Bloke down the pub
It’s no coincidence that the massacre in Baghdad today is being lamented by the corporate media in much the same way as Saddam’s gassing of the Kurds. That is, as heard on BBC News today: “it’s a public relations nightmare for Coalition forces”. In 1988, the papers criticised Saddam for “playing into the hands of Iran” by giving them “a propaganda victory”. As a result, the public could channel its confused response to the atrocity by expressing sorrow and regret that the enemy has gained “the upper hand”. It’s no different now. How tragic for us!
Meanwhile, on the BBC’s “Have your say” pages, Mr Downes from Hertfordshire says “Let nobody forget that Saddam Hussein gassed people in his own country.” I hear this every flaming day as justification for a war 15 years later. Not once has the person saying it ever been asked to reconcile the historical facts of the case with their interpretation. One senses a conspiracy, but I think it’s just that the people involved are fuckwits.
JP’s rhetorical question is one that I’ve asked myself recently (hence its good sense): “I was sitting in the pub the other night with the TV showing coverage of Britain invading a foreign country and I wondered if this was how ordinary Germans felt as they sat in bars in Germany in 1938/39 while their armies invaded foreign countries. The German people were later blamed for supporting the Nazis. I wonder how history will treat me and the other people sitting drinking beer while our armies became the invaders.”
As Marx said, history repeats itself first as tragedy then as farce. Now it’s just an insult to the intelligence.
Other Splinters posts of interest:
- In the background BBC Radio 4 was on in the bac…
- Dreyfusardism
- Is this really happening?
- Difficulties and mistakes
- Farzad Bazoft
