open quote
The Type 45, just one of the ways BAE Systems is delivering advantage in the real world.
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from this weeks new statesman mailing
one wonders just what type of value they mean, hardly pushing the locals above the poverty line....
Recently in Iraq war Category
This was the headline in the Evening Standard, right of centre London paper.
It made me think of the sales patter to the punters and made me quite sad that this three word headline would be the choice of words to sell papers
fresh new pictures
see sweat and anguish
see the blood and pain
view the humiliation
etc
Why is it appropriate to sell papers on the basis of there being pictures of injured and near-dead (in this case) people being depicted within. If the pictures were of British or American troops the headlines would be marketed differently.
This leads me on to an disturbing observation of the Today programme this morning, why did they decide that it was appropriate to play the soundtrack of the Iraqi police beating to death Iraqi civilians, whilst they plead for mercy. At this time of the morning, given the younger audience listening it was an odd choice of background audio.
Military personnel killing civilians is not something that should be trumpeted, playing the audio of the torture or crying exclusive pictures of the pain and misery takes us back to the amphitheatres of Roman times when the lives of hundreds, if not thousands depended on the whims of one man, maybe things haven't changed that much. If this much is true then I am ashamed to be linked with the British army and by association connected to the American army. Both should have learnt how to control troops from the many conflicts they have been involved in over the past fifty odd years, prisoners of war are not a new thing, even if one bends laws to disguise them.
I was going to write about this, then noticed an avid and interesting conversation on flambingo.net, where Anno was writing about this over a month ago.
Some other points of view - Guardian interview with Ms Gun, BBC coverage, Independent - questions case for war; full text of email from the Observer.
Then this morning, there was that interview with Clare Short, revealing spying on UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, on the Today programme. The Today programme site has audio files and further coverage. Channel 4 news tonight have an interview with Clare Short tonight, which sounds electric.
Listening to Hoon this morning on the Today programme had me shouting at the radio again. The sheer cheek of the man to claim that he did not know the headline of the highest circulation news paper in the country, was unbelievable. He must have a media department in his ministry and the Sun is a reckoner for the mood of the nation, for better or worse.
"The first time I saw that (Sun newspaper 45-minute) headline was very recently watching a Panorama programme": Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon talks to John at 0810. Also, Reeta Chakrabarti at 0856 on what Mr Hoon told the Hutton Inquiry."
He claimed that the 45 minute claim and the delivery mechanism was essentially immaterial "not a matter of great public contravercy" to the case for war and tried unsuccessfully to connect the conventional ballistic missiles that were found to the case for war, they were a contravention of 1441, but are not WMD. Then tried to claim that a battlefield mortar was a WMD.
Just as the programme was closing, his words in reference to a question about the banner headlines on the day of publication of the dossier from the Hutton Inquiry were played on air, "I can recall, yes".
On Sunday night the BBC broadcast a hard hitting and revealing Panorama programme about the aftermath of the recent war in Iraq. They followed a group of American troops from their initial confident assignments in Baghdad through the summer taking in house to house raids and several violent days of combat. The journalists get very close to the action and ask some surprisingly direct questions of the American military.
There are some scenes that are very hard to take, like the one of the interview of the wounded Iraqi youth, who is suspected of ambushing US soldiers. The Major who leads the interview opens by making an offer of medical care if he talks and not offering it if he does not. It is quite an offhand comment, that "things will go badly" for him if he does not talk and probably more chilling for that.
You do gain a sense that there are people really trying amongst the US Army, they feature one Captain particularily, but Paul Bremer comes out of the programme as not really being prepared to see the reality that the programme team experience at street level. UN Special Envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello is also interviewed in the programme, in fact 48 hours before he is killed in a car bomb. He speaks very clearly and lucidly about what needs to happen in Baghdad. Simply and clearly saying that armies do not make police forces. His death is a very great loss to the future of Iraq.
The tv programme is on the BBC website, most likely until Sunday. If you are interested in what is happening in Iraq now, then I strongly urge you to watch it, it is in RealPlayer format.
Lucy's mum sent this cutting from The Guardian letters page from March.
An important aspect of protest is the recognition that so often it changes little, if anything at all. Ultimately protest must not be solely dependent on the necessity of success. It is also about keeping alive qualities that can die if we keep silent and submit. It enables us to carry within us our hope, as well as our despair. It is about endurance and our desire not to see ourselves reduced by the actions of our fellow human beings.
Pretty much stands on its own and if it struck a cord with you then there is a protest this Saturday.
The BBC are reporting that there no WMD have been found in Iraq and highlighting the high stakes that Tony Blair is now playing for. The timing of this leak from the Iraq Survey Group could not have been more apt, on the anniversary of that dossier, with the 45 minute claim, which the Hutton inquiry are picking over in such detail.
I find the whole idea that the UK went to war on a tissue of lies quite distasteful, but then Tony likes getting his troops out and playing soldier. Thousands of people have died in Iraq and the war has cost billions of pounds worldwide. The major international organisations of the world have suffered a great setback, as once again American foreign policy runs the world.
It is difficult to justify this war when you look at the destabalization that has occured in that area, the only benefit seems to have been the removal of Saddam Hussein from power, but the cost is difficult to stomach.
This Saturday there is a worldwide protest against the war, if you marched in February, then now the case for protest is so much stronger, we were misled and thousands have died as a result. Show that you want a government that treats its citizens with respect and is prepared to tell the truth.
So last week the doubts that we all had about the effects of going to war were made public and they came from the Intelligence and Security Committee of all places. Tony Blair made his personal judgement that it was right to go to war against advice that it might make the region more unstable. More on the Hutton Inquiry BBC, The Guardian and a good article in the Independent, with an interesting one year on viewpoint on the WMD report.
We have been misled and ignored over the war on Iraq, later this month there is a worldwide protest happening on the 27th September, a Stop the War march in London. The theme of this is "no more war, no more lies". People are still dying in Iraq, the US still think that it is their war and they can do as they please. It probably is about oil, possible Iraq to Israel pipeline.
It is important that the people who were against the war earlier in the year speak out now and show that it is not okay that the USA did what it did, the international organisations of the world need to see that there is worldwide support for collective action and opposition to unilateral warfare.
In yesterday's Independent, there was an article on how weapons are being disguised in cameras. Apparently this is a common place to hide weapons, should make bring a camera on to a plane a barrel of laughs. Hopefully it won't encourage a clampdown on carry on bags on flights, though I managed to get a hand inspection of 400 asa slide film in Florence when I flew there recently.
Dr Kelly possibly found dead near his home, he was the alledged source of the "sexed up" claim in the WMD inquiry.
UPDATE:
In hindsight this is unlikely to be anything other than the pressure getting to Dr Kelly, which is still sad. There is to be an independent judicial inquiry into his death.
