cue to back off the terrorists sound cowed and beaten to my mind. I'm not arguing the point that the American led War on Terror is a bullshit exercise. What I am arguing is that the people that they are ostensibly fighting the war against, Al-Quaida, are just as big a bunch of bastards as the American government are. Don't get me wrong, I'm not completely amending my position here; I still believe that sorting out the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the only way to get peace in the Middle East. But just as the US government is being hijacked by stupid old men who want a war to bolster their self esteem, the leadership of the terrorist network is full of equally stupid old men who want a war for exactly the same reasons. Peace in the Middle East won't stop these few hardline terrorists, but it will rob them of their recruiting grounds. Backing down at the first sign of trouble is giving in to the latter group of idiots. Supporting a war on terror on ones own terms and not those dictated by the US is not necessarily giving in to the former.
And then we have Bali itself. Currently, the Indonesian authorities (who, for the record, are as large a bunch of totalitarian, militaristic, corrupt scum as one could possibly hope to avoid) are placing the blame on a gentleman named Abu Bakr Bashir. He is a Moslem cleric and is noted for being something of a radical. So radical in fact that he and his followers have been linked to numerous bombs in Indonesia over the last few years. However, as none of these bombs killed Westerners and as the only fatalities were Indonesian civilians whom even their own government don't care about, you could be forgiven for never having heard of him or his alleged terrorist activities.
As a side note, I do have to express a certain amount of admiration for Bashir for his intelligent use of the media in the aftermath of the bombing. He gave an interview where he stated that people in the employ of the American government planted the bomb. His logic for this was that America had recently issued warnings to its citizens not to travel to Indonesia. Never mind the fact that America has all but warned it's citizens that anyone outside of it's borders is an evil foreigner and not to be trusted. Never mind the fact that most Western nations remain uneasy about Indonesia due to its history of breathtakingly violent civil uprisings. Never mind the fact that a supposedly Moslem terror group will almost certainly have had few qualms about planting a bomb on a predominantly Hindu island. What Bashir has done here is tap into that vein of American thought that states that all of the bad things in the world are the fault of the US government.
I believe I've commented before on that brand of small mindedness that is incapable of accepting that there is a world outside of America, and that there are people there who are just as blinkered, selfish, and destructive as any US President. Now that Bashir has opened Pandora's Box, you can bet that there will be any number of emotionally stunted Americans who will leap to the defense of Bashir (who may well have nothing to do with the bombing for all anyone knows) and once more bray their idiot refrain that all bad things in the world are the fault of America. Again I should stress; I'm not trying to say that the hands of angels touch everything America does. I'm saying that there are terrorists who are warlike and bent on destruction as well.
America itself has barely figured in the reportage of the bomb in Bali. Aside from committing FBI resources to the investigation it has done little apart from making an effort to say that the bomb "proved that we're right in wanting to invade Iraq". Erm....how, exactly? Not long after Dubya made his speech saying that their was clear evidence linking Iraq to Al-Quaida, the CIA released a statement saying that they were not aware of any such evidence. The fact that the people of the American capital are currently living in an ecstasy of fear due to a sniper dealing with his/her personal issues in a very public way (there has even been credible speculation that the sniper is a terrorist. Personally I think it's the blokes from the Grassy Knoll; they haven't taken kindly to being pensioned off and so they're taking their revenge!) whilst their President tries to whip up support for his land grab hasn't helped Dubya's approval rating, so the sloppy attempt to link Bali with Iraq hasn't gone down at all well thus far.
All in all, the bomb in Bali has given the Indonesian authorities a mandate to be even more oppressive. It has given John Howard, the right wing (in the British Conservative style of right wing, i.e. an unpleasant bigot) PM of Australia, a chance to prove his hard line credentials. And it has given me another reason to point at Dubya and laugh at him until there are tears in my eyes. But it has given the terrorists a victory in that a wave of fear has once more swept over the western world. As far as I can see, it was one more step toward polarising the world into 2 opposing camps. Somewhere, there are some rich, stupid old men cackling at the way things are shaping up.
Monday, 21 October 2002
Thursday, 26 September 2002
Revenge
Basically, this isn't much more than an attempted justification of my desire to revenge myself on those who wrong me. Which sounds very grand, but that revenge usually consists of little more than epic and intricate levels of personal abuse.
Have you ever heard the phrase "To err is human, to forgive divine"? I always liked that saying; it carried the implication that the many and varied cock-ups I was going to make in my life were expected and would simply be par for the course. As to the idea of forgiveness being some sort of superhuman feat; that merely helped reinforce my overwhelming sense of self-satisfaction when I didn't react to a real or imagined slight against me. Not that I needed any excuse to be unbearably smug about myself, but it's always nice to have an excuse!
Anyway, I spent an awful lot of time in blissful arrogance, happy that anyone who couldn't bring themselves to drop whatever petty little grievances that they had accumulated over time was simply not as good a person as I was. Happily, (or unhappily depending on ones viewpoint) I've had to revise this point of view rather substantially over the last couple of years. You see, despite all of my best efforts, it turns out that I'm really a quite frighteningly vindictive sort of person. Not to the extent of overkill (for example, a group of ratboys set their Staffordshire Bull Terrier onto one of my cats a few weeks ago. Had I reacted the way I wanted to, I would almost certainly be on remand for charges of false imprisonment, ABH, and GBH etc), but rather I find that I simply MUST have my pound of flesh so that I can accept that the matter is settled and so that I can move on. An eye for an eye is still too harsh an ideal for me, but I don't have any problems with a tooth for a tooth.
Now I don't pretend that my attitude in this respect is the correct one. But I don't think it makes me particularly unique, or even a hugely bad person. I think it just makes me a typical example of how humanity deals with being dumped on. On a small (i.e. personal) scale, this isn't particularly harmful or destructive. Okay, so maybe it can be for the person on the receiving end of somebody's ire, but that is part of the process of living your life. It's when others get pulled into the vortex of anger and revenge that things start to get ugly. Again, as a personal example, I once found myself dragging two complete innocents into a dispute I was having with somebody. It had nothing to do with them whatsoever, and the net result was that everybody ended up being pissed off at everybody else. I suppose that, if nothing else, this taught me the valuable lesson of not allowing ones anger to overwhelm ones reason (or, if I were to admit to being as big a Star Wars fan as I actually am, I learned not to give in to the Dark Side...). Sackcloth and ashes were duly donned, and I think that I and the people whom I still care about have come out of the sorry little mess wiser and, for the most part, unscathed.
Okay, so I think that pretty much establishes that to err is indeed human. I know that all of my friends have made mistakes in their lives, and when I look at the news I can see mistakes being made on a daily basis and with global implications; Palestinian suicide bombers, Israeli occupation, American belligerence, European self-righteousness, African chaos...all of these things can be seen and read about on a daily basis (though it can get pretty bloody depressing should you choose to do so). But to stick with the idea of mistakes on a much larger scale, are we right to just expect all the involved parties to behave in a way that is entirely human (i.e. involves the total and unconditional hatred of a group of people whom one has never met and whom one may get along famously with if they met at a party, purely on the basis of something arbitrary like their religion or the colour of their skin)?
For example, the situation in Israel at the moment is the result of a numerous mistakes being made by both Palestinians and Israeli's since the late 1940's. The Palestinians were mistaken in their (and their Arab neighbours) efforts to wipe Israel from the map. Israel was mistaken in their attempt to colonise occupied Palestinian territory. The Palestinians are just plain wrong in their continued guerilla war against Israel that sees more and more innocent Israeli's being blown apart for the crime of going about their daily business. The Israeli's are equally as wrong in their seeming determination to level every Palestinian occupied building in range of their tank shells. We're told that both sides quite simply hate each other with venom not seen since Trotsky called Stalin a big, fat, moustachioed poofter. But was it really as simple as that? Did two whole nations wake up one day and decide that they HAD to commit some barbarous act or other to get revenge for some sort of wrong committed against them?
No, I don't really think that they did. I think a very small group of people is responsible for this particular conflagration. Unfortunately, those people form the leadership of both sides. Yasser Arafat has grievances against the Israeli people that he seemingly cannot forgive. Likewise for Ariel Sharon and his feelings toward the Palestinians. However, because of the vindictiveness of these two people and their attendant cronies, millions of people get the unrivalled opportunity to live in fear, hate, and discord. If the two of them were locked into a room and only one of them were allowed to walk out, I'm inclined to think that it would be a much better way of helping them settle their differences. Instead, a whole nation is used to get revenge by proxy.
I'll restate my point again; two individuals feeling the need to gain petty revenge on each other is A-okay as far as I'm concerned. Two individuals dragging others into their dispute is a bad thing. And if they drag whole nations and cost them their lives...well, it becomes divine in that a truly biblical level of carnage ensues, but that's about it. I think what I'm trying to say is that there is nothing monstrous, or evil, or inhuman about many of the world leaders who sentence a random number of their populace to death for the international equivalent of what their Kev said about our Sharon. They're behaving in just the kind of blinkered, selfish, and petty way that is exactly what we should expect from a human being.
Not that I'm saying that we should simply say "Well that's okay then. We may as well let them carry on until no one has any eyes or teeth left". Going back to revenge on a personal level, I believe that it can be a positive thing (allowing one to let go of whatever dislike has been consuming us, and so allowing one to get on with ones life). But it can very easily become negative and destructive, to the point where revenge is all that matters above and beyond everything else. We usually have the benefit of a friend telling us to calm the hell down, and perhaps to rethink, for example, sending ones enemy a forged letter from a hospital informing them that one of their recent sexual partners has been diagnosed as HIV +. No one close to him is going to tell Dubya that declaring war on Iraq because Saddam pissed daddy off is a bad idea. Maybe I am being unreasonable to expect a little more of the divine in our leaders, but when they are making decisions that will affect my life based predominantly on their personal grudges, I doubt I'll be alone in making that wish.
Have you ever heard the phrase "To err is human, to forgive divine"? I always liked that saying; it carried the implication that the many and varied cock-ups I was going to make in my life were expected and would simply be par for the course. As to the idea of forgiveness being some sort of superhuman feat; that merely helped reinforce my overwhelming sense of self-satisfaction when I didn't react to a real or imagined slight against me. Not that I needed any excuse to be unbearably smug about myself, but it's always nice to have an excuse!
Anyway, I spent an awful lot of time in blissful arrogance, happy that anyone who couldn't bring themselves to drop whatever petty little grievances that they had accumulated over time was simply not as good a person as I was. Happily, (or unhappily depending on ones viewpoint) I've had to revise this point of view rather substantially over the last couple of years. You see, despite all of my best efforts, it turns out that I'm really a quite frighteningly vindictive sort of person. Not to the extent of overkill (for example, a group of ratboys set their Staffordshire Bull Terrier onto one of my cats a few weeks ago. Had I reacted the way I wanted to, I would almost certainly be on remand for charges of false imprisonment, ABH, and GBH etc), but rather I find that I simply MUST have my pound of flesh so that I can accept that the matter is settled and so that I can move on. An eye for an eye is still too harsh an ideal for me, but I don't have any problems with a tooth for a tooth.
Now I don't pretend that my attitude in this respect is the correct one. But I don't think it makes me particularly unique, or even a hugely bad person. I think it just makes me a typical example of how humanity deals with being dumped on. On a small (i.e. personal) scale, this isn't particularly harmful or destructive. Okay, so maybe it can be for the person on the receiving end of somebody's ire, but that is part of the process of living your life. It's when others get pulled into the vortex of anger and revenge that things start to get ugly. Again, as a personal example, I once found myself dragging two complete innocents into a dispute I was having with somebody. It had nothing to do with them whatsoever, and the net result was that everybody ended up being pissed off at everybody else. I suppose that, if nothing else, this taught me the valuable lesson of not allowing ones anger to overwhelm ones reason (or, if I were to admit to being as big a Star Wars fan as I actually am, I learned not to give in to the Dark Side...). Sackcloth and ashes were duly donned, and I think that I and the people whom I still care about have come out of the sorry little mess wiser and, for the most part, unscathed.
Okay, so I think that pretty much establishes that to err is indeed human. I know that all of my friends have made mistakes in their lives, and when I look at the news I can see mistakes being made on a daily basis and with global implications; Palestinian suicide bombers, Israeli occupation, American belligerence, European self-righteousness, African chaos...all of these things can be seen and read about on a daily basis (though it can get pretty bloody depressing should you choose to do so). But to stick with the idea of mistakes on a much larger scale, are we right to just expect all the involved parties to behave in a way that is entirely human (i.e. involves the total and unconditional hatred of a group of people whom one has never met and whom one may get along famously with if they met at a party, purely on the basis of something arbitrary like their religion or the colour of their skin)?
For example, the situation in Israel at the moment is the result of a numerous mistakes being made by both Palestinians and Israeli's since the late 1940's. The Palestinians were mistaken in their (and their Arab neighbours) efforts to wipe Israel from the map. Israel was mistaken in their attempt to colonise occupied Palestinian territory. The Palestinians are just plain wrong in their continued guerilla war against Israel that sees more and more innocent Israeli's being blown apart for the crime of going about their daily business. The Israeli's are equally as wrong in their seeming determination to level every Palestinian occupied building in range of their tank shells. We're told that both sides quite simply hate each other with venom not seen since Trotsky called Stalin a big, fat, moustachioed poofter. But was it really as simple as that? Did two whole nations wake up one day and decide that they HAD to commit some barbarous act or other to get revenge for some sort of wrong committed against them?
No, I don't really think that they did. I think a very small group of people is responsible for this particular conflagration. Unfortunately, those people form the leadership of both sides. Yasser Arafat has grievances against the Israeli people that he seemingly cannot forgive. Likewise for Ariel Sharon and his feelings toward the Palestinians. However, because of the vindictiveness of these two people and their attendant cronies, millions of people get the unrivalled opportunity to live in fear, hate, and discord. If the two of them were locked into a room and only one of them were allowed to walk out, I'm inclined to think that it would be a much better way of helping them settle their differences. Instead, a whole nation is used to get revenge by proxy.
I'll restate my point again; two individuals feeling the need to gain petty revenge on each other is A-okay as far as I'm concerned. Two individuals dragging others into their dispute is a bad thing. And if they drag whole nations and cost them their lives...well, it becomes divine in that a truly biblical level of carnage ensues, but that's about it. I think what I'm trying to say is that there is nothing monstrous, or evil, or inhuman about many of the world leaders who sentence a random number of their populace to death for the international equivalent of what their Kev said about our Sharon. They're behaving in just the kind of blinkered, selfish, and petty way that is exactly what we should expect from a human being.
Not that I'm saying that we should simply say "Well that's okay then. We may as well let them carry on until no one has any eyes or teeth left". Going back to revenge on a personal level, I believe that it can be a positive thing (allowing one to let go of whatever dislike has been consuming us, and so allowing one to get on with ones life). But it can very easily become negative and destructive, to the point where revenge is all that matters above and beyond everything else. We usually have the benefit of a friend telling us to calm the hell down, and perhaps to rethink, for example, sending ones enemy a forged letter from a hospital informing them that one of their recent sexual partners has been diagnosed as HIV +. No one close to him is going to tell Dubya that declaring war on Iraq because Saddam pissed daddy off is a bad idea. Maybe I am being unreasonable to expect a little more of the divine in our leaders, but when they are making decisions that will affect my life based predominantly on their personal grudges, I doubt I'll be alone in making that wish.
Tuesday, 17 September 2002
Nice idea, shame about reality
This was written more in hope than expectation, though my annoyance with leftist Anti-Americanism remains as strong as it was then.
If I were a true, died in the wool, moaning leftie (as the Sun is calling anybody who raises a single question about the wisdom of war against Iraq), I would doubtless be a very disappointed man this week. After all, I've spent a few weeks now getting myself riled and annoyed (not to mention deeply, breathtakingly paranoid) at Dubya and his All Star Clown Show (otherwise known as the US Government). I've scribbled down dire warnings of the dangers of American unilateralism and perceived anti-Islamic policies, to much the same effect as the bloke at Newcastle Monument who keeps telling strangers that Jesus loves them. And then, just as all was starting to seem as hopeless as Ronald Reagan at a pub quiz, something rather nice happened.
Dubya made a speech to the UN on Friday. For once, the most interesting thing about it wasn't his tortured syntax and mangled vocabulary (from what I could gather, he seems to think that "Elsewhere" is actually a country...). Having read the speech, it would appear that the US Government have finally realised that perhaps pissing off every other nation on the face of the planet is a bad idea. In essence, Dubya said that the US would consult the UN over Iraq, but the UN had to stop shirking it's responsibilities or else face being marginalised in the same way as the League of Nations was just before WWII. In an admittedly token gesture, he also signed the US back up to UNESCO (a UN project by which signatory nations share educational, cultural, and scientific information). Thus, the US addressed the accusation that it would act unilaterally and ride roughshod over the objections of others. The first main objection to war with Iraq had an answer.
Then he went a stage further. He stated that America was committed to a self governed, independent state for the Palestinians. Suddenly, the second main objection to war, that the US are being discriminatory against Moslems in this, thus far, farcical and inconclusive war against terror, was addressed too. Of course, saying that one is in agreement with an idea is entirely different to actually taking steps to put that idea into practice. Nevertheless, this showed that Dubya (or at least, his speechwriters and his government. Let's be honest here; Dubya is a man who takes stupidity to epic levels. For ease of reference, when I mention the monkey, I'm in fact talking about the organ grinders) has at least paid attention to why there is such opposition to his war. Moreover, it showed that there was the political savvy to try and do something about it rather than fixing objectors with a blank stare and accuse them of being on a par with Saddam himself in terms of evil.
This unexpected but welcome outburst of common sense got me to thinking; why, if one takes the leap of faith that Dubya actually means what he says, should there be any more objections to war with Iraq? After all, the UN does indeed have obligations to the international community to enforce the resolutions imposed on Iraq after the Gulf War (of course, it also has obligations to enforce the 2 resolutions ordering Israel to leave the Palestinians alone, but lets push that gently to one side for now). Why on earth shouldn't America demand that UN do what it was set up to do and bring a rogue state in line? If nothing else, it clears the way for any nation who is genuinely interested in justice to make the same demands concerning Israel.
And that of course is the key phrase; "genuinely interested in justice". I don't think that a single member state of the UN meets this criterion. All they are interested in is naked self-interest. For all that Dubya assuaged my two big fears about a war with Iraq on Friday, I'm not so naive as to think that he wants the war for any other reason than greater access to oil reserves. And yet we seem to insist that America acts according to a higher moral standard than we are willing to impose on other nations. In fairness, America brings a lot of that on itself with its absurd "Land of the Free" rhetoric, yet we are far more willing to point out America's self interest when they actually act on the world stage.
For example, when the UK sent troops to Sierra Leone, we were generally praised in the international community for helping to defend a legitimate government from wild and savage rebel soldiers. Do you suppose that the diamond mines that we were fighting to defend were an insignificant detail? Of course not; they were the entire reason that we were there. However, the Sierra Leone government did not fall. The rebels were beaten back. The reasons for our intervention were less than pure (unless you count pure greed) but the results were definitely desirable. And as we observed the niceties of international law (or at least, made reference to them), there were no objections in the UN.
Could the same not be said here of America? Again, I must stress that if the UN speech was a blip and the US does indeed plough on with it's unilateral action then all bets are off. But just look at the difference that those words have made; America is trying to keep up the appearance of consulting with the international community. Dubya has backed the UN into a corner by pointing out that the US would be enforcing existing UN resolutions, and that all nations have a duty to support UN approved actions. Though the war would be about oil, the result would be the end of one of the most despotic regimes on earth.
It seems that the US is doomed in its efforts to assuage the left wing in this matter. No matter what they do, there will always be the calls and reminders that the US, like every other nation on the planet, has and continues to behave in it's own interests first. Naturally, I wish that this were different, but does anyone really think that never-ending vilification is going to do the trick? The right wing was belligerent until Friday, happy to stick two fingers up to the rest of the world due to their conviction that they were pursuing the correct course of action by divine right. Though their bluster and bullshit will no doubt continue, and though they will almost certainly deride the UN as no more than a talking shop, it will rankle them no end that the path to war has been smoothed by diplomacy and not by threats of force.
With time, and with all nations being forced into the position of having to consult with the UN should they wish to preserve their pretence of legitimacy and selflessness, we may hopefully find that the world will actually consist of countries with legitimate and genuinely selfless governments. It is, after all, a round world and we're all the same race of people when all is said and done. Until then, the demand of the left for all nations (especially America) to act like paragons of virtue without any coercion or anything in it for them is unrealistic. We demanded the US consult the UN. They have done so. The left cannot simply go on criticising because it doesn't like what the UN does in response. That is no better than the whining of the right who get upset at the UN for not letting them use their nice new bombs. The way is now clear for genuine debate about what should be done with Iraq, and I'd hate to see it derailed by the left because they don't want Dubya to get what he wants. The US may have questionable motives, but after the Friday's speech, there are many who say that the benefits of a war now outweigh the problems it would cause. It's time for the left to address that point and stop miring itself in a list of complaints that can be easily twisted to be made to look like nothing more than rabid anti Americanism. Here's hoping that they rise to the challenge.
If I were a true, died in the wool, moaning leftie (as the Sun is calling anybody who raises a single question about the wisdom of war against Iraq), I would doubtless be a very disappointed man this week. After all, I've spent a few weeks now getting myself riled and annoyed (not to mention deeply, breathtakingly paranoid) at Dubya and his All Star Clown Show (otherwise known as the US Government). I've scribbled down dire warnings of the dangers of American unilateralism and perceived anti-Islamic policies, to much the same effect as the bloke at Newcastle Monument who keeps telling strangers that Jesus loves them. And then, just as all was starting to seem as hopeless as Ronald Reagan at a pub quiz, something rather nice happened.
Dubya made a speech to the UN on Friday. For once, the most interesting thing about it wasn't his tortured syntax and mangled vocabulary (from what I could gather, he seems to think that "Elsewhere" is actually a country...). Having read the speech, it would appear that the US Government have finally realised that perhaps pissing off every other nation on the face of the planet is a bad idea. In essence, Dubya said that the US would consult the UN over Iraq, but the UN had to stop shirking it's responsibilities or else face being marginalised in the same way as the League of Nations was just before WWII. In an admittedly token gesture, he also signed the US back up to UNESCO (a UN project by which signatory nations share educational, cultural, and scientific information). Thus, the US addressed the accusation that it would act unilaterally and ride roughshod over the objections of others. The first main objection to war with Iraq had an answer.
Then he went a stage further. He stated that America was committed to a self governed, independent state for the Palestinians. Suddenly, the second main objection to war, that the US are being discriminatory against Moslems in this, thus far, farcical and inconclusive war against terror, was addressed too. Of course, saying that one is in agreement with an idea is entirely different to actually taking steps to put that idea into practice. Nevertheless, this showed that Dubya (or at least, his speechwriters and his government. Let's be honest here; Dubya is a man who takes stupidity to epic levels. For ease of reference, when I mention the monkey, I'm in fact talking about the organ grinders) has at least paid attention to why there is such opposition to his war. Moreover, it showed that there was the political savvy to try and do something about it rather than fixing objectors with a blank stare and accuse them of being on a par with Saddam himself in terms of evil.
This unexpected but welcome outburst of common sense got me to thinking; why, if one takes the leap of faith that Dubya actually means what he says, should there be any more objections to war with Iraq? After all, the UN does indeed have obligations to the international community to enforce the resolutions imposed on Iraq after the Gulf War (of course, it also has obligations to enforce the 2 resolutions ordering Israel to leave the Palestinians alone, but lets push that gently to one side for now). Why on earth shouldn't America demand that UN do what it was set up to do and bring a rogue state in line? If nothing else, it clears the way for any nation who is genuinely interested in justice to make the same demands concerning Israel.
And that of course is the key phrase; "genuinely interested in justice". I don't think that a single member state of the UN meets this criterion. All they are interested in is naked self-interest. For all that Dubya assuaged my two big fears about a war with Iraq on Friday, I'm not so naive as to think that he wants the war for any other reason than greater access to oil reserves. And yet we seem to insist that America acts according to a higher moral standard than we are willing to impose on other nations. In fairness, America brings a lot of that on itself with its absurd "Land of the Free" rhetoric, yet we are far more willing to point out America's self interest when they actually act on the world stage.
For example, when the UK sent troops to Sierra Leone, we were generally praised in the international community for helping to defend a legitimate government from wild and savage rebel soldiers. Do you suppose that the diamond mines that we were fighting to defend were an insignificant detail? Of course not; they were the entire reason that we were there. However, the Sierra Leone government did not fall. The rebels were beaten back. The reasons for our intervention were less than pure (unless you count pure greed) but the results were definitely desirable. And as we observed the niceties of international law (or at least, made reference to them), there were no objections in the UN.
Could the same not be said here of America? Again, I must stress that if the UN speech was a blip and the US does indeed plough on with it's unilateral action then all bets are off. But just look at the difference that those words have made; America is trying to keep up the appearance of consulting with the international community. Dubya has backed the UN into a corner by pointing out that the US would be enforcing existing UN resolutions, and that all nations have a duty to support UN approved actions. Though the war would be about oil, the result would be the end of one of the most despotic regimes on earth.
It seems that the US is doomed in its efforts to assuage the left wing in this matter. No matter what they do, there will always be the calls and reminders that the US, like every other nation on the planet, has and continues to behave in it's own interests first. Naturally, I wish that this were different, but does anyone really think that never-ending vilification is going to do the trick? The right wing was belligerent until Friday, happy to stick two fingers up to the rest of the world due to their conviction that they were pursuing the correct course of action by divine right. Though their bluster and bullshit will no doubt continue, and though they will almost certainly deride the UN as no more than a talking shop, it will rankle them no end that the path to war has been smoothed by diplomacy and not by threats of force.
With time, and with all nations being forced into the position of having to consult with the UN should they wish to preserve their pretence of legitimacy and selflessness, we may hopefully find that the world will actually consist of countries with legitimate and genuinely selfless governments. It is, after all, a round world and we're all the same race of people when all is said and done. Until then, the demand of the left for all nations (especially America) to act like paragons of virtue without any coercion or anything in it for them is unrealistic. We demanded the US consult the UN. They have done so. The left cannot simply go on criticising because it doesn't like what the UN does in response. That is no better than the whining of the right who get upset at the UN for not letting them use their nice new bombs. The way is now clear for genuine debate about what should be done with Iraq, and I'd hate to see it derailed by the left because they don't want Dubya to get what he wants. The US may have questionable motives, but after the Friday's speech, there are many who say that the benefits of a war now outweigh the problems it would cause. It's time for the left to address that point and stop miring itself in a list of complaints that can be easily twisted to be made to look like nothing more than rabid anti Americanism. Here's hoping that they rise to the challenge.
Nice idea, shame about reality
This was written more in hope than expectation, though my annoyance with leftist Anti-Americanism remains as strong as it was then.
If I were a true, died in the wool, moaning leftie (as the Sun is calling anybody who raises a single question about the wisdom of war against Iraq), I would doubtless be a very disappointed man this week. After all, I've spent a few weeks now getting myself riled and annoyed (not to mention deeply, breathtakingly paranoid) at Dubya and his All Star Clown Show (otherwise known as the US Government). I've scribbled down dire warnings of the dangers of American unilateralism and perceived anti-Islamic policies, to much the same effect as the bloke at Newcastle Monument who keeps telling strangers that Jesus loves them. And then, just as all was starting to seem as hopeless as Ronald Reagan at a pub quiz, something rather nice happened.
Dubya made a speech to the UN on Friday. For once, the most interesting thing about it wasn't his tortured syntax and mangled vocabulary (from what I could gather, he seems to think that "Elsewhere" is actually a country...). Having read the speech, it would appear that the US Government have finally realised that perhaps pissing off every other nation on the face of the planet is a bad idea. In essence, Dubya said that the US would consult the UN over Iraq, but the UN had to stop shirking it's responsibilities or else face being marginalised in the same way as the League of Nations was just before WWII. In an admittedly token gesture, he also signed the US back up to UNESCO (a UN project by which signatory nations share educational, cultural, and scientific information). Thus, the US addressed the accusation that it would act unilaterally and ride roughshod over the objections of others. The first main objection to war with Iraq had an answer.
Then he went a stage further. He stated that America was committed to a self governed, independent state for the Palestinians. Suddenly, the second main objection to war, that the US are being discriminatory against Moslems in this, thus far, farcical and inconclusive war against terror, was addressed too. Of course, saying that one is in agreement with an idea is entirely different to actually taking steps to put that idea into practice. Nevertheless, this showed that Dubya (or at least, his speechwriters and his government. Let's be honest here; Dubya is a man who takes stupidity to epic levels. For ease of reference, when I mention the monkey, I'm in fact talking about the organ grinders) has at least paid attention to why there is such opposition to his war. Moreover, it showed that there was the political savvy to try and do something about it rather than fixing objectors with a blank stare and accuse them of being on a par with Saddam himself in terms of evil.
This unexpected but welcome outburst of common sense got me to thinking; why, if one takes the leap of faith that Dubya actually means what he says, should there be any more objections to war with Iraq? After all, the UN does indeed have obligations to the international community to enforce the resolutions imposed on Iraq after the Gulf War (of course, it also has obligations to enforce the 2 resolutions ordering Israel to leave the Palestinians alone, but lets push that gently to one side for now). Why on earth shouldn't America demand that UN do what it was set up to do and bring a rogue state in line? If nothing else, it clears the way for any nation who is genuinely interested in justice to make the same demands concerning Israel.
And that of course is the key phrase; "genuinely interested in justice". I don't think that a single member state of the UN meets this criterion. All they are interested in is naked self-interest. For all that Dubya assuaged my two big fears about a war with Iraq on Friday, I'm not so naive as to think that he wants the war for any other reason than greater access to oil reserves. And yet we seem to insist that America acts according to a higher moral standard than we are willing to impose on other nations. In fairness, America brings a lot of that on itself with its absurd "Land of the Free" rhetoric, yet we are far more willing to point out America's self interest when they actually act on the world stage.
For example, when the UK sent troops to Sierra Leone, we were generally praised in the international community for helping to defend a legitimate government from wild and savage rebel soldiers. Do you suppose that the diamond mines that we were fighting to defend were an insignificant detail? Of course not; they were the entire reason that we were there. However, the Sierra Leone government did not fall. The rebels were beaten back. The reasons for our intervention were less than pure (unless you count pure greed) but the results were definitely desirable. And as we observed the niceties of international law (or at least, made reference to them), there were no objections in the UN.
Could the same not be said here of America? Again, I must stress that if the UN speech was a blip and the US does indeed plough on with it's unilateral action then all bets are off. But just look at the difference that those words have made; America is trying to keep up the appearance of consulting with the international community. Dubya has backed the UN into a corner by pointing out that the US would be enforcing existing UN resolutions, and that all nations have a duty to support UN approved actions. Though the war would be about oil, the result would be the end of one of the most despotic regimes on earth.
It seems that the US is doomed in its efforts to assuage the left wing in this matter. No matter what they do, there will always be the calls and reminders that the US, like every other nation on the planet, has and continues to behave in it's own interests first. Naturally, I wish that this were different, but does anyone really think that never-ending vilification is going to do the trick? The right wing was belligerent until Friday, happy to stick two fingers up to the rest of the world due to their conviction that they were pursuing the correct course of action by divine right. Though their bluster and bullshit will no doubt continue, and though they will almost certainly deride the UN as no more than a talking shop, it will rankle them no end that the path to war has been smoothed by diplomacy and not by threats of force.
With time, and with all nations being forced into the position of having to consult with the UN should they wish to preserve their pretence of legitimacy and selflessness, we may hopefully find that the world will actually consist of countries with legitimate and genuinely selfless governments. It is, after all, a round world and we're all the same race of people when all is said and done. Until then, the demand of the left for all nations (especially America) to act like paragons of virtue without any coercion or anything in it for them is unrealistic. We demanded the US consult the UN. They have done so. The left cannot simply go on criticising because it doesn't like what the UN does in response. That is no better than the whining of the right who get upset at the UN for not letting them use their nice new bombs. The way is now clear for genuine debate about what should be done with Iraq, and I'd hate to see it derailed by the left because they don't want Dubya to get what he wants. The US may have questionable motives, but after the Friday's speech, there are many who say that the benefits of a war now outweigh the problems it would cause. It's time for the left to address that point and stop miring itself in a list of complaints that can be easily twisted to be made to look like nothing more than rabid anti Americanism. Here's hoping that they rise to the challenge.
If I were a true, died in the wool, moaning leftie (as the Sun is calling anybody who raises a single question about the wisdom of war against Iraq), I would doubtless be a very disappointed man this week. After all, I've spent a few weeks now getting myself riled and annoyed (not to mention deeply, breathtakingly paranoid) at Dubya and his All Star Clown Show (otherwise known as the US Government). I've scribbled down dire warnings of the dangers of American unilateralism and perceived anti-Islamic policies, to much the same effect as the bloke at Newcastle Monument who keeps telling strangers that Jesus loves them. And then, just as all was starting to seem as hopeless as Ronald Reagan at a pub quiz, something rather nice happened.
Dubya made a speech to the UN on Friday. For once, the most interesting thing about it wasn't his tortured syntax and mangled vocabulary (from what I could gather, he seems to think that "Elsewhere" is actually a country...). Having read the speech, it would appear that the US Government have finally realised that perhaps pissing off every other nation on the face of the planet is a bad idea. In essence, Dubya said that the US would consult the UN over Iraq, but the UN had to stop shirking it's responsibilities or else face being marginalised in the same way as the League of Nations was just before WWII. In an admittedly token gesture, he also signed the US back up to UNESCO (a UN project by which signatory nations share educational, cultural, and scientific information). Thus, the US addressed the accusation that it would act unilaterally and ride roughshod over the objections of others. The first main objection to war with Iraq had an answer.
Then he went a stage further. He stated that America was committed to a self governed, independent state for the Palestinians. Suddenly, the second main objection to war, that the US are being discriminatory against Moslems in this, thus far, farcical and inconclusive war against terror, was addressed too. Of course, saying that one is in agreement with an idea is entirely different to actually taking steps to put that idea into practice. Nevertheless, this showed that Dubya (or at least, his speechwriters and his government. Let's be honest here; Dubya is a man who takes stupidity to epic levels. For ease of reference, when I mention the monkey, I'm in fact talking about the organ grinders) has at least paid attention to why there is such opposition to his war. Moreover, it showed that there was the political savvy to try and do something about it rather than fixing objectors with a blank stare and accuse them of being on a par with Saddam himself in terms of evil.
This unexpected but welcome outburst of common sense got me to thinking; why, if one takes the leap of faith that Dubya actually means what he says, should there be any more objections to war with Iraq? After all, the UN does indeed have obligations to the international community to enforce the resolutions imposed on Iraq after the Gulf War (of course, it also has obligations to enforce the 2 resolutions ordering Israel to leave the Palestinians alone, but lets push that gently to one side for now). Why on earth shouldn't America demand that UN do what it was set up to do and bring a rogue state in line? If nothing else, it clears the way for any nation who is genuinely interested in justice to make the same demands concerning Israel.
And that of course is the key phrase; "genuinely interested in justice". I don't think that a single member state of the UN meets this criterion. All they are interested in is naked self-interest. For all that Dubya assuaged my two big fears about a war with Iraq on Friday, I'm not so naive as to think that he wants the war for any other reason than greater access to oil reserves. And yet we seem to insist that America acts according to a higher moral standard than we are willing to impose on other nations. In fairness, America brings a lot of that on itself with its absurd "Land of the Free" rhetoric, yet we are far more willing to point out America's self interest when they actually act on the world stage.
For example, when the UK sent troops to Sierra Leone, we were generally praised in the international community for helping to defend a legitimate government from wild and savage rebel soldiers. Do you suppose that the diamond mines that we were fighting to defend were an insignificant detail? Of course not; they were the entire reason that we were there. However, the Sierra Leone government did not fall. The rebels were beaten back. The reasons for our intervention were less than pure (unless you count pure greed) but the results were definitely desirable. And as we observed the niceties of international law (or at least, made reference to them), there were no objections in the UN.
Could the same not be said here of America? Again, I must stress that if the UN speech was a blip and the US does indeed plough on with it's unilateral action then all bets are off. But just look at the difference that those words have made; America is trying to keep up the appearance of consulting with the international community. Dubya has backed the UN into a corner by pointing out that the US would be enforcing existing UN resolutions, and that all nations have a duty to support UN approved actions. Though the war would be about oil, the result would be the end of one of the most despotic regimes on earth.
It seems that the US is doomed in its efforts to assuage the left wing in this matter. No matter what they do, there will always be the calls and reminders that the US, like every other nation on the planet, has and continues to behave in it's own interests first. Naturally, I wish that this were different, but does anyone really think that never-ending vilification is going to do the trick? The right wing was belligerent until Friday, happy to stick two fingers up to the rest of the world due to their conviction that they were pursuing the correct course of action by divine right. Though their bluster and bullshit will no doubt continue, and though they will almost certainly deride the UN as no more than a talking shop, it will rankle them no end that the path to war has been smoothed by diplomacy and not by threats of force.
With time, and with all nations being forced into the position of having to consult with the UN should they wish to preserve their pretence of legitimacy and selflessness, we may hopefully find that the world will actually consist of countries with legitimate and genuinely selfless governments. It is, after all, a round world and we're all the same race of people when all is said and done. Until then, the demand of the left for all nations (especially America) to act like paragons of virtue without any coercion or anything in it for them is unrealistic. We demanded the US consult the UN. They have done so. The left cannot simply go on criticising because it doesn't like what the UN does in response. That is no better than the whining of the right who get upset at the UN for not letting them use their nice new bombs. The way is now clear for genuine debate about what should be done with Iraq, and I'd hate to see it derailed by the left because they don't want Dubya to get what he wants. The US may have questionable motives, but after the Friday's speech, there are many who say that the benefits of a war now outweigh the problems it would cause. It's time for the left to address that point and stop miring itself in a list of complaints that can be easily twisted to be made to look like nothing more than rabid anti Americanism. Here's hoping that they rise to the challenge.
Tuesday, 10 September 2002
9/11: One Year On
I find it interesting to re-read this and note just how quickly Dubya squandered the goodwill and sympathy generated by 9/11.
As milestones go, forgetting about tomorrow would probably rank about equal to forgetting about one's partners birthday the day after neglecting to buy them a present for the wedding anniversary in the eyes of many Americans. And in truth, it would be churlish to expect America to feel anything other than a sense of grief and loss 1 year on from the worst atrocity that they have ever suffered in peacetime. So before I even get started, I have to make it clear that I have nothing but sympathy for the families who were affected by September 11th. Nor do I wish to cheapen the impact of that dreadful day on the rest of the nation. What I do want to do, however, is address the mindset that now seems to be emerging in America; that is, that because they have suffered because of a terrorist atrocity, they have divine right to do whatever they please in order to get their pound of flesh. I'd also like to briefly examine the cynical manipulation by the American government of the grief and anger justly felt by many Americans in order to make confused and blundering motions of aggression toward whomever they choose, whilst attempting to silence any criticism or doubts over their (quite remarkably ill-thought out) policy by claiming that dissent is equal to treachery.
It is of course difficult to make any sort of substantial comment about America and American policy as a result of 9/11. After all, their government doesn't seem to be entirely sure what they are doing these days (do we invade Iraq? Do we go through the UN? Have we finished in Afghanistan? Answers on a post card to the White House, because frankly, I don't think Dubya has the first clue...), so trying to decipher the intent behind their clumsy words and murky thoughts is a labour that would rival anything Hercules did. However, certain things can be gleaned from the avalanche of misinformation, contradiction, and blind stupidity that has become the hallmark of the US government of late. Obviously, they want war against Iraq. The removal of an evil dictator who had some part in 9/11, plus freeing of an oppressed people is the reason that is being played to the gallery. Naturally, nobody but the blindest patriot believes this. The real reasons are a matter of speculation; oil, distraction from the economic corruption that has mired the government down, revenge on behalf of Daddy...any, all, or none of these could be true. The government has been doing it's best to convince the public of this by blandly repeating the mantra that Saddam is a real and immediate threat, whilst at the same time providing no evidence for this.
I find it extremely annoying that the US government has made such a botched job of this whole affair; nobody would grieve Saddam's passing as dictator of Iraq. Yet by refusing to provide evidence for the danger he poses (and surely there must be some; we're talking about a man who used to routinely order the mass murder of Kurds and Marsh Arabs living in Iraq), and by suppressing any political opposition to an invasion by painting support for an invasion as the only way to be patriotic, Dubya's government are showing themselves to be as politically astute and as media savvy as Prince Phillip on a visit to China. I think it's rather telling that on the same day that the CIA have announced that there is little evidence linking Saddam to international terrorism, a news item has surfaced purporting to be an interview with a former lover of the Iraqi dictator. Apparently he likes watching torture videos and dancing to Sinatra in his spare time. Shit, why don't they go the whole hog and announce that scientific evidence has been found that gives a clear indication that Saddam Hussein is the closest living relative of the Boogeyman. It would appear that America is trying to win the war of hearts and minds via the National Enquirer...
So, now that I've qualified what I want to say to the point of rendering it almost irrelevant, I may as well proceed. What has been happening in America in the last year? Has the US public good reason to be proud of the actions of their government over the last year? Well, we should have been forewarned by the fact that no-one seemed to give much of a damn about the fact that the result of the election was...well, it was bollocks. Indeed, I'm sure that in years to come, historians on the education board will set aside a lesson specifically to allow future generations of schoolchildren to have a bloody good laugh at the gullibility of the American public and the sheer audacity of the Republican party (they may be corrupt and ignorant, but if nothing else they must have balls the size of watermelons to say that there was nothing remotely questionable about the result). And, true to form, America really doesn't seem to care that it's government has managed to alienate the entire world (no mean feat when one considers the outpouring of sympathy a year ago). Why doesn't it care?
The cynic in me suspects that the reason they don't care about the opinion of the rest of the world because America is a nation in the grip of self obsession. Prior to 9/11, nobody in America particularly cared about the fact that their government was a huge sponsor of terrorism. At best, they were indifferent to the suffering and misery in South America, Afghanistan, and Africa as a direct result of American funding of terror. At worst, they contributed toward it themselves (as any IRA quartermaster would no doubt confirm, the good old US public made huge contributions to their cause). Only now that America has begun to reap what it has sown has the American public in general made the belated discovery that terrorism is bad.
Now that terrorism has become a domestic problem for America, Americans have to think about it. This was something that they never had to trouble themselves with when it was happening overseas (incidentally, I'm not suggesting that the American public is unique in this rather selfish approach to the world; as an Englishman I'd be hypocritical to do so...). However, the prevailing attitude regarding how to prevent another 9/11 shows an imperiousness that has not been seen since Victorian times. Their seems to be an assumption that America can do what it damn well pleases, just so long as whatever is done stops the terrorists from attacking America again. The fact that America is militarily stronger than any other nation reinforces the belief that they can do what they like without fear of retribution. Their government have obliged by telling the rest of the world what they want, then stamping their feet and wailing "If you're not with us, you're against us" if they meet with anything less than total compliance (and if we bear in mind that the UK is the only country to have offered unconditional support, that adds up to a lot of rattles being thrown out of Dubya's pram).
There is a name for this; it's called "Gunboat Diplomacy", and it's something that the American public seems to approve of greatly. Well, not wishing to piss on their chips, but the last empire to try gunboat diplomacy was the same one that invented it; the British Empire. As I recall from the history of our little empire, we too had something of a belief in our divine right to tell the rest of the world what to do. We too took advantage of having a better military than anybody else. And yet here we are, dancing to whatever tune that Dubya spits out. We're no longer the biggest kid on the block. And do you know why? Because, after all the resentment that built up towards the imperious attitude of the English, the rest of the world made damned sure that it brought Britain down a peg or two at the first available opportunity. In our case, that opportunity was the Second World War. After the defeat of the axis powers, the UN was formed with the idea that no one nation should be able to bully the rest of the world into complying with whatever fun packed scheme they had come up with during that particular week. Britain had to hand its empire back to the people who actually lived there.
The American public seems to believe, rather sweetly, that this could never ever happen to them. I've tried asking a couple of them to justify this belief and have been met with answers ranging from "We could conquer the world so no one will ever mess with us" (evidently this gentleman belongs to the school of thought that believes Vietnam and Somalia aren't worth conquering...), to "It won't happen" (I tried pressing the giver of that last answer for a reason why it will never happen; unless you count repeating "It won't happen" over and over in the hope that I'd go away as a reason, none was forthcoming). Of course, the last time it took a world war to make something like this happen. Will it take the same thing happening again?
Let's put it this way; during the cold war, the leadership of America had an upsettingly high proportion of fundamentalist Christians in its numbers. These are the people who believe that the Revelations portion of the bible was not in fact the work of a gibbering fool who had spent too long in the desert eating mushrooms, but was in fact the exact representation of God's will. Happily, the Russian leadership were altogether more pragmatic, eschewing a dogmatic belief in the end of the world in favour of a belief in the need for keeping their own people on a tight leash. So all we had was 45 years of arse clenching fear, and no war. This time round, the Russians have been replaced with Moslem fundamentalists; people who are to the Islamic ideals of love and justice what Dubya is to the ideals of intellect and statesmanship. They too have a hankering for an apocalyptic "end of the world" scenario. So it seems that both teams want one big, messy conflict between good and evil. And each has found in the other someone perfectly willing to oblige that desire. Frankly, my only hope is that Dubya can be stalled until the next election, because surely the US public wouldn't be stupid enough to allow him to steal a second election, would they?
Would they?
As milestones go, forgetting about tomorrow would probably rank about equal to forgetting about one's partners birthday the day after neglecting to buy them a present for the wedding anniversary in the eyes of many Americans. And in truth, it would be churlish to expect America to feel anything other than a sense of grief and loss 1 year on from the worst atrocity that they have ever suffered in peacetime. So before I even get started, I have to make it clear that I have nothing but sympathy for the families who were affected by September 11th. Nor do I wish to cheapen the impact of that dreadful day on the rest of the nation. What I do want to do, however, is address the mindset that now seems to be emerging in America; that is, that because they have suffered because of a terrorist atrocity, they have divine right to do whatever they please in order to get their pound of flesh. I'd also like to briefly examine the cynical manipulation by the American government of the grief and anger justly felt by many Americans in order to make confused and blundering motions of aggression toward whomever they choose, whilst attempting to silence any criticism or doubts over their (quite remarkably ill-thought out) policy by claiming that dissent is equal to treachery.
It is of course difficult to make any sort of substantial comment about America and American policy as a result of 9/11. After all, their government doesn't seem to be entirely sure what they are doing these days (do we invade Iraq? Do we go through the UN? Have we finished in Afghanistan? Answers on a post card to the White House, because frankly, I don't think Dubya has the first clue...), so trying to decipher the intent behind their clumsy words and murky thoughts is a labour that would rival anything Hercules did. However, certain things can be gleaned from the avalanche of misinformation, contradiction, and blind stupidity that has become the hallmark of the US government of late. Obviously, they want war against Iraq. The removal of an evil dictator who had some part in 9/11, plus freeing of an oppressed people is the reason that is being played to the gallery. Naturally, nobody but the blindest patriot believes this. The real reasons are a matter of speculation; oil, distraction from the economic corruption that has mired the government down, revenge on behalf of Daddy...any, all, or none of these could be true. The government has been doing it's best to convince the public of this by blandly repeating the mantra that Saddam is a real and immediate threat, whilst at the same time providing no evidence for this.
I find it extremely annoying that the US government has made such a botched job of this whole affair; nobody would grieve Saddam's passing as dictator of Iraq. Yet by refusing to provide evidence for the danger he poses (and surely there must be some; we're talking about a man who used to routinely order the mass murder of Kurds and Marsh Arabs living in Iraq), and by suppressing any political opposition to an invasion by painting support for an invasion as the only way to be patriotic, Dubya's government are showing themselves to be as politically astute and as media savvy as Prince Phillip on a visit to China. I think it's rather telling that on the same day that the CIA have announced that there is little evidence linking Saddam to international terrorism, a news item has surfaced purporting to be an interview with a former lover of the Iraqi dictator. Apparently he likes watching torture videos and dancing to Sinatra in his spare time. Shit, why don't they go the whole hog and announce that scientific evidence has been found that gives a clear indication that Saddam Hussein is the closest living relative of the Boogeyman. It would appear that America is trying to win the war of hearts and minds via the National Enquirer...
So, now that I've qualified what I want to say to the point of rendering it almost irrelevant, I may as well proceed. What has been happening in America in the last year? Has the US public good reason to be proud of the actions of their government over the last year? Well, we should have been forewarned by the fact that no-one seemed to give much of a damn about the fact that the result of the election was...well, it was bollocks. Indeed, I'm sure that in years to come, historians on the education board will set aside a lesson specifically to allow future generations of schoolchildren to have a bloody good laugh at the gullibility of the American public and the sheer audacity of the Republican party (they may be corrupt and ignorant, but if nothing else they must have balls the size of watermelons to say that there was nothing remotely questionable about the result). And, true to form, America really doesn't seem to care that it's government has managed to alienate the entire world (no mean feat when one considers the outpouring of sympathy a year ago). Why doesn't it care?
The cynic in me suspects that the reason they don't care about the opinion of the rest of the world because America is a nation in the grip of self obsession. Prior to 9/11, nobody in America particularly cared about the fact that their government was a huge sponsor of terrorism. At best, they were indifferent to the suffering and misery in South America, Afghanistan, and Africa as a direct result of American funding of terror. At worst, they contributed toward it themselves (as any IRA quartermaster would no doubt confirm, the good old US public made huge contributions to their cause). Only now that America has begun to reap what it has sown has the American public in general made the belated discovery that terrorism is bad.
Now that terrorism has become a domestic problem for America, Americans have to think about it. This was something that they never had to trouble themselves with when it was happening overseas (incidentally, I'm not suggesting that the American public is unique in this rather selfish approach to the world; as an Englishman I'd be hypocritical to do so...). However, the prevailing attitude regarding how to prevent another 9/11 shows an imperiousness that has not been seen since Victorian times. Their seems to be an assumption that America can do what it damn well pleases, just so long as whatever is done stops the terrorists from attacking America again. The fact that America is militarily stronger than any other nation reinforces the belief that they can do what they like without fear of retribution. Their government have obliged by telling the rest of the world what they want, then stamping their feet and wailing "If you're not with us, you're against us" if they meet with anything less than total compliance (and if we bear in mind that the UK is the only country to have offered unconditional support, that adds up to a lot of rattles being thrown out of Dubya's pram).
There is a name for this; it's called "Gunboat Diplomacy", and it's something that the American public seems to approve of greatly. Well, not wishing to piss on their chips, but the last empire to try gunboat diplomacy was the same one that invented it; the British Empire. As I recall from the history of our little empire, we too had something of a belief in our divine right to tell the rest of the world what to do. We too took advantage of having a better military than anybody else. And yet here we are, dancing to whatever tune that Dubya spits out. We're no longer the biggest kid on the block. And do you know why? Because, after all the resentment that built up towards the imperious attitude of the English, the rest of the world made damned sure that it brought Britain down a peg or two at the first available opportunity. In our case, that opportunity was the Second World War. After the defeat of the axis powers, the UN was formed with the idea that no one nation should be able to bully the rest of the world into complying with whatever fun packed scheme they had come up with during that particular week. Britain had to hand its empire back to the people who actually lived there.
The American public seems to believe, rather sweetly, that this could never ever happen to them. I've tried asking a couple of them to justify this belief and have been met with answers ranging from "We could conquer the world so no one will ever mess with us" (evidently this gentleman belongs to the school of thought that believes Vietnam and Somalia aren't worth conquering...), to "It won't happen" (I tried pressing the giver of that last answer for a reason why it will never happen; unless you count repeating "It won't happen" over and over in the hope that I'd go away as a reason, none was forthcoming). Of course, the last time it took a world war to make something like this happen. Will it take the same thing happening again?
Let's put it this way; during the cold war, the leadership of America had an upsettingly high proportion of fundamentalist Christians in its numbers. These are the people who believe that the Revelations portion of the bible was not in fact the work of a gibbering fool who had spent too long in the desert eating mushrooms, but was in fact the exact representation of God's will. Happily, the Russian leadership were altogether more pragmatic, eschewing a dogmatic belief in the end of the world in favour of a belief in the need for keeping their own people on a tight leash. So all we had was 45 years of arse clenching fear, and no war. This time round, the Russians have been replaced with Moslem fundamentalists; people who are to the Islamic ideals of love and justice what Dubya is to the ideals of intellect and statesmanship. They too have a hankering for an apocalyptic "end of the world" scenario. So it seems that both teams want one big, messy conflict between good and evil. And each has found in the other someone perfectly willing to oblige that desire. Frankly, my only hope is that Dubya can be stalled until the next election, because surely the US public wouldn't be stupid enough to allow him to steal a second election, would they?
Would they?
Wednesday, 21 August 2002
Mad or Bad
Maxine Carr and Ian Huntley are the Tabloid candidates to replace Ian Brady and Myra Hindley in the pantheon of evildoers. The fact that Carr was not much more than a battered and abused woman under Huntley's domination hasn't deterred those tabloid rags from trying to spur the whole nation into a self-righteous witch burning.
Summer is drawing to a close now, and just like every other summer that I can remember we find that the headlines are taken up with the death of children. Milly Dowler has found herself shunted from the pages. The dismembered torso of the child found in the Thames is barely mentioned. The baby who was left to drown in it's buggy in Wales has been all but forgotten. There is now a double murder that has horrified people like nothing that has been seen before (or at least, horrified like nothing that was seen before last summer). Just over 2 weeks ago, Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman went missing. Their bodies, still officially unidentified, were found on Saturday last. Somewhat uniquely in this kind of high profile case, the suspects were identified and questioned before the enquiry changed from missing persons to murder. By all rights this should have been a cut and dried, open and shut case whereby the two murderers are reviled, condemned, judged, and sent down. Not that that would have been any comfort to the parents of Holly and Jessica, but it would at least have been something. Now it seems that matters are getting complicated.
The two people who were arrested, Maxine Carr and Ian Huntley, both worked at the same school attended by Holly and Jessica as teaching assistant and caretaker respectively. This alone sent a thrill of revulsion through me. Whilst I appreciate that (unfortunately) murder victims are generally killed by people whom they know, this seemed like a desperately horrifying betrayal of trust. People send their children to school every day on trust that they will be safe, and that the people employed by the school will care for them. It seemed to me that the school had employed the modern day equivalent of Myra Hindley and Ian Brady. It was assumed by many that the two would be charged, and that a sorry (yet, God help us, familiar) tale would be recounted at the inevitable trial.
Then, yesterday, there were a series of announcements that wrong footed everybody. Firstly we were told that Huntley had been charged with the girls' murder, but also that he had been detained under the Mental Health Act of 1983, and that he was being held in Rampton Secure Hospital. Then we were told that Carr had been charged. Not with murder, but with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. What are the implications of these decisions? Like everyone else, I can only speculate based on the limited and confusing facts available. I don't claim to have any special insight into what might be going on, but I would like to try and make sense of it.
Firstly, we have Huntley. As things stand, and assuming his guilt, he is the sole murderer of Holly and Jessica. I'm sure that I wasn't the only one who assumed that the girls had been murdered by a paedophile, but now I am no longer certain. The main thing that puts doubt into my mind is the fact that he is being detained in a secure mental hospital. There is also the fact that the girls' bodies have yet to be formally identified. Is this because he committed acts of such appalling savagery that a post mortem was unable to determine the cause of death? It's an awful thought, but I suspect that the truth is somewhat more mundane (or as mundane as a double murder can be). We've just had 2 weeks of hot and humid weather in England, and if one assumes that the girls were murdered not long after their abduction then their bodies will have been left to decompose during that time. Hence the inability to identify both them and the cause of death.
That is the first part of the fog that is obscuring the events in Soham. Huntley's detention at Rampton is another. Basically, under the MHA, 2 doctors must state in writing that they believe Huntley has a psychotic disorder which makes him a danger to himself and/or others. The doctors at Rampton have anything up to 6 months to assess him and find out what, if anything is wrong with him (apart, of course, from the fact that he has probably murdered two children). What must this man have told the police during questioning that led them to consider the possibility that he is not fit to stand trial?
There seem to be a few of possibilities here; one is that he is genuinely mentally ill. Another is that this is merely a ploy by Huntley to avoid standing trial. Finally, it may be that the police wish to utterly eliminate the possibility of Huntley using the Insanity defence at trial, and so they are having him assessed by the doctors best able to determine whether or not he is psychotic.
I wouldn't like to say which, if any, of these possibilities is the most likely. But I do know a little bit about Rampton, and I know that the people who are held there are (in the words of a consultant who used to work there) "really, truly, properly insane". So if we assume that his insanity is real and not faked, and if one recalls the TV clips showing a calm yet concerned Huntley saying that he feels so helpless as to what to do about the disappearance of the girls, not to mention the uniqueness of the police sectioning him before charging him, a picture does begin to emerge. It tends to suggest a man that has completely disassociated himself from what he did to such a degree that he believes utterly that he did not commit the crime.
I find this relevant because of the current archaic laws concerning insanity in a criminal case. To paraphrase the MacNaughton legal rules, to make use of a defence of insanity, Huntley will have to show that he did not know what he was doing or that he didn't know that it was illegal. I would assume that the doctors at Rampton are now trying to determine whether this is indeed the case.
Then we have Carr. As I write this, it would appear that she isn't a murderess. Rather she is a foolish woman who did a stupid thing to cover for the man whom she loves (or at any rate, believes that she does). At her first appearance at the Magistrates Court this morning, the usual rent-a-mob showed up to leech some of the high tension and emotion from the aftermath of this dreadful situation in order to fill their otherwise empty lives. Maybe if people like them expended more effort putting their own lives in order rather than using somebody else's tragedy to pass their time, then the world in general would be a better place, but I digress.
As you may have guessed, I have some sympathy for Maxine Carr. Only up to a point though, as she would appear to be responsible in part for prolonging the agony of Holly and Jessica's parents. Yet before anyone rushes to condemn her for protecting Huntley, I would say this; I have seen a lot of women stand by their men, despite the fact that their men are responsible for beating them, mentally and emotionally abusing them, destroying their self esteem, and generally reducing them to the level of a timid and unquestioning piece of chattel. If we're saying that it's Carr’s fault for allowing Huntley to do that to her (and again, I'm making the assumption that he did), then one may as well say that rape victims are asking for it, or that battered wives had it coming.
I would also point out that there is a degree of uncertainty about the events leading up to Huntley and Carr being questioned. Their are conflicting reports of what happened; some say that they handed themselves in voluntarily, others that they were taken by police from the home of Huntley's father. There is, at the moment at least, the possibility that Carr went to the police first, and Huntley's detention followed soon afterwards. If that is the case, and if the home circumstances of Carr and Huntley are as I suspect, then she is to be as much praised for her later courage as she is to be reviled for her earlier cowardice.
Of course, as I have said this is all merely speculation. We have the luxury of being able to examine such facts that are available and then draw our own conclusions. Though having written this, I am now beginning to see why it is easier to simply condemn the accused out of hand. To try and look at what happened, to attempt to see beyond the grief felt by those who loved the girls, or beyond the vitriol yelled by those who were strangers to them, raises uncomfortable questions about a society in which tragedy's like this can happen. Is it any wonder that we usually cast about for a scapegoat to explain the murderous behaviour of these people? Maybe it's our way of protecting ourselves from answers that we don't want to hear.
Summer is drawing to a close now, and just like every other summer that I can remember we find that the headlines are taken up with the death of children. Milly Dowler has found herself shunted from the pages. The dismembered torso of the child found in the Thames is barely mentioned. The baby who was left to drown in it's buggy in Wales has been all but forgotten. There is now a double murder that has horrified people like nothing that has been seen before (or at least, horrified like nothing that was seen before last summer). Just over 2 weeks ago, Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman went missing. Their bodies, still officially unidentified, were found on Saturday last. Somewhat uniquely in this kind of high profile case, the suspects were identified and questioned before the enquiry changed from missing persons to murder. By all rights this should have been a cut and dried, open and shut case whereby the two murderers are reviled, condemned, judged, and sent down. Not that that would have been any comfort to the parents of Holly and Jessica, but it would at least have been something. Now it seems that matters are getting complicated.
The two people who were arrested, Maxine Carr and Ian Huntley, both worked at the same school attended by Holly and Jessica as teaching assistant and caretaker respectively. This alone sent a thrill of revulsion through me. Whilst I appreciate that (unfortunately) murder victims are generally killed by people whom they know, this seemed like a desperately horrifying betrayal of trust. People send their children to school every day on trust that they will be safe, and that the people employed by the school will care for them. It seemed to me that the school had employed the modern day equivalent of Myra Hindley and Ian Brady. It was assumed by many that the two would be charged, and that a sorry (yet, God help us, familiar) tale would be recounted at the inevitable trial.
Then, yesterday, there were a series of announcements that wrong footed everybody. Firstly we were told that Huntley had been charged with the girls' murder, but also that he had been detained under the Mental Health Act of 1983, and that he was being held in Rampton Secure Hospital. Then we were told that Carr had been charged. Not with murder, but with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. What are the implications of these decisions? Like everyone else, I can only speculate based on the limited and confusing facts available. I don't claim to have any special insight into what might be going on, but I would like to try and make sense of it.
Firstly, we have Huntley. As things stand, and assuming his guilt, he is the sole murderer of Holly and Jessica. I'm sure that I wasn't the only one who assumed that the girls had been murdered by a paedophile, but now I am no longer certain. The main thing that puts doubt into my mind is the fact that he is being detained in a secure mental hospital. There is also the fact that the girls' bodies have yet to be formally identified. Is this because he committed acts of such appalling savagery that a post mortem was unable to determine the cause of death? It's an awful thought, but I suspect that the truth is somewhat more mundane (or as mundane as a double murder can be). We've just had 2 weeks of hot and humid weather in England, and if one assumes that the girls were murdered not long after their abduction then their bodies will have been left to decompose during that time. Hence the inability to identify both them and the cause of death.
That is the first part of the fog that is obscuring the events in Soham. Huntley's detention at Rampton is another. Basically, under the MHA, 2 doctors must state in writing that they believe Huntley has a psychotic disorder which makes him a danger to himself and/or others. The doctors at Rampton have anything up to 6 months to assess him and find out what, if anything is wrong with him (apart, of course, from the fact that he has probably murdered two children). What must this man have told the police during questioning that led them to consider the possibility that he is not fit to stand trial?
There seem to be a few of possibilities here; one is that he is genuinely mentally ill. Another is that this is merely a ploy by Huntley to avoid standing trial. Finally, it may be that the police wish to utterly eliminate the possibility of Huntley using the Insanity defence at trial, and so they are having him assessed by the doctors best able to determine whether or not he is psychotic.
I wouldn't like to say which, if any, of these possibilities is the most likely. But I do know a little bit about Rampton, and I know that the people who are held there are (in the words of a consultant who used to work there) "really, truly, properly insane". So if we assume that his insanity is real and not faked, and if one recalls the TV clips showing a calm yet concerned Huntley saying that he feels so helpless as to what to do about the disappearance of the girls, not to mention the uniqueness of the police sectioning him before charging him, a picture does begin to emerge. It tends to suggest a man that has completely disassociated himself from what he did to such a degree that he believes utterly that he did not commit the crime.
I find this relevant because of the current archaic laws concerning insanity in a criminal case. To paraphrase the MacNaughton legal rules, to make use of a defence of insanity, Huntley will have to show that he did not know what he was doing or that he didn't know that it was illegal. I would assume that the doctors at Rampton are now trying to determine whether this is indeed the case.
Then we have Carr. As I write this, it would appear that she isn't a murderess. Rather she is a foolish woman who did a stupid thing to cover for the man whom she loves (or at any rate, believes that she does). At her first appearance at the Magistrates Court this morning, the usual rent-a-mob showed up to leech some of the high tension and emotion from the aftermath of this dreadful situation in order to fill their otherwise empty lives. Maybe if people like them expended more effort putting their own lives in order rather than using somebody else's tragedy to pass their time, then the world in general would be a better place, but I digress.
As you may have guessed, I have some sympathy for Maxine Carr. Only up to a point though, as she would appear to be responsible in part for prolonging the agony of Holly and Jessica's parents. Yet before anyone rushes to condemn her for protecting Huntley, I would say this; I have seen a lot of women stand by their men, despite the fact that their men are responsible for beating them, mentally and emotionally abusing them, destroying their self esteem, and generally reducing them to the level of a timid and unquestioning piece of chattel. If we're saying that it's Carr’s fault for allowing Huntley to do that to her (and again, I'm making the assumption that he did), then one may as well say that rape victims are asking for it, or that battered wives had it coming.
I would also point out that there is a degree of uncertainty about the events leading up to Huntley and Carr being questioned. Their are conflicting reports of what happened; some say that they handed themselves in voluntarily, others that they were taken by police from the home of Huntley's father. There is, at the moment at least, the possibility that Carr went to the police first, and Huntley's detention followed soon afterwards. If that is the case, and if the home circumstances of Carr and Huntley are as I suspect, then she is to be as much praised for her later courage as she is to be reviled for her earlier cowardice.
Of course, as I have said this is all merely speculation. We have the luxury of being able to examine such facts that are available and then draw our own conclusions. Though having written this, I am now beginning to see why it is easier to simply condemn the accused out of hand. To try and look at what happened, to attempt to see beyond the grief felt by those who loved the girls, or beyond the vitriol yelled by those who were strangers to them, raises uncomfortable questions about a society in which tragedy's like this can happen. Is it any wonder that we usually cast about for a scapegoat to explain the murderous behaviour of these people? Maybe it's our way of protecting ourselves from answers that we don't want to hear.
Wednesday, 14 August 2002
Fear is the mindkiller
For some reason, I was in a state of utter terror when I wrote this one. I like to think I hid it well....
Normally, when I write these things, I find that whatever it is that was on my mind and thus worrying me tends to recede into my background thoughts and leaves my brain free to consider such weighty matters as why it's really good that women wear skimpy clothing during summer. With my last rant, I hoped that I could ease off the paranoia about Dubya's dad starting a war by proxy. Not forget about it altogether you understand, I just wanting it to stop blazing white-hot streaks of fear across my cerebellum and allow me to get on with being a lecherous git. Of course, life is never that simple and so here I am again to add something more to what I wrote last time. Whether it's to make me feel better or to make you feel as uneasy about the future as I currently am...well, it's a little from column A and a little from column B. Anyway, regardless of that I think I've got reason to be unsettled. Now let me tell you why....
It's not exactly the world's best-kept secret that America wants to and is almost certainly going to attack Iraq. I've already talked about their possible reasons for wanting to do so, so I'll not retread that path. What I do want to talk about are the possible consequences of such a war. And you should really brace yourself, because I have one or two funny ideas about that. For the record, I don't mean funny ha-ha either.
Okay, so the current situation is that Iraq has, as it's leader, a murdering scumbag who treats the ethnic minorities of his country (Kurds and Marsh Arabs) as target practice. They are second-class citizens and they are vulnerable to whatever jolly little scheme enters Saddam's head. America wants to depose Saddam and replace him with a leader more to their liking. Iraq is a Muslim country. As I'm sure you know, Osama bin Laden's aim has been to unite the whole Muslim world against America. Thus far, he has failed in this. When USA attacks Iraq it is my belief that bin Laden will get his wish. And why do I think that? One word; Israel.
Israel has as it's leader a murdering scumbag who treats the ethnic minorities of his country (Palestinians and Israeli Arabs) as target practice. They are second-class citizens and are vulnerable to the whims of the fat nazi who runs the country. He's finally starting to show his true colours by trying to expel from Israel the families of any suicide bombers. This is illegal under the Israeli constitution, mirrors the actions of the Nazi Party in the 30's in it's methods to get rid of unwanted elements from the country, and is about the closest parallel I've ever seen for the saying "Shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted". Israel is not a Muslim country. America supports the government of Israel.
I hope it's becoming very clear what I'm driving at, but humour me by letting me spell it out. If America invades Iraq in a supposed war on injustice and terror whilst Ariel Sharon continues to follow his dreams of an ethnically pure Israel, and does so by continuing to bomb, shoot, and expel non-Jews from Israel, the Muslim world will NOT be happy. "So what?" you might think. And to be honest, I can see your point. The Muslim world seems to have been in an almost terminal state of unhappiness for as long as I can remember. And who can blame them? Their leaders are almost entirely composed of a small group of hyper-rich dictators. In general, the regime's they live under are oppressive, and Islamic in name only. Who's to say that the Muslim world won't do it's usual act of making a lot of unhappy noises before rolling over like good little lap dogs and keeping the oil flowing?
Maybe they will, and I hope that that is the case should America get it's war (because, for all my posturing, I like a peaceful life as much as the next man). But I can see trouble ahead. Most of the people of the Middle East have rather different opinions about the west in general, and America specifically, than their leaders. During the last Gulf War, Iraq fired missiles at Israel. Not one Middle East country supported Iraq. Yet their were people dancing in the streets in Egypt when they heard this news. This time around, not one Middle East country supports America (well...Kuwait and Quatar do. They are both tiny little Gulf States and their influence on the Muslim world is minimal). So if Iraq was to fire missiles at Israel this time, do you suppose that other Middle Eastern countries would be quite so restrained? Especially with fundamentalist Islam being so widespread at the moment?
Even if we assume that the Moslem governments act with restraint, who is to say that those same governments will stay in power? The likes of Egypt and Saudi Arabia have a big problem with right wing fundamentalist Moslems. Thus far, those governments have tried to keep a lid on the fundamentalists by being ever more oppressive and authoritarian. This can only work for so long because all you are doing is containing the pressure. One of the more popular fundamentalist mantras is that America is out to destroy the Moslem faith, and doesn't care about the injustices meted out to Moslems by ungodly governments who use their supposed faith to Allah as a cover for doing America's (or, if you like, the Great Satan's) dirty work. An attack on Iraq coupled with continued support for the butcher Ariel Sharon by America would give the fundamentalists (in their eyes) cast iron proof that this is indeed the case. And if their governments choose to do nothing about it? Then it is the sacred duty of every Moslem to defend his brothers. Lest you think that I'm being melodramatic, the Shah of Iran found out about the power of fundamentalism when he was sent running from the country he had ran as a dictator after the Islamic Revolution there in the 70's.
An awful lot of Islamic countries have authoritarian governments in power, with a populace who are content with their lot thus far, but whom are vulnerable to the sway of rather more radical Muslims. From Indonesia in the East through to Algeria in Africa and almost every country between those two fall into this category. What I am suggesting is that, by invading Iraq and ignoring the brutality in Israel, America is unwittingly providing the spark for a powder keg that covers half of the planet. Can you imagine the effect of a revolution occurring in most of these countries over the course of a few months? Just think of it; once one revolutions kicks off in one country, another would follow, and then another. Do you have that picture in your head? Okay then....can you then imagine how America would react to revolutions that would see unfriendly governments put into place in all of these (co-incidentally, primarily oil producing) countries?
It's not pretty at all, is it? If, as I suspect, the Islamic world explodes in a frenzy of righteous and fundamentalist ire, then America will be the big loser (well...Israel would probably be the bigger loser as it may well cease to exist within a few years of these events). I say this because the oil will stop flowing, and the American economy will nose dive. America will not take this lying down. They will fight to get back access to the oil that their economy needs. Hence we have America being directly opposed by Islam. Almost exactly the situation that bin Laden wanted and that Dubya said he would avoid in fact. The last time that America tried to stop a domino effect of countries replacing their leaders with governments unfriendly to the US was in Vietnam. Most of the rest of the world was sensible enough to let America behave like a bloody idiot during that conflict, and things are shaping up to be the same here. Or they would be, were it not for the fact that the west's economy is America's economy. If their's goes down the tubes, then so does ours. So will we just dumbly accept that? Nope. Would we side with Islam against America? What do you think?
Perhaps I'm being a little sneaky in making that Vietnam comparison; for what it's worth, I don't actually believe that America and the west would lose the potential conflict I've outlined. Then again, maybe I'm just biased. But even assuming a military victory for the west, what I do think we'd do is set the scene for decades of international terrorism where the targets would be any and everything western. It would be a situation not unlike the nightmarish Perpetual Conflict scenario that Hitler dreamed of when invading Russia (he hoped that the Slavs and Russians would continually wage low key terrorist war against Germany. This would keep Germany on it's toes and ready for battle at all times). If you want me to raise the paranoia stakes further still, then I'd draw your attention to the fact that China would probably stay out of any conflict between Islam and the west, thus leaving it all fresh and dandy whilst the two sides whittle each other down to nothingness. And would anyone care to place bets on what might happen then?
In the midst of all this knuckle whitening and excessive worry, about the only positive thing that I can draw from this is that, if we are facing WWIII in the face, then it'll probably not be in Europe again (after all, we hosted the last 2 so it's only fair for another continent to host this one. World wars should be like world cups; a different host nation for each one...) and it'll probably not be a nuclear conflict. This is probably an inappropriate thought for someone who has just spent a couple of hours writing an essay on why I think the world is teetering on the cusp of an epic shitstorm, but why can't we just be nice to one another? Ah well... here's hoping I'm wrong about all of this.
Normally, when I write these things, I find that whatever it is that was on my mind and thus worrying me tends to recede into my background thoughts and leaves my brain free to consider such weighty matters as why it's really good that women wear skimpy clothing during summer. With my last rant, I hoped that I could ease off the paranoia about Dubya's dad starting a war by proxy. Not forget about it altogether you understand, I just wanting it to stop blazing white-hot streaks of fear across my cerebellum and allow me to get on with being a lecherous git. Of course, life is never that simple and so here I am again to add something more to what I wrote last time. Whether it's to make me feel better or to make you feel as uneasy about the future as I currently am...well, it's a little from column A and a little from column B. Anyway, regardless of that I think I've got reason to be unsettled. Now let me tell you why....
It's not exactly the world's best-kept secret that America wants to and is almost certainly going to attack Iraq. I've already talked about their possible reasons for wanting to do so, so I'll not retread that path. What I do want to talk about are the possible consequences of such a war. And you should really brace yourself, because I have one or two funny ideas about that. For the record, I don't mean funny ha-ha either.
Okay, so the current situation is that Iraq has, as it's leader, a murdering scumbag who treats the ethnic minorities of his country (Kurds and Marsh Arabs) as target practice. They are second-class citizens and they are vulnerable to whatever jolly little scheme enters Saddam's head. America wants to depose Saddam and replace him with a leader more to their liking. Iraq is a Muslim country. As I'm sure you know, Osama bin Laden's aim has been to unite the whole Muslim world against America. Thus far, he has failed in this. When USA attacks Iraq it is my belief that bin Laden will get his wish. And why do I think that? One word; Israel.
Israel has as it's leader a murdering scumbag who treats the ethnic minorities of his country (Palestinians and Israeli Arabs) as target practice. They are second-class citizens and are vulnerable to the whims of the fat nazi who runs the country. He's finally starting to show his true colours by trying to expel from Israel the families of any suicide bombers. This is illegal under the Israeli constitution, mirrors the actions of the Nazi Party in the 30's in it's methods to get rid of unwanted elements from the country, and is about the closest parallel I've ever seen for the saying "Shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted". Israel is not a Muslim country. America supports the government of Israel.
I hope it's becoming very clear what I'm driving at, but humour me by letting me spell it out. If America invades Iraq in a supposed war on injustice and terror whilst Ariel Sharon continues to follow his dreams of an ethnically pure Israel, and does so by continuing to bomb, shoot, and expel non-Jews from Israel, the Muslim world will NOT be happy. "So what?" you might think. And to be honest, I can see your point. The Muslim world seems to have been in an almost terminal state of unhappiness for as long as I can remember. And who can blame them? Their leaders are almost entirely composed of a small group of hyper-rich dictators. In general, the regime's they live under are oppressive, and Islamic in name only. Who's to say that the Muslim world won't do it's usual act of making a lot of unhappy noises before rolling over like good little lap dogs and keeping the oil flowing?
Maybe they will, and I hope that that is the case should America get it's war (because, for all my posturing, I like a peaceful life as much as the next man). But I can see trouble ahead. Most of the people of the Middle East have rather different opinions about the west in general, and America specifically, than their leaders. During the last Gulf War, Iraq fired missiles at Israel. Not one Middle East country supported Iraq. Yet their were people dancing in the streets in Egypt when they heard this news. This time around, not one Middle East country supports America (well...Kuwait and Quatar do. They are both tiny little Gulf States and their influence on the Muslim world is minimal). So if Iraq was to fire missiles at Israel this time, do you suppose that other Middle Eastern countries would be quite so restrained? Especially with fundamentalist Islam being so widespread at the moment?
Even if we assume that the Moslem governments act with restraint, who is to say that those same governments will stay in power? The likes of Egypt and Saudi Arabia have a big problem with right wing fundamentalist Moslems. Thus far, those governments have tried to keep a lid on the fundamentalists by being ever more oppressive and authoritarian. This can only work for so long because all you are doing is containing the pressure. One of the more popular fundamentalist mantras is that America is out to destroy the Moslem faith, and doesn't care about the injustices meted out to Moslems by ungodly governments who use their supposed faith to Allah as a cover for doing America's (or, if you like, the Great Satan's) dirty work. An attack on Iraq coupled with continued support for the butcher Ariel Sharon by America would give the fundamentalists (in their eyes) cast iron proof that this is indeed the case. And if their governments choose to do nothing about it? Then it is the sacred duty of every Moslem to defend his brothers. Lest you think that I'm being melodramatic, the Shah of Iran found out about the power of fundamentalism when he was sent running from the country he had ran as a dictator after the Islamic Revolution there in the 70's.
An awful lot of Islamic countries have authoritarian governments in power, with a populace who are content with their lot thus far, but whom are vulnerable to the sway of rather more radical Muslims. From Indonesia in the East through to Algeria in Africa and almost every country between those two fall into this category. What I am suggesting is that, by invading Iraq and ignoring the brutality in Israel, America is unwittingly providing the spark for a powder keg that covers half of the planet. Can you imagine the effect of a revolution occurring in most of these countries over the course of a few months? Just think of it; once one revolutions kicks off in one country, another would follow, and then another. Do you have that picture in your head? Okay then....can you then imagine how America would react to revolutions that would see unfriendly governments put into place in all of these (co-incidentally, primarily oil producing) countries?
It's not pretty at all, is it? If, as I suspect, the Islamic world explodes in a frenzy of righteous and fundamentalist ire, then America will be the big loser (well...Israel would probably be the bigger loser as it may well cease to exist within a few years of these events). I say this because the oil will stop flowing, and the American economy will nose dive. America will not take this lying down. They will fight to get back access to the oil that their economy needs. Hence we have America being directly opposed by Islam. Almost exactly the situation that bin Laden wanted and that Dubya said he would avoid in fact. The last time that America tried to stop a domino effect of countries replacing their leaders with governments unfriendly to the US was in Vietnam. Most of the rest of the world was sensible enough to let America behave like a bloody idiot during that conflict, and things are shaping up to be the same here. Or they would be, were it not for the fact that the west's economy is America's economy. If their's goes down the tubes, then so does ours. So will we just dumbly accept that? Nope. Would we side with Islam against America? What do you think?
Perhaps I'm being a little sneaky in making that Vietnam comparison; for what it's worth, I don't actually believe that America and the west would lose the potential conflict I've outlined. Then again, maybe I'm just biased. But even assuming a military victory for the west, what I do think we'd do is set the scene for decades of international terrorism where the targets would be any and everything western. It would be a situation not unlike the nightmarish Perpetual Conflict scenario that Hitler dreamed of when invading Russia (he hoped that the Slavs and Russians would continually wage low key terrorist war against Germany. This would keep Germany on it's toes and ready for battle at all times). If you want me to raise the paranoia stakes further still, then I'd draw your attention to the fact that China would probably stay out of any conflict between Islam and the west, thus leaving it all fresh and dandy whilst the two sides whittle each other down to nothingness. And would anyone care to place bets on what might happen then?
In the midst of all this knuckle whitening and excessive worry, about the only positive thing that I can draw from this is that, if we are facing WWIII in the face, then it'll probably not be in Europe again (after all, we hosted the last 2 so it's only fair for another continent to host this one. World wars should be like world cups; a different host nation for each one...) and it'll probably not be a nuclear conflict. This is probably an inappropriate thought for someone who has just spent a couple of hours writing an essay on why I think the world is teetering on the cusp of an epic shitstorm, but why can't we just be nice to one another? Ah well... here's hoping I'm wrong about all of this.
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