That's the headline you should read, if journalistic 'standards' were applied uniformly. They are not, of course, and anyone who cares to see the truth knows that the 'international community' is merely the phrase used to describe the US and anyone who tags along.
Nevertheless, today the genuine international community voted 184-4 (with 1 abstention) for the US to end its brutal economic war against Cuba. This is a blockade that the US regards as a "resounding success" and recently justified on the ludicrous grounds that it deprives Cuba's government "of funds it might otherwise have used for military adventures".
This is the 16th year in a row that the UN has condemned the embargo. The US response will doubtless be continued defiance but don't expect to see that word used in connection with imperial actions. According to the BBC, for instance, President Bush has merely "pledged" to maintain the embargo.
Similarly, don't expect any robust action by the British Government to challenge US intransigence. Our diplomats fully understand the nature of international relations, something illustrated in 2004 when the US voted against the UN Disarmament Committee's plan to bar indvidual states from producing fissile materials (the FISSBAN Treaty). British ambassador John Freeman explained Britain's 'shocking' abstention (one of only two) on the grounds that the proposed treaty "divides the international community". Indeed it did, it divided it 147-1. BBC journalists understand diplomatic reality, too, even if they lack the courage to articulate it.
Well, I
have to ask, and I like the idea that there’s a covert comedian at
the NYT: a lowly sub-editorial satirist, who’s sneaking
little gobbets of the truth out, wherever he can. The alternative is
the depressing notion that someone wrote, in complete seriousness,
the following headline:
Iraq
Hampers U.S. Bid to Widen Sunni Police Role
Just to
add the crucial pinch of context (without which the joke doesn’t
work), this is the Iraq that is is the ‘sovereign state of Iraq’,
of which the mighty ranks of US troops are merely guests.
I don’t
need to go into the detail of the article. Luckily, its author,
Michael R. Gordon, leaves us in no doubt from the off:
“The American military’s push to
organize Sunni Arabs into local neighborhood watch groups has been
one of the United States’ most important initiatives in Iraq...”
but, Gordon continues, “the effort has been hampered by halfhearted
support and occasionally outright resistance from a Shiite-dominated
national government that is still inclined to see the Sunnis as a
once and future threat.”
Outright resistance? Against one of the US’s most “important initiatives”.
Who do these Iraqis think they are?
Naturally, this will not be funny to
those who have flown from the real world and joined the intellectual
class, to be safely protected on clouds of hot air and warmed by the righteous
golden light coming from just above. To those of us rooted on the
ground, though, firmly within the grasp of the real world and its woes, the
headline is bleakly amusing. This is because we remember the original
reasons for the ‘adventure’, we choose to see its consequences,
and we have some care for the wishes of those we have liberated. Up
there, where the cries do not reach and the air is pure, where the
vision is always noble and clear, there is no joke to get. Except,
perhaps, for that clandestine comedian, chipping little moments of reality into the solid, yet infinitely rewritable tablets of the Record
of Truth.
A short email to La Boaden, which I'm sure will receive her closest attention.
Dear Ms. Boaden,
Several times in recent days I have heard reference by the BBC to the "Iranian Regime" -most recently on tonight's R4 6 O'Clock News.
Does the BBC have guidelines or criteria for how it refers to governments? If so, what are they? I assume that "regime" is not used merely as a synonym for "government", since I have yet to hear the BBC refer to the "US regime" or the "British regime headed by Gordon Brown".
The reason I ask is that "regime" is generally the label applied by British and American politicians to states towards whom they are hostile. I would go further and say that the term is intended to cement this impression in the public mind. It is not a happy word. Enlightened, freedom-loving avuncular types like Messrs. Brown and Bush preside over "administrations" (sometimes several at once). Swarthy, bearded, scary men bestride "regimes".
In which case, I do not feel that it is helpful for the BBC to also use such terminology except in direct quotation -certainly not for a corporation that I assume still prides itself on ensuring that "Nation shall speak peace unto Nation".
There is nothing in this video that those who attend to more than the mainstream media should find surprising. The Iraqi 'insurgency' is, with marginal exceptions, an authentic nationalist resistance, which overwhelminglytargetsoccupation and collaborationist forces. Between April 2004 and May 2007, based on US DoD statistics, only 10% of significant attacks were targeted against civilians. Furthermore, the resistance enjoys the support of the majority of the Iraqi population. They are "normal people, cultured people", the majority of whom, according to our own General Dannatt, are "not bad people". Dissident commentators and writers have been observing this accurately enough for several years, this little blog included.
What is surprising is that this video is a New York Times open editorial.
Each Square foot of Iraq is worth the soul of our lives.
The video is an extract from Meeting Resistance, a new documentary by Steve Connors and Molly Bingham, and is described by Sydney Blumenthal as "the single most astonishing documentary yet on the Iraq war". One measure of its quality is that the ultra right wing Little Green Footballs, has labelled it a 'commercial for Iraqi terrorists'. Such tantrums are to be expected when the facts cannot be denied. Damien Thompson writes something similar on the Telegraph blog site - heaping vitriol upon it while studiously ignoring documented reality.
The war in Iraq can never be 'won'. We lost the moment we invaded. The 'liberation' will never succeed because the people who matter know that it is a fraud and always was a fraud. An indication of this - only an indication, I concede - can be seen in the reaction of Maj. Irene Huggins, who is one of many serving soldiers to see the film. CNN reports that she said that "while the film helped her understand
why the insurgents are fighting back, it didn't change her feelings
about her mission."
"People make choices; it's hard as a soldier for me to sympathize with what they're doing."
Well if you can't sympathize then you personally are an occupier, not a 'liberator'. Iraqis do not want us in their country and will continue to fight until they have driven us out. Moreover, where they have driven us out, things have improved, as in Basra. Meanwhile, we're busy looking for new opportunities to lose even more in Iran.
“It’s
about oil”, we chanted before our invasion of Iraq. And we were right.
Henry Kissinger agrees with us (and sees Iran the same way). Australian defence minister Brendan Nelson agrees
with us and, recently, Alan Greenspan said he does, too – for
grotty book-peddling reasons, naturally. Now Gen. John Abizaid, the retired former head of CENTCOM, has
joined the band of conspiracy theorists, which incidentally includes 76% of Iraqis, who see that the invasion of
Iraq was about oil.
“Of
course it’s about oil, we can’t really deny that,” Abizaid said
of the Iraq campaign early on in the talk.
Well, it's all very well saying that from the safety of the driving range, John, but I don't remember you being quite so honest when you were in the bunker. Belated honesty is no absolution.
The
question that sticks with me is this. Pretty much everyone knows it
was about oil (and a handful of long term strategic issues but oil is
a shorthand that does little violence to the matter) and not about
'liberation'. Only a small coterie of extremists still maintain that it
wasn’t and I suspect many of those are lying. Worst amongst those
deniers are the mainstream media, incidentally. I expect politicians
to behave like gangsters but it’s the media who cover for them. But
we can’t blame the media for lying to us when we know they’re
lying. The same goes for politicians, too. Being fooled is one thing
but we’re not being fooled, certainly not now.
We
know roughly what is done in the name of ‘liberation’, yet we
allow it to continue. Yes, we grumble. Sometimes we even march. We
indulge ourselves in smug cynicism - ”politicians are all liars, I
don’t believe a word any of them say.” But what sort of
impoverished, impotent cynicism continually allows the liars to have
their way? When we know someone is lying to us in everyday life, do
we act as if we believe them? Do we hand over our bank details to an
obvious conman – repeatedly? If we do, do we deserve any sympathy?
What if, instead, we hand over our neighbour’s bank details? At
some point, the victim becomes complicit with the conman and this
point may come all the sooner when other victims are involved.
Do
we even deserve to call ourselves cynics? If so, why do we go along with
the whole charade and act out the role of dupe and victim? Is
it because we want to be lied to? Perhaps that is better than facing
up to a worse truth, that we simply don’t care enough about far off
brown people to do anything too inconveniencing to our own lives.
Perhaps feigned ignorance becomes a virtue. Or perhaps pretending to
be conned is a salve for our consciences. Cynicism
feels softer against the skin than cowardice.
What
does this say about our culpability as a people? That dreadful
harpie, Ann Coulter, recently said to Iraqis about the fatuous ‘War
on Terror’, “Sorry we have to use your country,
Iraqis, but you let Saddam come to power, ha-ha”. It’s an obscene
statement, given the history of US and UK support for Saddam, but is
there a nugget of truth if we instead turn the microscope on
ourselves? We can’t cling to the security blanket of dictatorship –
we can’t claim the felicity of living in a police state. If we
allow our government to aid an attack on Iran, will we be able to say
we were conned again? Can we just blame the government or the media
and be done with it? More grimly, will we have any right to complain
when the bombs start going off on the tube?
It’s
our government and we re-elected it. Ok, we don’t have much to
choose between. As the comedian Frankie Boyle said on a recent edition of the BBC's Mock The Week, David
Cameron’s electoral platform may as well be “I’m a slightly
different type of cunt” but we can do other things. We have done
before. Put up the price of fuel too much and we’ll block roads.
Foist the poll tax on us and, after a while, we’ll riot. We’ll
block airport expansions and bypasses. Pensioners
do jail time rather than pay exorbitant council tax bills. Where’s
that level of commitment to stopping the mass murder of Iraqis? Even a fraction of that, at
the right time, could have a major effect. Yet the most that the
majority of even the most committed of us will do is march: wander up
to Parliament and ask them to stop. Even the February 2003 march was
basically a solicitation on their terms. A march is a petition delivered with more conviction and perhaps the ghost of a threat. But it's simply not enough by itself. I don’t know how many
stood in Hyde Park that cold Saturday afternoon but I do know this:
if I close my eyes, I can see the same park piled with bodies, one
for each of us.
When
we’re really angry, we don’t ask them to stop: we stop them. And
that’s still a step shy of the real truth: that they don’t do
anything. We do it for them. Government ceases to be government the
moment that we cease to do as it says. If
you put your hand on something hot without expecting to your hand
will let go. This reflex action bypasses the brain altogether –
the perception of heat triggers the muscles directly. Direct action
is the same, even if generally more premeditated. It is the
recognition that, ultimately, we are both the source and machinery of
their power.
When
lives are concerned, petitioning the Government to stop the horror is simply
inadequate. Worse, it is a dereliction of humanity. Showing them that we disagree is not enough. They do not
care. One recent report claims that Cheney et al. are not concerned
with majority support for bombing Iran. Instead, they'll settle for ‘something
like 35-40 percent support, which in their book is “plenty.”’
And if the other 60-65% do nothing but whine, it will be plenty.
Disagreement
is not resistance, without action it is capitulation. Flaccid
cynicism is defeat. It is not enough to say, however forcefully, that
we care. We must show them with deeds – otherwise we are as bad as them. In extreme situations
government must be cut from the loop, just like the hand recoiling
from the flame. So when they’re getting ready to bomb, forget
organising that coach for a day out in Trafalgar Square. Stay at home
and do something. Or do nothing – preferably,
in the middle of a road.
I’m
not a ‘people person’. Much of the time I’m barely a ‘person
person’. Hence I’m not really the type you can expect to see
stood in the street soliciting signatures. On the other hand,
somebody’s
got to change the world and, if I can’t overcome my aversion to
society, I won’t be much use on the barricades When The Revolution
Comes.
So,
the other day, I found myself stood in my town centre, with the other
members of the newly formed local Greenpeace
group, on what you might describe as our first mission: to garner
public support for Combined Heat & Power.
Combined
Heat & Power, as you won’t need me to tell you, is a system
of decentralised power generation, quite popular on the continent,
which does away with the need for a small number of large power
stations. Instead, CHP
involves a large number of small power stations, tucked away in
retail and commercial centres. They are modern, quiet, cleaner than
normal fossil fuelled generators, and very efficient. This efficiency
comes not least from proximity, because their closeness to population
centres means that not only the electricity generated but also the
heat can be used productively, rather than being released into the
atmosphere. If you’re going to learn a single statistic today,
learn this one: The UK currently wastes approximately 60% of all the
power it generates at
source. No, I don’t
mean you leaving the TV on standby over night, I mean at the power
stations themselves. 60% of the energy is lost in heat. That’s
quite a staggering thought: used more efficiently, our current power
generation could actually power two
Britains with some to spare. CHP, on the other hand, can be up to 90%
efficient because that heat is used: to warm houses and factories and
even for cooling.
Anyway,
I won’t trouble you with any more detail. Follow the links if
you’re interested in learning more. As you can tell, though, I did
take the time to give myself at least a superficial understanding of
the issue, if for no other reason than to fend off difficult
questions from Joe Public. None of this revision was of any use at
all, though – since
I was barely asked a question, let alone a difficult one. And that’s
what I’m about today: that sack of slack-jawed, comatose cattle we
call the general public.
My
town is old and blessedly mall-less. Instead, it’s a warren of
pedestrian walkways and small streets, down which only service
vehicles travel. This is an advantage to petition gathering and so
forth because people can amble, mill in small squares, sit down on
low walls and generally dawdle along. Easy pickings, you might think,
for the street proselytizer. In fact, no. While we gathered a
respectable number of signatures, most people shuffled past or
rebuffed us.
The
first thing I noticed was the rapidly averted gaze. Toting a
clipboard immediately marks one as part of the ‘untouchable’
caste, languishing in the same pit as cold-callers, Betterware
agents, market researchers, and people who spend train journeys
cycling through their ring tones. We had our little stall set up
outside a travel agent and a herbal remedy shop and it was amazing
just how utterly captivating both of these establishments would
suddenly become to the people who passed us.
So
people aren’t going to come up and sign unmolested. OK, then I’ll
go to them, clutching my clipboard and favouring them with my most
winning of smiles (which is never likely to win more than an
honourable mention, to be honest). Then come the excuses –
generally delivered with no eye contact and a stiff bristle.
One
common response, which quickly provoked my ire, was “sorry, I don’t
have time” or “I’m too busy”. I let this rejoinder pass the
first few times I heard it. I had already accepted that I was
essentially bothering other people so it initially didn’t
occur to me to question this, even in my own head. This changed,
though, when I was parried by a rather rotund early twenty-something.
As he shuffled along the pavement, the burger at his face shedding
wreckage across his fulsome stomach, I intercepted him with a couple
of long strides and invited him to sign. “Sorry mate, too busy”.
My briefly sedated lefty-judgementalism snapped on like headlights in
the fog. I nodded and smiled but
my real reply sloshed around my head like the contents of a
knocked tea cup:
But you’re not
though, are you? Come on, you’re just not.
An earwig travelling at your pace might be considered ‘busy’ but
not a human being. Someone with bits of lettuce clinging to their
faded Nirvana
T-shirt doesn’t have
pressing engagements. Be honest: the next entry in your mental day
planner is the X
Factor,
isn’t it?
Another
dodge people used was to claim that they'd already signed. Now, in
the case of our specific petition, I could be pretty sure that this
was a lie, since this issue had not been canvassed here before.
That’s also assuming they knew what the petition was about, which
they probably didn’t. OK, we were banners up and leaflets
fanned, not to mentioned kitted out in quite horrid green tabards, so
our general purpose was clear enough. But Greenpeace campaigns on
everything from whaling to incinerators, so the casual passer-by
can’t know precisely what we’re mithering about this week.
What
was more jolting were the people who responded to me by saying that
they had “already signed one today”:
For what? something
‘green’, capital punishment for immigrants, the legalisation of
cock-fighting? What? Is this some sort of general item to you, like
your five portions of fruit and veg? They’re not just some fungible
mass, you know. Yes, you may have signed a
petition but not my
petition.
After
an hour or two, I tried changing my phrasing. Instead of “sign a
petition for cleaner energy”, I tried “support cleaner energy”
or “support sustainable power”. This is the same little
linguistic shuffle that you see in advertising when, instead of
saying “buy” whatever, they instead invite you to “own it” or
“enjoy it”. “Own it now on DVD” they say, neatly stepping
over the requisite opening of the wallet. Yet, even here, I was
frequently defeated. “Support cleaner energy,” I’d say
hopefully, to which they’d reply “no, thank you” or, on one
occasion, “nah, screw that”. And again the internal voice starts
the hypothetical conversation:
What do you mean, “no”?
I’ve just asked you to support something that, in principle, is
practically axiomatic. How can you say “no”? Do you actually want
less-clean
energy? Would you go further and demand energy that’s a little bit
dirtier than now?
And
so it went. And if anyone annoyed me more than those who refused to
sign because their day was just too
full or because they preferred less clean energy, then it was those
handful of people who said they’d sign but didn’t even want
to know in support of what they were signing. No support is one thing
but unthinking support seems even worse.
I
try not to be cynical and I continue to believe that humanity is the
most marvellous, as well as the most horrific, species to have
crawled out of the slime. If nothing else, though, I can take comfort
from the fact that my experience was a small illustration of the
principle of the survival of the fittest. If, as a people, we deserve
to survive, then we will. But if enough of us are too busy with our
burgers to give a damn, then we will perish. And we will not be
missed.
(Picture credit: "Apathy" (1999) by Thomas Xenakis)
We won today. It was
not a huge victory but, even in the burnt red shadow of global
politics, it sparkled. About an hour before the march, they backed
down and allowed us to march to Parliament Square. So we won.
Anything else we achieved after that is a bonus. Such as the fact that, according to the Press Association, "Gordon Brown was seen being driven along adjoining roads to Whitehall to avoid being caught up in the demonstration."
I’ve nothing deep or
insightful to say about today’s march. In truth, I don’t think
there is anything much to say. It was a fairly standard STWC affair
with the reliable line up of speakers with their reliable speeches,
greeted with reliable enthusiasm. What made this march special was
not its content but its context, that it happened at all.
So permit me a few
simple remarks about my day. I arrived in London at 12.55pm and was
in Trafalgar Square by about 1.15pm. Even had I not known the way
well by now, I would have been guided there by the blood and thunder
meted out to the crowd by Brian Haw. I think he was first to speak,
which seems only fair since, by trooping off to Parliament Square, we
were definitely on his manor.
The speakers were those
you’d expect: Lindsey German, Andrew Murray, and George Galloway.
Elfyn Llwyd of Plaid Cymru also spoke and the two Marks, Thomas and
Steel, both gave us a laugh. Tony Benn also spoke -his usual words,
pretty much, but nonetheless welcome. At 82, I envy him his energy and
focus. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard him
speak and, with each year that passes, he seems ever more like one of
the statues that so often surround us at these events; come down off
his plinth, solid, unwavering, and resolutely English. Others spoke too but I forget their names. Thanks to them all.
And so they proclaimed
and roused and implored and reproached and hectored (and that was
just Galloway). And then we marched, surrounded by quite ludicrous
numbers of police. Ok, so we weren’t Buddhist monks but, even so,
the event was policed out of all proportion to any conceivable threat
posed by the few thousand who were there.
The march itself was
unremarkable. I had the personal indulgence of ambling along besides
Mark Steel and Mark Thomas for a while. I listened to them gossip,
which was fun. I also felt a moment of quiet affinity with them as,
at one point, we walked past a theatre bedecked with monstrous
pictures of a leering Patrick Kielty. Perhaps they heard the sound of
my stomach turning but these two minor gods in my comedy pantheon
then exchanged a series of barbed remarks at the Irishman’s
expense. I couldn’t hear what they were but I didn’t need to,
their expressions said it all.
Later on, I wandered by
Tony Benn who was making the best progress he could while being
thronged by young women who were trying either to help him along or
generally enthuse at him. He’s well used to this, I know -an
ex-girlfriend of mine once ran up to him at an animal rights demo and
hugged him so hard he dropped his pipe. Bennmania: maybe it’s this
that keeps him going.
I wasn’t done with my
star-spotting. I also wandered past Craig Murray who was taking time
out from his tussle with Alisher Usmanov to join us. Still, that’s
nothing compared to what happened when we actually arrived at
Parliament Square. Penned in behind barriers, across the road from
Westminster, we chanted and sang and watched the traffic go past
-booing where appropriate as a succession of gleaming vehicles pulled
into the palace and slid past the metal barriers. That was when I was
saluted by none other than ex pop impresario, Jonathan King. Yes,
that’s right, the singer of “Everyone’s Gone to the Moon” and
notorious kiddy-fiddler drove past and waved his support to me and a
small group of young girls stood near me. Thanks for your support
Jonathan but I’m not sure STWC will be inviting you to speak any
time soon.
There was another
curious person who wandered past our enclosure. A woman all in black
sauntered along holding a piece of A4 upon which she had written
“I’m for the War” in black biro. She strolled past and held
this little placard out to us, presumably intending to provoke our
umbrage. Yet instead, so far as I could tell, she was greeted with
amusement. Eventually, a policeman noticed her and, after quickly
reading her sign, opened one of the barriers and propelled her into
the throng. What became of her I don’t know. I’d like to think
that, rather than being torn to pieces, she was given a cup of tea
and a stern talking to by a couple of old women in knitted hats.
There was only one
point at which it looked like there might be trouble, when one guy
cheekily pinched a copper’s cap and threw it into the crowd. The
policeman was not amused but the perpetrator was not arrested. This
was shortly after a section of the demo had surged through the
barrier and organised a mini sit-down protest in the road. And that
really was the height of it, at least that I saw.
So, at 4.40pm, Andrew
Murray and Tony Benn brought official proceedings to a close and the
day, so far as I’m aware, was done. Several thousand people came
out to defy the ban and defend our right to protest and to berate
that festering pit of cowards and criminals who presume to rule us. We showed them that, despite their best efforts, they will not be drawing a line under the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Nor will we be marched unthinkingly into attacking the Iranian people, a representative of whom addressed us in Trafalgar Square. I
only resolved myself to march because they banned it and I’m mostly pleased they backed
down – this time. Like I said, today, we won.
Excuse the grainy photos - they were the best I could manage on an ageing cameraphone. Likewise, the quality of these videos is not great either -but the sound is what you should be concentrating on. lenin, over at the Tomb, has more (and he has a better camera).
